Chapter One

"Get out of the way you fucking idiot!"

This is an all too common refrain, and one that I was hoping my oft-predicted but as yet to occur growth spurt might reduce to a fading memory. It is difficult enough being a teenager. Being a much smaller than average teenager seemed like some bizarre cosmic joke, with my pathetic life being the punch-line.

Still, one more year and I can get out of this stupid school and be done with this crappy education business for good. I am competent enough at the whole learning thing, but in reality I don't see the point of most of it. I mean, what use can I really expect to get from knowing how many times Henry the Eighth got married, or trigonometry, or French?

School is all a pile of shit, and I have much more important things to worry about.

Like the urge I have been getting recently to kill someone.

You're probably thinking that this is just a teenage hormone thing. After all, what 15 year old doesn't want to commit murder several times a day? I know differently though. The feelings I have been struggling with recently are not the same generic ones that I had previously, the ones where I felt the need to lash out at anyone that wronged me and was convinced the world in general was out to get me.

These feelings are different, and I suspect stem somewhat from people like the idiotic oaf I quoted at the start of this. As I said already, I am a bit on the small side, and as a result people rarely seem to notice me until they are practically standing on my head. I want to be noticed, or at least have some sort of noticeable impact on events around me.

And I am really starting to believe that I know of a way to make that happen.

I think everyone, deep down, wants to be famous in some way. Kids participate in sports because they enjoy it, sure. But the truth is that every child playing football is hoping they have the right amount of talent and luck that will one day lead to them captaining a cup winning side. Your son is studying drama? Then he is dreaming of one day winning an Oscar.

I could come up with the analogies all day, but I think you probably get my point. So how does the quiet and tiny bookworm, trampled on by everyone, dream of becoming famous?

By utilizing the only natural talent they have of course.

My plan to achieve fame is simple enough, and although I know that what I am thinking about is very wrong, I am finding myself becoming more and more enamoured with the idea by the day.

Since the concept first popped into my mind a few months back, I have kept it locked away in the dark room such thoughts belong in, but I find myself peering in through the door, drawn to its gleaming brilliance and simplicity, knowing I shouldn't pay it any attention, but unable to look away for any real length of time.

I ponder the consequences endlessly, the shame and recriminations that my family would be forced to endure should my actions be discovered. The more I think about these things though, the more convinced I become that not only is murder a fairly simple thing to do, but getting away with it should also, with just a small amount of luck, be much easier than it really ought to be.

I have spent the last few weeks reading everything I can find that could give me an idea into how the average police mind reacts to the task of chasing a killer. And certain themes seemed to be constantly recurring.

In the case of a murder, the first thing the police tend to do is look to see who would be likely to benefit the most by the sudden demise of the victim. Is the husband having an affair? Did the daughter recently take out a life insurance policy? The huge majority of murder victims know their killer, so find the motive and you find a suspect.

The next thing they do of course is to look through any video footage that may have been caught by the cameras that seem to be on every street corner these days, looking for anybody acting suspiciously either just before or just after the killing. If they are lucky they get the whole thing on tape, complete with a perfect mug-shot of the attacker. If not, anybody caught on tape running away from the scene of the crime immediately becomes an official person of interest.

It is, apparently, remarkably rare for someone to be having an innocent jog in the immediate vicinity of a murder!

So, kill a random stranger, make sure the cameras don't get a good look at you, and act completely normal as you leave the area. Going after a stranger takes out the motive, the rest gives you a real chance of a clean getaway. But what if you want to do it more than once?

That is also easy enough to get away with. Avoid any obvious pattern that can lead the police back to your door. Most serial killers get caught because they make a mistake, and nearly all of them go for a certain type of victim, which allows the police to come up with a profile that explains their motivation, thus making them easier to trace.

All your victims are 22 year old blondes? Then it is clear that you are lashing out at somebody that looks similar to the people you kill, someone in your own life. Maybe it's the girl you first fell in love with, who left you for your best friend. Or perhaps you go after 50 year old businessmen as they leave bars, in an attempt to get back at your strict, disciplinarian father who used to beat you up when he was drunk.

If I am going to do this, and get away with it, I will have to go for random people in every way. Men and women, the young and the old, all of humanity has the potential to become one of my victims. I can't afford to leave a clear pattern. I'm not mad at one person in my life after all, it is more a case of me being mad at the world in general.

I want people to fear me, to know that I can strike whenever I choose, and that each morning when they leave the house for work could be their last. I want them to know that they are playing the lottery of life, with me as the master of the wheel-spin of fate.

The truth is, as much as I want to deny it, and as aware as I am of the consequences and the implications of such a decision, I have already made up my mind. I am going to kill somebody. I want to know what it feels like, at that moment when somebody else's life is in your hands. The urge to commit murder is almost overwhelming me lately, and I know that I will only be able to hold it off for a little while longer.

Sometimes I wonder if these feelings of mine are indicative of some deficiency in my mental make-up. After all, while everyone gets angry and wants to lash out sometimes, not many people make a conscious decision to take another humans life, not, at least, without something to gain from it.

The more I consider things, the more convinced I become that somewhere in my brain I have a switch in the wrong position. The very idea of actually committing a murder is something that should surely repulse me, but instead it excites me.

Is this the kind of feeling the Nazi guards had at the death camps? Was the knowledge that they had the power to decide if someone should live or die the thing that allowed them to wake up and put on the uniform each morning?

Or was that power something that they tried to shy away from, only to find themselves returning to the well over and over again for another sip from those tainted waters?

I guess we'll never know how they felt, but I know that for me it becomes more difficult by the day to resist the urge to kill, and I already know that once I unleash the beast that is fighting to get out of me it will be impossible to satiate its appetite in future. Once I take one life, I will have the compulsion to take another, and right now that is the only thing holding me back and allowing me to keep a grip on what is left of my sanity.

But I know it is only a matter of time before I give in to the craving that I feel with every fibre of my being.

-sssss-

And that is how I come to be here, just a couple of days short of my sixteenth birthday, ready to execute, quite literally, the plan that has been buzzing around in my head for months.

I have done all I can to prepare for this moment. Now it is time for the moment of truth. Will I actually be able to go ahead and kill somebody? Well I guess in a few minutes I will know for sure.

I am at my local train station, and any time now the train from London is due to arrive. Already I can see the platform filling up with people waiting for it to pull into the station. Many of them are here so they can climb aboard and head to their own destinations further up the line, some are here to meet friends or loved ones as they disembark.

And I am here to commit a murder.

I have a kitchen knife tucked in the sleeve of my jacket, the collar of which is turned up to hide the bottom of my face from cameras, and I am wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap pulled low over my eyes for the same reason. I also have an Ipod, although that is just for show really.

The distinctive headphones are the reason some police officer later tonight, or possibly tomorrow, will see me on the video footage, walking away from the fuss going on behind me and not reacting to it.

He will see a small figure walking along the platform and boarding the train a little further along, quite clearly listening to music and as a result unable to hear the furore caused just a few feet behind as somebody screams and another person calls for an ambulance.

I feel remarkably calm as the train enters the station. I was expecting to be much more nervous than I am, but as I walk along the platform I feel almost serene. This is it, the moment I have been waiting for and dreaming about for months, and there is no time or room for nerves if I want to get away with what I am about to do.

I scan the people around me as I walk along, trying to decide who is going to be my unlucky victim. Then my decision is made for me, as a man barges past me, almost knocking me over in the process. Without even thinking about it, I quicken my pace as I pull the knife from my sleeve, catch up to the rude arsehole that just tried to flatten me, and plunge the knife deep into his back as I walk past him.

I don't wait for a reaction, just put my hands in my pockets and continue on my way, head down, and board the train a little further along the platform as I see the conductor readying himself to blow his whistle and signal the driver to continue on his way.

As the train starts to move, I look out of the window at the scene on the platform as people begin the battle to try and save the man collapsed just a few feet away with a knife sticking out of his back, and allow myself a small smile of satisfaction.

I have struck my first blow against the world, and I am sure that it will not be long before the urge to strike again overpowers me. I can already feel my excitement building at the prospect….