This tall bastard, I shot him four times. This tall bastard, he's had a hundred quid of top-notch nastiness mashed into his blood.

This tall bastard, he should be the happiest stiff in the world.

Dead people shouldn't be allowed to come back to life. They shouldn't be allowed to regrow the bits I blew off. I feel strongly about this.

It takes five minutes. It takes using my hands. This has never happened before. It takes ringing his tall neck until his windpipe crackles.

He goes down and I watch. I watch and I'm daring him to try resurrecting again. I watch maybe ten minutes, just waiting for the Lazarus shit. The messiah thing. The on-the-third-day-bullshit. Tall bastard.

At some point I realise I've gone mad.

At some point I realise it's a hallucination. Obviously.

What I'm thinking is: be cool. What I'm thinking is: go through the motions. Pick up the spent shell casings. Take a shirt from his cupboard, put it on. Bundle the bloody rags you wore on the way up into a sports bag from under his bed, and take it with you. Disassemble the gun and replace it in the bumbag. Switch off the TV.

Wipe your face down.

Don't look at the body.

Don't look at the body.

Close the door behind you. Pick up the pizza in the door of the lift.

Don't run. Never run. Just walk. Nod and grin and walk.

What I'm thinking is: get the fuck out of there.

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