The Flykiller
I live for only one thing. Fiction by C.M. Crockford
“You have to understand,” my client said, “At heart, I am a simple man. I live for only one thing. Just one.” The red glow of the cigarette, Gunther Adams’ third in twenty minutes, appeared far brighter in the grey, windowless interview room, once it illuminated his skull. Six foot three, 270 pounds when he entered Hawkins Correctional Facility, the hulking prisoner was forty years old and losing his hair. The razor merely emphasized Gunther’s fleshy lips, his protruding ears, and those eyes of his, the color of compounded blood and rust. They sat abnormally close to one another. The effect of his stare was arresting—unnerving even—like a wolf deciding whether to show its stomach or tear into your own.
There were certain points when an otherwise delicate baritone betrayed the early childhood spent in Germany. “You know why I am here. You know I didn’t kill him. You want to do your job and set me free. Oh, believe me, I sympathize with the professionalism at hand! But I must explain to you why, though I’m innocent, I’ll plead guilty in court.” Whenever Gunther exhaled, his smoke surrounded us. I coughed and waved my arms for thirty seconds before surrendering to a persistent shade during our meeting.
“You have,” I hacked out, “that privilege…”
“My entire life,” he said, “since I was a little boy, I’ve killed scores of houseflies. Whether I used the swatter, the hardcover copy, an old phone, an ashtray, or the rolled-up newspaper, I’ve killed thousands upon thousands of the species Musca domestica. Some people can track any animal. Others can outrun anyone else in the marathon, or they know the law, front to back.” My client winked. “My talent, absurd as it seems, is to pinpoint the location of a small, buzzing pest, and, in a split second, end the thing’s life.”
The effect of his stare was arresting—unnerving even—like a wolf deciding whether to show its stomach or tear into your own.
He leaned in. The whites of his eyes were a fat, lustrous void.
“I do not pursue deerflies, horseflies, or any other insect. They do not bother me. They merely crawl through the dirt or soar. They eat, mate, or bite. They may sting us, but they’re in defense mode. They collect what they need to live. None of them are as pestilent or insolent as this singular fly right here.”
Gunther emphasized the last word, then clapped his hands.
I settled back into my cold metal when he displayed the trophy now limp in his left paw. I’d never even noticed the little beast move across the room, let alone heard the ambient hum Gunther was silently tracking for several minutes. I stared at the poor creature’s empty reflectors, yellow dew perpetually leaking from the crushed thorax, and felt a certain pity for it I’d rarely felt for insects before now. My client just smiled, flapped his hand, and the corpse disappeared into the shade behind his chair. I pulled a travel-ready sanitizer bottle out of my briefcase and presented it to Gunther, but he didn’t look at it.
“I am indifferent to other creatures,” he said, “to nature itself.” A piece of intestine clung to his arm hair. I put the bottle away. “There is no score to settle with the animal kingdom. That is not why those videos called me ‘The Flykiller.’ Yet I did not apply myself to my task, my true purpose until I was nine when I came to the United States with my parents.”
“The file says you were ten.”
“Ten then. Our first apartment in America was a dingy walk-up. Crumbling floors, pest infestations. My mother worked at the Market Basket—Father was a janitor. We were poor, but I don’t know if I was ever happier than in that first summer in Boston. It was one of my chores, you see, dealing with the flies, gathering in the kitchen, around the toilet.”
He shrugged. “When I smacked the first one to the ground with my textbook, I felt nothing—it was an action that held no real weight or consequence to a child. It was with the second death that I reached a new sensation. An epiphany. I stared down at what I’d created, the problem I’d eradicated with my bare hands. I took the soft, wet cadaver, and it was when I squeezed it between my thumbs, the guts fresh on my young, rough hands, that I suddenly perceived the absence of any light, any presence in its eyes. It was a void on the earth I alone bore responsibility for—this was what changed my life.”
“But…they’re just flies,” I said. Gunther glared at me.
“I was not finished. As I killed insects in increasing numbers over the next few months, I could feel myself responding to a pervasive influence, a revelation of psychic truth. It came down in waves. I learned the violent, terrible, ecstatic secrets of the universe: the secret of power, of taking life and giving it, even the truth of the God, the real one—” At this, he tapped his heart twice. “Inside. Have you ever had a spiritual moment? No? No matter. In the middle of an especially violent killing spree, I reached…a different place. It’s only happened a few times since when I am in the throes of my task, but the room is red, and small, and not…here.” He gestured to our cramped space.
“On June 16th, Mother gave me my first swatter. It possessed a silver twist handle and a cheap, plastic, sun-colored square head, adorned in a symmetrical crisscross pattern. It must’ve cost her fifty cents at the local shop. It didn’t matter—in my hands, it was Excalibur.
I’d quickly discovered a preternatural ability to hear the movement of any common fly. At first, I had to adjust my senses so the day-to-day world didn’t overwhelm me. All skill requires practice. Soon enough, I could pinpoint when my prey was about to hop onto an unwashed dinner plate, or cleaning its shit-covered legs, eager to sample some fresh new surface.” Gunther Adams flashed his canines and leaned back in his chair. “I killed ninety flies that summer. Still my lowest count for a season—I’d beat those numbers soon enough. By August, mine was the sole building on the city block free of such unwanted pestilence.”
“Once the fall crept into the city, I’d visit the library to research my new obsession. I studied the anatomy of the fly: their feeding, their mating habits, and their life cycles. I learned about pheromones and musculature before I knew anything about human reproduction. I suppose it…influenced how I saw things.” He chuckled, then turned serious once more. “They experience the world seven times faster than we do—did you know that? How? How does one hunt something that perceives its enemies at half speed? Yet they never see me coming. The cat burglars here like to talk about stealth—amateurs, amateurs.”
“But why flies, exactly, Mr. Adams? Aren’t there other pests to focus on? Cockroaches, silverfish, mice…why not become an exterminator?”
“The point isn’t eradication.” A blade found its way into his voice. “Subjugation. Violence—the ultimate act—committed against something so small…so insignificant…so arrogant. The fly is the ultimate vermin. It drones on and on, taunting us, soaring across our ceilings, our houses, insisting upon its own short-lived, obnoxious, meaningless existence, ceaselessly fucking, spawning more irritations. There is relief, even rapture, in the silence following their deaths, the end of that ceaseless buzzing, their infuriating, miniscule, entitled lives…” Gunther stopped himself there because he noticed how I was looking at him.
It must’ve cost her fifty cents at the local shop. It didn’t matter—in my hands, it was Excalibur.
“My father didn’t understand either.” He stubbed out his last cigarette. “But Mother indulged my habits. I was odd, of course, compared to the neighborhood boys, but she knew this made me happy. It isn’t just the killing, you see.” The prisoner considered his next sentence. “It’s having a talent—a gift—then carrying it out as best you can. Everything else is a waste.”
He sighed. “God knows I tried to be a good son, a good citizen. I didn’t make friends regardless. My classmates knew what I could do. Oh, a few punks thought I was ‘interesting’ enough. Soon, they saw there was no irony or separation between what I am and what I do, they stayed far away. A lonely life…still, I studied hard. Decent grades. I even found a real job once I graduated. ‘One with potential,’ like Father asked,” Adams said. He let out a low, bitter laugh.
“I didn’t fit in. Five weeks into the cubicle, the Keurig’s, the water coolers, the fluorescents blazing into my back six feet above…I saw a housefly, dancing through the air next to the break room. It was beautiful. I stalked it. I prowled about that pale, clammy office, my hands clasped together in eager pursuit, and I killed it in only four minutes. The office flickered in and out of view. I was back in that room again. Ten lovely seconds…” He looked away. “I quit the job the next day.” He shrugged. “My parents were aghast, but what choice was there? I knew what I had to do.
“I moved out of my one bedroom and into the basement of a tenement building under investigation for fraud. The window was cracked. I worked menial jobs during the winter, saving whatever I could, and in the spring and summer, when I wasn’t sleeping or reading, I killed flies. I’d walk through the city streets on the days when the heat and the smoke strangled the air, custom-made iron swatter hooked onto my belt, and I’d seek out the piles of trash, the decomposing stray animals, the open dumpsters where the pests worshipped and congregated.”
“Gunther, about the murder…” I said.
“I’d kill them and offer the flies up as a sacrifice to the true force of this world, and it accepted, even if the body count never seemed like enough. Never. I soon mustered up the courage to go door to door, asking if any residents needed help with flies—free of charge, of course.”
The Flykiller nodded. “Some laughed. Some slammed the door. A few did take me up on it. I was polite enough, and you noticed my efficiency earlier—they also saw how my weapon, when the steel smacked against hard glass or wood, made little noise. My reputation spread, especially in neighborhoods where the landlords did nothing about pest control. I was brusque, I was quick about my work, and I promised clients I’d be careful with furniture and plants, or else compensate them.” He beamed. “Can you believe it? A mere four work accidents in my career? I was so good that people started offering me compensation.”
“When did they call you ‘The Flykiller’?”
“A teen, home for a sick day, shot footage when I was at work. I gave some brief information about myself, then others captured me at work. One viral video and the name stuck.” Gunther beckoned an imaginary crowd inside. “The Flykiller here, step right up! How many will watch him swat his flies?! A million? Two million?!” He rolled his eyes. “I suppose the moniker was appropriate enough, given the…unique nature of my work. One critic even called me ‘the 21st century’s best madman.’ As if this world knows anything of sanity.
“I tried to duck the writers, the shows, the reporters looking for human interest stories. One even spoke to my parents before they died. At least my father was pleasantly surprised—I truly was important.” He didn’t speak for thirty seconds. “I never saw the point of explaining myself unless I had to. Do you understand? I did my killing, and I did it well.”
“Then what went wrong, Gunther? Why plead guilty to McCloud’s murder? For God’s sake, the evidence will barely hold up in court.”
Gunther turned his head towards an invisible sky.
“I was an attentive lover,” he said proudly. “I offered her a little intimacy, a little comfort. Lucy McCloud needed more than I’d ever give.”
“The woman accusing you of beating her husband to death?”
“That’s the one,” he said, nodding sagely. “Lucy…red-headed, curvaceous, intelligent…frustrated. I came to her door in Jamaica Plain and was ready to work. But I saw those curls, the hemmed polka-dot dress she answered the door in, and the copper wire hairs bristling on her open legs…we never even made it past the kitchen. It was a torrid affair. When Bob was out working, I’d smash the flies always swarming her apartment, we’d drink a little, a couple, then lie on the bed, talking about weapons or art. She’d show me a new painting or a sketch. You really should take a look at her work.”
My client stared down as he talked. “Things were so intimate, so easy, and that was the mistake. When I saw there was no future with her, that my kill count was down last year for the first time in my life, I withdrew. Lucy, as you can tell,” Gunther said, pointing to his garish prison uniform, “didn’t take the news well.
“I can seem indifferent to people—their feelings. I wasn’t tactful enough with her, I suppose.” He emphasized the word as if he wanted it out of his mouth. “I knew Lucy hated her husband, but I never considered what she was capable of. What is the result? Lucy murders Bob—poor, pathetic, drunken wastrel Bob—with a hammer and frames me for the crime. She even broke into my room and covered my clothes with his blood.” Gunther paused. “I must admit, I applaud her audacity.” I burst into laughter, and when I tried to recover, he only smiled.
“But you haven’t fully explained why you plan to plead guilty,” I finally said. “Gunther…Mr. Adams…you could easily walk. There’s the blood, of course, yet there’s no murder weapon, you’ve no prior convictions, and Lucy has a motive, given your affair and the state of her marriage. Just…ten years I’ve practiced law, and this has never happened to me before. Don’t you want to go free and return to your work?” I threw up my hands in surrender. “You may be The Flykiller, but you’re not guilty. You don’t belong here.”
Gunther Adams smiled again, and this time his face stretched and extended itself, his mouth gaping as if two silver hooks had pried it wide open for hours on end.
“Oh, but I do, I do. That’s what I’ve been saying! Oh, you fool…why would I ever leave this prison?” I wondered idly about the nearest emergency exit while his pupils dilated.
“None of the others will touch me after the first day, you see, not after Harvey. That reckless fool tried me, and I took his eye. I do not mind the cramped cell. No love of the outdoors. And do you have any conception of the sanitation problem here? Rotten food, dirty, grimy cell blocks, flooded toilets in every block. The wounded and the dead fester in the trembling sun for hours. What follows them? Dozens of wriggling maggots…the hundreds and hundreds of flies soon awaken. Ripe, buzzing, eager, and determined to get their meat. The warden even agreed to certain privileges in exchange for my management of the resident population.”
He gently patted my arm—I flinched. “You don’t have to worry about me. I can spend the rest of my days as The Flykiller within these walls. I could thank Lucy. All these years without a real home, and I’ve found where I belong.”
Gunther Adams spread his arms long and wide as if his limbs could stretch themselves out and encompass the whole of the prison: the courtyard, the outer walls, the rows of blighted cells, perpetually humming with life and death.
“Can you even imagine,” he said, “the joy that awaits me here?”
C.M. Crockford is a neurodivergent writer in West Philadelphia. His work has been featured in North of Oxford, Nobody Magazine, Abducted Cow Magazine, and The Massachusetts Review. You can always check out his first poetry book, Birdsongs (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), or find his other work via cmcrockford.net
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