This was written by Stephen King aka Richard Bachman: Billy Halleck, good husband, loving father, lives in Connecticut and practices law in New York City. Billy has an expensive home, nice family, and a rewarding job. He is also about 50lbs over weight. Then Billy Halleck sideswipes and kills an old Gypsy woman crossing the street, everything in his pleasant life changes, when the old Gypsy man walks up to him after he is exonerated in the local court by a friendly judge and sheriff, touches him and says "Thinner".......Billy begins losing weight. He is pleased at first, then worried, and finally terrified. He can't stop it. He eats and eats but the weight flies off.