The Walrus of Death: A Short Story (4 page)

I grabbed up a set of keys I had hanging on a peg by the door to the garage. The keys went to the rust-colored 1967 Scout parked on the other side of the door. Like me, it was old.

My place is out in the country, five minutes north of Eudora out past the Kansas River. This time of the year the ride from my home to the office is bordered by empty fields ready for winter. When the crops are up, you’d ride with a wall of corn to either side. Now, it’s just dirt all the way to the hills in the distance. I’ve long since learned to tune it all out.

Eudora is not what one would call a big town.

But it ain’t small neither.

I like to think of it as the little town that could.

Located between Kansas City and Lawrence on Kansas Highway 10, Eudora has always had the potential to be more than it was, and slowly but surely, the town has struggled to crawl its way out of the small town moniker. Eudora continues to grow, despite the bypass that has kept people commuting between Lawrence and Kansas City out of town.

It ain’t nowhere near where I’m sure the city leaders want it to be, but it’s doing just fine in the grand scheme of things.

Main Street, between 10th and 7th, is Eudora’s downtown business district. Which, to be honest, ain’t much.

My office is there, of course. Plus we got a bank, a comic book store that used to be a bank, a coffee shop, a hardware store, two eateries—Mexican and Chinese—and then there’s the Pub.

The Pub is just that. It’s a dirty little hole in the wall located on the west side of the eight hundred block of Main, right in the middle, and is owned by one Abner Lemonzeo. Most of his illegal dealings had been conducted in the dark and smoke-filled confines of the tiny bar. Back when Lemonzeo was still a free man, more money had passed through the Pub in a single day than had gone through both of Eudora’s banks in a week. This dank pit was once the cornerstone of all illegal activity in Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri. Big fish from Kansas City spent much of their time sitting in a booth in the back of the Pub—Abner’s booth—conducting business.

It was there that I expected to find him.

My office is across the street, and though it’s about three storefronts to the north, I can see the Pub’s front door from the window.

I parked the Scout there at the curb in front of my office and crossed over to the other side of Main on foot. The traffic was light and so I took my time.

I found Lemonzeo where I thought I would, in his booth in the back. With him sat two men in suits across the table, their backs to me. Abner hadn’t changed a bit. If anything, he looked harder. Prison will do that to a person, it pounds on you until you break, or you become the hammer.

He was dressed all in black: Suit jacket, tie, and shirt.

I wanted to punch him in his face for that fact alone. But I kept my cool.

He still shaved his head, and he still sported that greasy little black mustache. I’d often imagine him twisting that mustache as he thought up his evil little schemes—like tying a woman to a set of railroad tracks.

Lemonzeo looked up as I approached the booth and surprise flashed across his face. It didn’t last long however, he covered himself quick enough. I wouldn’t have even noticed it had I not been looking for it. He smiled as if he’d been expecting me.

“Norman Oklahoma,” he said. “What brings you into my establishment?”

“Abner,” I said, giving him a small nod. I turned to the two men sitting across from him. “You’re in my seat.”

“Excuse me?” the first man said, his face was stone, a blank slate.

“You heard me, pal. Take a hike.”

Stone Face looked over to his partner who nodded. With permission requested and then granted, Stone Face slid languidly from the booth, stood, and looked down at me.

The guy was big, easily a full head taller than I was. Guys like him think they can intimidate others into getting their way, and with most people they might succeed.

I ain’t most people.

“Breath mint,” I said. “Look into it.”

The guy didn’t smile, didn’t grimace, didn’t even blink.

“Vampires, Abner?” I said, my eyes never moving from the fella in front of me. “You ain’t back a full week and you’re already leaping into bed with these monsters?”

Abner chose not to respond.

The moment Stone Face had stood I’d known what he was. Vampires have a way of moving that’s unlike us normal folk. It’s subtle, and most people don’t notice it, but it’s obvious to those of us who know what to look for. But it ain’t just the way he moved that clued me in; it was the smell that rolled off of him. The smell of blood. This vampire recently fed. Again, it’s subtle, but unmistakable.

Almost casually, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, Stone Face reached into his jacket. I had a Peacemaker in hand and pointed at his head before he could pull whatever it was he had been going for.

I thumbed back the hammer.

“Come now, Norman,” Lemonzeo said. “This isn’t necessary.”

“I think it is,” I said, and squeezed the trigger.

The gun crashed and Stone Face flew backwards, landing with a dull thud a few feet away. His body lay there on the floor in an unnatural way. But though he was down, he wasn’t out, despite the point blank .45 caliber slug to the head. He was up in an instant, crouched on all fours and hissing.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight. Part of his head was gone; in fact it painted most of the back wall and floor. But I could already see that the skull was mending itself, rounding off to cover the hole the bullet had made. The brain matter and other gooey things found inside a vampire’s head were mending as well. Soon he’d be fully healed.

“Okay, Biter,” I said, pulling the other Peacemaker, “let’s do this.”

He leaped, and I fired, hammering him back to the ground. I continued to fire, keeping the creature nailed to the floor. I could see his partner moving out of the corner of my eye and without even so much as a look in his direction, my arm slid his way and I shot him down too.

Contrary to what the movies and books tell us, vampires aren’t affected by sunlight and aren’t all that easy to kill, relatively speaking. A stake to the heart won’t do it. Drive a pointy wooden stick into their chest and the only thing you’re gonna accomplish is to piss the thing off. Hold up a clove of garlic in front of their face and they’ll probably eat it. And a crucifix, yeah . . . you might as well come at them with one of those orange sections of toy race car track from all the good it will do you.

The only way to put a vampire down for good is to fill it full of silver.

Being who I am, I have a well-stocked munitions cabinet full of silver bullets. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to bring any with me. This meant I’d have to rely on what I had on hand. Regular bullets would break the skin, make them bleed, and hurt like hell, but in the end I was just buying time.

“Enough!” Lemonzeo yelled, still seated in the booth.

The two vamps froze. Blood oozed from the various holes I’d put in them, but only for a moment or two before they closed up. Too bad they couldn’t say the same for the holes I’d put in their suits. That thought alone made me smile.

“I have business to conduct, Norman. Did you want anything in particular or did you just stop by to shoot at my customers?”

“I had a nice talk with your pet walrus, Abner,” I said, reloading, leaving the spent shells to roll about on the Pub floor. “So I thought I’d just swing by and welcome you back. Shooting up your guest’s expensive suits was just one of those happy accidents you hear about all the time.” I gave the vamps a wink.

“Well, that was neighborly of you, Norman. Tell me, did you leave the Walrus alive?”

“Oh, he’s alive. He ain’t happy, but he’s breathing.”

“Are we done here?” Lemonzeo asked.

I looked from him to the two vampires, they weren’t happy neither. I was just pissing everyone off this morning. I’d pay for that later, but it was worth it. My only regret was that I hadn’t been packing silver.

“As long as you’re free and doing business with the likes of these two, we ain’t done, Abner,” I said and turned to leave. But as I reached the door I turned back. “Oh, I almost forgot. Send someone to kill me again; you better hope they do the job right. Otherwise I’m going to return the favor, and I don’t miss.”

With that, I left.

I CROSSED THE STREET with a smile on my face and a spring in my step. I even whistled. I hadn’t felt this good since, well, since the last time I shot an ornery vampire.

I moved up the half a block to the office, my mind on coffee and bullet-ridden vampires when I turned the corner onto 7th and nearly tripped over a shaggy and unkempt figure sleeping it off on the side walk.

I stumbled, but didn’t fall. The man on the sidewalk just curled in on himself and continued to snore. Flies buzzed around him, zipping here and there, landing for moments on the undulating form before lighting off once again. There was a stench coming from the huddled mass that was wholly unique to the man. Imagine dumping a barrel of cheap beer onto a dead animal, rolling that around in a landfill for a day or two, and then leaving it out in the sun all day. If you can come up with an idea of what such a scent might smell like, well then you’d be close to the scent of Hal.

Normally, when I run across Hal, I leave him be. I couldn’t do that today, not while he was blocking my entry into the building. He’d either have to move, or I’d need to drive across town and buy my coffee at the Quick Shop.

“Hal?” I gave him a prod with the toe of my shoe.

Hal stirred, burped, said something about a penguin, and broke wind. It was almost enough to ruin my good mood.

“Hal!” I said again, jabbing him with a bit more force.

Before I could so much as take another breath, I found myself lifted off of my feet and thrown back into the wall of my building. It took a moment before I realized that it was Hal that had done it. And he held me fast, too.

He didn’t say anything, just stared at me wild-eyed as he held me by the front of my coat, pressing me into the wall. He towered over me and I felt like a rag doll in his hands. His breath bore into me like a urinal in a restroom at a Royals game by the seventh inning stretch.

“Whoa, Hal,” I said, trying to force myself free, which wasn’t happening. I wasn’t going anywhere until Hal was ready to let me go.

“It lay in wait,” Hal said. “Using the form of a woman, a guise to draw me near, but I could not be fooled.”

His eyes had gone distant. I could see bits of bread and bone hanging in his full, dark beard. Knowing Hal the way I did, I assumed the bones were chicken, maybe turkey, but I’d never seen Eudora’s most famous homeless person act like this before and it caused me to reevaluate my feelings toward the man.

“Hal!” I shouted. “Let me go! You’re acting half a bubble off plumb, buddy! I don’t want to have to shoot you!”

Even if I wanted to shoot him, I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to get around his massive arms to my guns.

“The floor was more bones than stone,” Hal said. “The bones. The bodies!”

“Hal! Dang it! Someone’s bound to notice us here dancing like this and call the local constabulary! You don’t want to spend another night in a cell do you?”

For a man who sleeps on sidewalks and is often seen under the influence of whatever alcohol he can manage to scrounge up, Hal had spent very little time in the town jail.

“I never asked to be their hero!” Hal’s breath began to dissolve the inner lining of my nostrils. “I never asked to be anyone’s hero!”

Well, I’d had enough. I couldn’t shoot Hal, but I could dang sure get his attention the old fashioned way.

“Hal!” I shouted once more then I kicked him between the legs.

He didn’t curl in on himself in pain, didn’t let me go, didn’t even so much as grunt. He just shook his head like he was clearing the cobwebs from him mind. He looked at me, looked down at his hands that were still clutching the front of my coat and pressing me back against the brick wall, and then he let me go.

“Norman?” he said as eyes once clouded became bright. “Good gravy, Norman. I’m sorry.” I could see through what little skin shown on his face through the beard and shaggy hair that he had turned as red as a tomato. “I don’t know what came over me. I sure hope you can forgive me.”

“Water under the bridge,” I said, straightening out my coat. “But you scared the bejeebers out of me, Hal. What was that?”

“Golly, Norman,” the big man said, looking down at his feet. “I’m not sure.”

No one knows where Hal came from before he appeared one day sleeping it off in the park across from the old high school. He’d drifted into town a decade or two back and took up residence in Eudora’s back alleys, parks, and countryside. I’ve often attempted to beguile the man into telling me about himself from before, but Hal could be a wily customer when he wanted to be.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll forget it if you forget it. Deal?” I held out my hand.

Hal brightened immediately. He looked up and his face was nothing but one big smile. He took my hand and shook it, nearly pulling my arm from its socket. “Deal! Thanks, Norman. Thanks a bunch.” He let go of my hand.