The Walrus of Death: A Short Story (6 page)

Again, nothing happened for a time. I could hear the sound of the Walrus breathing mixing with the birdsong and the wind. He was thinking long and hard on this one. He wanted me awake, wanted me lucid while he rained pain down on me. But on the other hand, he knew that I was healing. Yet, if he held on to me long enough to heal, he could break me all over again. I kinda figured he would like that thought once it reached his brain.

Soon enough he scooped me up and carried me into the house where he dropped me to the floor. I kept my eyes closed but I could hear him rummaging around in the kitchen, opening drawers and going through their contents. I assumed he was looking for something to secure me, like duct tape or rope. Well, the joke was on him, I was all out of duct tape.

But let him look. The more he looked, the less likely he was to pay me any mind. Folks tend to dismiss someone who’s passed out. See, if he knew I was awake, he may take a moment to break my legs and keep me immobile while he searched. But asleep as I was – or as I was pretending to be – his subconscious self would continue to tell him that I was harmless. In the meantime, the itch of healing continued like a few dozen ant colonies crawling all over my face, spine, and now my finger.

I wanted to try my legs again, give them a stretch, maybe even wiggle my toes a bit, but I didn’t dare with the Walrus in the room. I couldn’t risk him seeing. So I remained as I was, face down on the carpet of my living room.

Face down was ideal at this point. Once the Walrus could see my face had all healed up, he might feel more inclined to spend a bit more time with me instead of looking for tape.

The Walrus gave up his search with a grunt of frustration. The sound of his heavy footsteps moved toward me. I tried not to tense as I waited for the pain that was surely to come. But the Walrus just stepped over me and did the one thing I honestly did not figure he would do.

He left the house.

The moment the door closed behind him, I tried my legs. They bent, but it took some effort. I figured that the Walrus must have had some rope or tape or something in his car and that was why he had left. That meant he’d be back soon. I’d never have an opportunity like this again.

So I put everything I had into it and eventually pulled myself into what would normally be for me a sleeping position. But I didn’t stop. I continued to struggle against myself. It was slow going, but it was going.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a reoccurring dream in which I’m fighting something dark and shadowy with nothing but my bare hands. But every punch I give is slow, like trying to force my hand through air made of jelly. I can move about as normal in this dream, but when I try to fight, I go all slow-mo. That’s how I felt now and it made me want to cry.

I heard from outside the sound of a car door slamming shut and knew that I had just seconds to make something happen. I pulled myself to my feet by sheer force of will. The Walrus had dropped me just inside the front door, so the deadbolt was within reach. I engaged the bolt with a quick flick and staggered toward the hallway. The lock wouldn’t stop the Walrus, I knew that, but it may slow him down for a moment or two. I imagined that it would take at least twenty to thirty seconds for that brain of his to process the confusion that would slide over him when he found the door locked.

I moved haltingly down the hallway with a lot of starts and stops, like a zombie two years into the apocalypse. But with each step, I moved a little faster. I had to assume that my Peacemakers were still sitting on my desk back at the office, but they weren’t the only shooters I owned. My rifle was still in my room, resting comfortably in the trunk at the foot of my bed. I’d neared the end of the hall when I heard my front door being ripped from its hinges.

“Oklahoma!” the Walrus roared from the front room.

But he was too late. I’d made it. I could feel, more than hear, the Walrus thundering down the hall to me, but by the time he got to my room, I’d snatched up my rifle, a belt of cartridges, and had slid out my bedroom window.

I DON’T MUCH LIKE running from a fight. It burns in my craw something fierce. But though I would never be mistaken for a learned man, I ain’t stupid. I know that I would be no match against the Walrus using just my fists and wits. It’s why I grabbed the rifle. Yet, once I had the rifle and ammunition, I still ran. I ran like the wind – well, like the wind if it had been healing from a broken spine. I ain’t no coward, but if you’re gonna fight someone, make sure you pick where you do that fighting. I read that somewhere. Might’a been a Spider-Man comic. I ain’t too sure.

My home is an earth berm home built into the side of a hill. This meant that the entire back half of the single level house was underground with a modest-sized hill looming up behind it. Once I was out of the window and onto the front lawn, I hobbled around to the back of the house, running as quickly as I could across the back yard, up the hill, and into the dense clump of woods that stretched back for a few miles out behind the house. Under the cover of the trees I fell to the ground, lying on my back and breathing heavily as I loaded the Winchester.

I slid the last cartridge into the rifle when I heard the unmistakable sound of a walrus crashing through a bedroom window — my bedroom window. So far, everything had gone according to plan, but success hinged on the hope that the Walrus would follow me. The plan was to hide here among the trees on the hill and wait for the Walrus to peek his ugly face around the back of the house. Then I’d shoot him. Not actually in the face, mind you. I wasn’t out to kill him — I wanted to — but I figured it’d be best to let the law handle this one. If he forced the issue, then I’d have no other choice. Otherwise I figured on winging him a bit. Maybe I’d go for the knee and put him down long enough to get the boys in khaki out here to lock the thing up — for good this time.

It all depended on the Walrus doing what I wanted him to do, which was follow me west behind the house.

As I’ve said, I live in the country a few miles north of town. Based on what was around the house, geographically speaking, the plan put a lot of dependence on the landscape itself guiding the Walrus in my direction.

I mean, when you think about it, I could have jumped out the window and continued east across the front yard and away from the house, but my front yard looked out toward a few hundred acres of cornfield, which at the moment sat unplanted, empty, and flat. Had I gone that way I’d have stood out among the nothingness like a lone figure streaking through an open field fleeing from a walrus a in a suit, so east was out.

To the south was the Kansas River, and beyond that, Eudora. I wouldn’t get too far fleeing in that direction before I was up to my neck in brown water. There was a bridge, but I’d need to walk ten miles to the east to get there so it should be obvious that south wasn’t the best option either.

The north was also out. Like the east, there was nothing for miles but more unplanted pastureland and no adequate cover.

That left west, a half a dozen miles of trees broken only by the occasional gravel road. The Walrus wasn’t stupid, he’d see that west was the best option and so I only had to wait.

The itching along my spine decreased, meaning that the healing was near to complete. So I rolled over onto my stomach, rose, and knelt at the edge of the woods, the Winchester ready at my shoulder. I took a few deep breaths and waited for the Walrus to show himself. I moved the barrel left, then right, scanning the back of the house for any sign of an angry walrus.

Soon enough he came into view, running as quick as a walrus around the exact corner of the house I had hoped he would. I could see that he was so full of rage that he plodded on without any notion that crippling pain was only a rifle-shot away. I smiled, brought his left kneecap into my sights, breathed out, and slowly squeezed the trigger of the old Winchester.

At that exact moment, the clouds parted and the sun shown down upon me with such ferocity that I found myself blinded and it caused me to flinch as I fired the rifle.

The shot rang out its cracking roar that echoed off the hill and trees.

“You missed!” the Walrus called.

I never miss. I cursed and I’d later swear that the sun had actually giggled at my dilemma.

I squeezed off another shot but I was shooting blind. I couldn’t see crap anymore as the sun continued to blaze.

“Oklahoma!” the Walrus roared with such vehemence that the casual observer would be forced to seriously rethink musical theater.

I cursed and squeezed off another shot as the Walrus sprinted toward me. I couldn’t see much but white light, but I could hear the creature’s grunting and the thunderous plod of his mighty feet drawing closer and closer.

He continued screaming my name in such frenzy that any birds brave enough to still be hanging out following the gunshots were now winging their way to a safer location – like Alaska. I fired a fourth time, and then a fifth, shooting erratically now in hopes that one of the bullets would find its target.

They didn’t.

I stopped shooting and tried to calm myself, which wasn’t easy as the Walrus pounded up the hill. I still couldn’t see a thing but sunlight so I closed my eyes. I took three big breaths.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

In and out.

In and out.

I cleared my head and took myself out of the world. Nothing mattered anymore. The wind, the sunlight, the music of nature – it didn’t exist. There was just me and the unseen presence of a walrus running through the Kansas grassland.

I raised the Winchester. The wheeze and puff of the Walrus’s labored breath, the ponderous thud of his massive feet, and the groan of agony coming from the earth were getting louder by the second. He was right on top of me.

I smiled.

I fired.

The rifle cracked followed almost at once by a slight “Ooof!” from the Walrus, and the sound of his considerable body hitting the ground and sliding through the fallen leaves toward me.

A cloud passed over the Sun and I looked down to find the Walrus just inches from where I knelt. He writhed around in the dead leaves, clutching his left knee with both hands. Blood bubbled through his fingers.

He looked up at me.

“You shot me!” he cried.

“What’d you expect?” I said, pointing the rifle at him.

The Walrus lumbered to his feet, well – foot. He hopped about for a moment, almost like a cartoon, still clutching his left knee.

“I’m going to kill you!” He screamed, and hopped toward me.

I sighed and squeezed the trigger for the last time and blew out his other knee. He passed out on his short journey to the ground. He lay still, almost peaceful, as the shot echoed off into the distance, followed by the silence of a cool autumn day.

THE SILENCE DIDN’T LAST long. It was soon replaced by the sound of sirens in the distance as Eudora’s finest raced to my rescue. I figured it was only a matter of time before Pat and her boys showed up. You can’t make a spectacle in town like the Walrus did without attracting the eyes of the law. I’m sure that in some part of his mind he knew that the police would eventually make their presence known. I had no idea what he had had in mind for the police once that happened. Maybe his rage just wouldn’t allow him to plan for such an eventuality. I don’t know.

I took a seat on the hill next to the Walrus. My spine was still healing, so I lay flat on my back and let my body do its thing.

I couldn’t see the driveway from behind the house, but it wasn’t long before I heard no less than four squad cars roar in. After that I heard the slamming of car doors, and then there was nothing.

I imagined Pat and her boys standing on the porch looking at the space where my front door used to be.

“This is the Eudora Police Department,” Pat’s amplified voice sounded from over the top of the house. She must’ve brought a bullhorn with her. “Come out with your hands in the air!”

I sighed and shook my head. I wanted to shout out to them, but I just couldn’t find it in me. I was exhausted and yearned for sleep. I thought about my bed and sighed again.

Eventually, after hearing no response from within the house, Pat and the boys would have to enter. They would go in, guns drawn, and search room to room. Someone would shout “Clear” each time a room was checked and found empty. They would move methodically through the house, and as my room was in the back, they would reach it last. But, sooner or later, they would get to my room and find what I can only assume would be a hole in the wall where the window used to be, and surmise by the fact that since all the glass and drywall lay scattered about on the grass and not in the room, that we’d taken our fight outside.

I started to drift off there among the leaves, the breeze blowing over me like a cool blanket. Then something landed lightly on my chest. I opened my eyes and raised my head just enough to find a squirrel – yeah, that squirrel – watching me.

“Hey there, little guy,” I said. I had begun to feel like I’d just swallowed an entire bottle of whiskey in one go. The healing will do that to me.

The squirrel cocked its head.

“Look, I’m sorry about earlier,” I said. “I was frustrated and I’m afraid I took it out on you, and that’s not fair.”