The Walrus of Death: A Short Story Read Free Page B

leading up to the porch. She was looking up at me, her face painted with worry and concern.
    “Hey, Pat,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I released the hammers slowly and holstered the guns. “Dang squirrel went and got my dander up. Won’t get off the dern porch. Just keeps staring at me.”
    Patricia McCrea had been Sheriff of Eudora throughout the last five Presidential administrations. We go back a ways, Pat and I. I don’t have many friends, I used to, but they grew old and died. Pat was someone who was there for me when I needed her, and for that alone she will always have my trust and respect, while I will always have her back.
    I glanced over at the squirrel in time to see it bound off the porch and run up a tree, disappearing within its foliage. It was all I could do not to put a few rounds into the tree.
    I turned back to Pat, a sheepish smile on my face.
    “You okay, Norman?” Pat said, stepping up onto the porch.
    I must have been quite the sight standing there in my undies, gun belt strapped around my bathrobe.
    “Why wouldn’t I be okay, Pat?” I said.
    “Well, good Lord, Norman,” she said. “Look at you. I mean, I get a call that a walrus broke into your house and tried to kill you, and now I find you throwing down with a squirrel. I’ve already gone gray, Norman, I don’t need you adding to my stress.”
    “Heck,” I said, smiling. “You’re still the prettiest thing within fifty miles.”
    “Only fifty?” she said, redness rising in her cheeks.
    “A hundred,” I said. “Two hundred. Heck, it if weren’t for that husband of yours, I’da swooped you up long ago.”
    “You’d have done nothing of the sort, Norman Oklahoma. You had your chance but chose not to take it.”
    “There were extenuating circumstances, Pat,” I said. “That goblin infestation kept me a mite busy for a couple years.”
    “Goblins,” she said. “It’s always something with you, Norman.”
    “Ain’t no goblins around now,” I said, smiling and putting an arm around her. “Nor husbands, neither.”
    “Knock it off,” she elbowed me in the ribs.
    I jerked my arm back and yelped.
    “One of these days Jim may take issue with your incessant flirting,” she said.
    “Aw, Jim don’t mind,” I said, pretending to comfort what should have been sore ribs. “He won, I lost. He and I both know it.”
    “Well, I mind,” she said. But then she smiled to show that she didn’t really mean it.
    “Did you come out here all by yourself?” I asked, looking beyond her and seeing no other vehicle in the drive but her old Bronco. “You’re gonna need at least two other guys when the Walrus wakes up.”
    “Oh yes, this walrus you called about.”
    Pat knows what I do for a living, in theory. She’s never come face to face with a monster.
    “Come inside and see for yourself,” I said.
    As Pat entered the house, I took one last look around the porch, and just as I thought, the squirrel was back.
    “You and me ain’t done,” I said, pointing a finger at the bushy tailed monster.
    The squirrel continued to look up at me, and for a moment, I could have sworn that it smiled. I sighed and followed Pat into the house.
    I found her standing in the kitchen, frozen in place, staring down at the walrus. She tried to look like she wasn’t about to question everything she’d known about life, but I could see the shock peeking out from within her hard shell.
    “You know—” she cleared her throat and began again. “You know, I’d heard rumors about a hit man that went by the name ‘Walrus,’ but I’d always assumed it was just some stupid nickname.”
    “It is a stupid nickname,” I said. “It just happens to be apt in this instance.”
    “Well,” Pat scratched at her head a moment. “I guess I need to call in a couple of the boys to haul this thing away.”
    “That’s what I was saying,” I said. “I’d offer you something to drink, but my fridge and coffee maker are both on the fritz at the