The Walrus (Christina Henry's Alice)

The Walrus is one of the main antagonists from Christina Henry's horror novel Alice. He is the archenemy of Hatcher, aka Nicholas, one of the main protagonists.

Origins
Formerly, the Walrus was named Grinder and was a wrestler, however unlike other wrestlers, he did not play fair (he was known to carry sharp blades in his enormous fists during matches). The Walrus had a rivalry with other antagonists in the novel, such as the Rabbit, master of the criminal underworld, and Mr Carpenter, and the Caterpillar. So, Nicholas was a young father who had rescued his wife from the Rabbit. Nicholas made the evil Rabbit promise never to harm his daughter, because the gangs saw her as beautiful, so the Rabbit agreed.

Betraying Nicholas
However, the Walrus was treacherous and evil, and he sent five men to attack Nicholas' house. The men got inside, and stole Jenny, Nicholas' daughter, and raped and killed Nicholas' wife. Then Nicholas came home, saw the tragedy, and got insane with rage. He hacked the five rapists to death with an axe and it took twenty one policemen to grab the axe off him. Nicholas got put in the mental asylum for being an alleged serial killer, and there he met Alice.

Nicholas' revenge
Bound by the fact that both he and Alice knew of the Jabberwock, and had both known of the Rabbit and his gangs, Nicholas (known as Hatcher) and Alice escaped the mental asylum when it burned down and the Jabberwock escaped. Upon seeking shelter at Nicholas' grandmother's abode, they disguised Alice as a man and set out to Cheshire, a collector of information.

On the way to Cheshire they stopped at a shady inn which got attacked by a gang of the Walrus' men, however, Nicholas killed them. When their leader had told the serving girls they were going to the Walrus, one of them, Dolly, screamed "I'm not going to the Walrus! He'll eat me!" However, Nicholas saved them and heard the fearsome reputation of the Walrus: That he was alleged to literally eat girls whole.

Cheshire told them of the Caterpillar, because he knew of the location of the vorpal sword which would defeat the Jabberwock, but Cheshire proved their worth by putting them through another dimension of a Wonderland like maze full of evil roses and a Siren. Then after freeing the Butterflies club from the Caterpillar's dark magic and killing the evil Caterpillar, Nicholas and Alice entered the underground mazes again which this time took them to the Walrus' lair.

Upon entering, Nicholas was met with the foul stench of death. He was amazed such a monster as the Walrus could exist, but soon found the corpse of Dolly lying atop a pile of thousands of corpses of girls, all with their faces bitten off. Dolly had gone to tell the Walrus that Alice was a magician, betraying them, but had met the fate she feared.

The Walrus was watching a wrestling match and held an enormous whip. Alice saw a human sized rabbit, being made to fight in the ring, against a man. She felt pity for the rabbit, saying he ought to be nibbling grass in a field. Nicholas tried to say that they can't save everyone but she told him that they must. So Nicholas went up and yelled for the Walrus, calling him by his original name, "Grinder." Nicholas confronted the Walrus about their hostilities, to which the Walrus remembered how Nicholas had badly wounded him in their last match. The Walrus wanted revenge and he threatened that Nicholas deserved his ill fortune and would never see his daughter, Jenny again. Alice knelt to talk to the rabbit, who understood her, and she him, because she was a magician and could speak to animals. Disgusted at the rabbit's torture, Alice healed the poor creature with Cheshire's healing potion, and then the tortured rabbit was restored to normal, now healed. The Walrus was now eyeing nervously with the look of a naughty boy caught smoking. He could only scream in fear as Alice told the rabbit to exact revenge by ripping out the Walrus' throat.

Nature
The Walrus was feared by other criminals, making him a formidable monster. He was particularly famous for his eating habits, and being a cannibal made one think of him as a man so gigantic he was a blob of flesh. But the reality was quite different, like all myths, this got embellished. The Walrus was really just an averagely-built man, muscular and brutish looking, bald and formidable, but he had sharpish teeth and animalistic features, from his cannibalism. He had no respect for human or animal life, breaking the rabbit Pipkin's legs and forcing him to still dance for his twisted amusement. He had degraded completely from his monstrous life, and it was only fitting that his captors exacted their vengeance on him.