The Walrus of Death: A Short Story
Read The Walrus of Death: A Short Story Online
Authors: Steeven R. Orr
THE WALRUS OF DEATH
A shorty story by
STEEVEN R. ORR
Copyright © 2014 by Steeven R. Orr. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
Click or visit:
To you, the reader, for giving this story purpose.
MORE 99 CENT BOOKS BY STEEVEN R. ORR
Life following the zombie apocalypse is no bag of chips.
That is unless you're former Police Detective Alex Ringo and you've discovered the resting place of the most valuable comic book of all.
Desperate to add the Holy Grail of comics to his mobile man cave, Alex will risk being eaten alive by a bevy of zombie fanboys to gain his prize.
Get it now on Amazon -
http://www.amazon.com/Fanboys-Doom-Steeven-R-Orr-ebook/dp/B019HJ2XOK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
I WOKE THIS MORNING to find a walrus sitting at my kitchen table.
He was wearing an impeccably clean, custom-tailored black suit with matching tie and handkerchief, and was smoking a cigarette.
I’d just finished my morning ablutions and felt a little under dressed as I stepped into the kitchen wearing my bathrobe, boxers, and t-shirt.
The walrus smiled, took a long drag off his cigarette, inhaled slowly, exhaled even more slowly, and then spoke.
“Good morning, Mr. Oklahoma,” he said.
His voice was low, yet clear and piercing. His accent was surprisingly English; not because it ain’t that often that you hear an English accent here in rural Kansas, but surprising in that it’s even less often that you hear an English accent coming out of a walrus. His eyes took me in and a tiny smile played upon lips that were more than a little unsettling as he took another drag, waiting for my response.
My name is Norman Oklahoma and this is the kind of thing you have to deal with in my line of work. I’m a private investigator and I specialize in the supernatural, the unexplained, and the just plain weird.
In other words, I kick the monsters out of your closet and drag them out from under your bed. I hunt the things that go bump in the night and crack them upside the head with the stock of an antique Winchester. I find the ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties that prey upon the weak and defenseless and send them packing on a fairly regular basis.
I’ve set up shop in Eudora, a sleepy little town in northeastern Kansas. If you were to draw a circle over a map of the United States, a circle that showed the densest collection of recorded supernatural phenomenon in the history of America, Eudora would be the bulls-eye. I don’t know what it is about this place, but monsters seem to like it here.
Most folk who live here have no idea because a lot of these creatures look human, or can pass for one if the need arises. They interact with regular folk on a daily basis and no one is ever the wiser.
Frankly, that suits me just fine.
Many of these creatures are harmless. They’re leftovers and holdouts from a bygone time and just want to get through their day like the rest of us. They want to collect a paycheck, go home to the wife and kids, and live their life.
It’s the others you have to worry about.
The monsters.
Dark beasts from the underworld.
Creatures that live on fear and feed on pain.
Unnatural beings that steal or kill, kidnap and torture.
Vampires, werewolves, goblins, ghouls; they all exist. I know about them, and they know about me. They’re the reason I keep my guns close.
Then you have guys like the walrus in my kitchen.
He’s in a whole other category.
“I hope you slept well,” he said.
“Better than most,” I said, stepping into the kitchen.
Truth be told, I hadn’t slept well at all. I’d been out late hunting a goblin that had been eating some poor fella’s cats.
The guy kept bringing cats home from the shelter just to have them turn up missing the next day. This went on for almost two weeks. The fella went through ten cats before he gave me a call. Turns out he had a dang goblin living in his back yard. Goblins are nasty creatures. They stand about the size of your average human and live alone in a series of underground tunnels they’ve dug out for themselves. Their skin excretes a chemical that is more powerful than most of your best hallucinogens. And they eat cats like we eat chicken. They ain’t too difficult to deal with though. They die just like everything else.
But I spent most of the night down in some of those very tunnels just looking for the thing. By the time I made it home, took three showers, and climbed into bed, the sun came peeking in through the blinds before I’d had a chance to get in more than an hour sleep.
I think the sun has it out for me.
“Can we make this quick,” I said, stepping over to the coffee maker. “Nobody told me you were coming and I’m afraid I’m in no state to entertain.”
I made preparations to run a pot of coffee; adding the water, the filter, and the grounds before setting it to brew.
“You know who I am?” he said, then took another long drag off the cigarette.
“Yeah, I know who you are.”
I wouldn’t be much of a private investigator if I didn’t.
In the criminal underworld he is known simply as the Walrus. He’s three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle packed into a seven foot frame. He’s a genetic mistake, created in a lab by a group of scientists with an off-the-wall idea, unlimited funding, and a little too much time on their hands. The Walrus is literally a man in every sense of the word, but with the head and skin of a walrus. He’s a heavy hitter. A freelancer who rents himself out to the highest bidder, and there’s not much he won’t do if’n the price is right, and there he sat at the very same table in which I had been hoping to eat a bowl of Fruity Rings.
“Good,” he said. “That will save some time. I know who you are too, Norman Oklahoma.”
“I’m honored,” I said. “It’s every little boy’s dream to catch the eye of a tall drink of water such as yourself.”
The Walrus let out a deep laugh that rattled the dishes in the cabinets.
“I’ve been told you were funny,” he said. “Now I see for myself that it’s true.”
I only sighed. I needed a cup of coffee. I shouldn’t have to be expected to deal with something like this before my first cup of coffee. I hunted around inside the cabinets for a mug. There wasn’t a clean one anywhere; they were all in the sink waiting for me to wash them. I sighed again and grabbed one up out of the sink and rinsed it out.
“You and I must talk, Mr. Oklahoma,” he said.
“Please, call me Norman,” I said. “And talk already, I’m all a-quiver in anticipation.”
“Surely you know why I’m here.”
“I think I do, but I don’t know what to tell you, big guy. I’m afraid I already have all the cookies I need.”
“Mr. Lemonzeo sent me.”
Abner ‘Bud’ Lemonzeo. A local thug who had used a combination of violence and an Associate’s Degree in Business Management from a local junior college to make himself into the Midwest’s largest dealer of black market goods since . . . well, the Midwest has never really had a dealer of black market goods. Lemonzeo discovered a niche, and filled it.
“Bud’s out, then,” I said.
“Time off for good behavior.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Mr. Lemonzeo sent me to kill you.”
“Just like that?” I said, taking hold of the coffee pot. It was only about half full as the machine gurgled and spat.
“Just like that,” the Walrus said, smiling as he stubbed his cigarette out on my kitchen table.
“Well,” I said. “That’s not very nice.”
“Nice doesn’t even enter into it,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“Is the witty back and forth part of what Bud’s paying for?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’m throwing that in for free.”
“Are you stupid?” I said.
“I’m sorry?” that threw him.
“Are you stupid?”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“You break in here and tell me that you’re going to kill me. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to kill me while I slept? I don’t know, I’m starting to think that Bud might have been better off if he’d hired a ninja or something.”
“A ninja,” he said in a matter of fact tone.
“A ninja wouldn’t have tried to intimidate me, as you’re clearly attempting to do. I mean, why warn me? Sounds like a waste of time and the element of surprise to me. Does Bud know what he’s paying for? Maybe you have one of them feedback cards I could fill out?”
“Fine,” the Walrus said. “I tried to have my fun, but I see I can’t play games with you.” The table creaked and the floor groaned as the Walrus pulled himself to his feet.
Now, I ain’t known for being one of the world’s great thinkers. I have no patience for studying a situation, for looking at the problem from every angle to arrive at a viable solution. I prefer instead to just start shooting and then figure it all out once the smoke clears. In the end I tend to just make it all up as I go along.
“Well then,” I said, my hand still clutching the handle on the coffee pot. It was about three quarters of the way full now. “Koo-koo-katchoo, Fatboy.”
I threw the pot with all of my might, chucking it across the table like a big league pitcher throwing a fast ball. I could only hope that my aim was true and that a pot of coffee was enough to stop a walrus.
HELP!
THE GLASS POT struck the Walrus in the face with such force that it broke apart on impact. The pot exploded and showered both the Walrus and the surrounding area with glass and coffee. Any normal person would be screaming in pain right about now, but not the Walrus.
Nope. Instead, he fumed. Heck, based on the look he threw my way, I wasn’t sure if the steam coming off him was from the coffee, or his rage.
Regardless, my plan hadn’t quite worked. It looked like I was in for a scrape after all. I just hoped I could get to my guns before the big fella broke me in half.
That meant turning around and sprinting down the hall to the bedroom. I’d already set out my clothes for the day along with the tools of my trade: One Winchester Model 1866 Lever-Action Repeating Rifle, and a pair of antique custom-built Colt Peacemakers. Based on the size of this guy, and the table between us, I should be armed and ready to roll before he rounded the table.
At least I hoped.
But before I could so much as twitch, the Walrus roared, picked up my oak dining table in one hand, and then tossed it casually into the adjoining living room.
Now, believe it or not, there’s no standard procedure for a fella to follow when a murderous, rampaging, mutant walrus-man breaks into your home. They don’t air public service announcements that deal with such situations. No one has put the forethought into printing up a pamphlet detailing exactly how one should act or what one should say. They don’t drill for it in schools. And there certainly ain’t never been an after school special in which someone happened to find themselves in a similar predicament. So the average Joe, that would be me, when faced with such danger, would just have to trust his most basic of instincts.
It’s the whole fight or flight thing. There are some of us who would stand and fight while others would flee. Heck, most sane individuals would run screaming like a little girl. Standard operating procedure for me was to stand my ground and fight, and savage walrus or not, I wasn’t one to stray from protocol. Once I actually gave it some serious thought however, I landed on the conclusion that running and screaming might be my best option.