Free The Walrus of Death: A Short Story by Steeven R. Orr

I AM THE WALRUS
    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