All-Seer

By Shawn Carter

Edited by EnvyMachinery

Ethan Roberts finally finished scrubbing the floors of the fish butchery he began working in only five days prior.  He felt the job at Premium Salmon failed to further his career as a struggling musician, but one must pay their bills.  At least he seemed to possess a particular talent for the gig—or so his boss kept assuring him.

“A fine job, my friend.”  The fat-bellied Jimmy Jackson met Ethan with a hardy slap to the shoulder. “You already make an excellent apprentice.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jackson.” Ethan panted out the words as he rubbed the sweat from his head.

“Call me Jimmy.  I can’t have you running around the shop making me feel old. Lightning Jimmy still has some moves left in him, and don’t you forget it.”  Jimmy’s eyes gleamed with the memory of his former minor league baseball days. Back then, he felt destined for greatness, but sadly was never noticed by any major league scouts.  He saw a significant and emotional piece of himself in the struggling young musician scrubbing his floors, and the friendship felt almost necessary. Hoping to guide the young man to greatness, he saw himself as a future mentor.

“Sure thing, Jimmy.  Can I gut any other tasks for you tonight?”  Ethan looked to his boss with exhausted eyes as he began taking off his rubber gloves.  He stretched, giving his back an audible crack.

“Well, I have that sack of unused fish parts in the back.  I need you to just toss that in the back alley of the shop,” Jimmy informed as he put on his coat.  “Then lock up for me, and make sure not to open the door again after you toss it out, okay?”

“Wait, the back alley of the shop?” Ethan’s brows furrowed in obvious confusion as he looked to the back of the shop in thought.  “We don’t have a dumpster back there, though.”

“Don’t need one.  That’s my secret; I don’t pay a city trash fee.  It’s all taken care of by an anonymous stranger.”  Jimmy smiled as he put on his hat and opened the front door.  “Sort of gives me the creeps. I would rather you tend to it from now on.”

“Anonymous?  Why would someone agree to do that?”  Ethan turned back as Jimmy began to head for the door.

“I don’t ask questions.  The guy left me a note when I opened up the shop a couple of years back.  It’s in my desk if you want to see for yourself.” As he closed the door he turned back.  “Have to head out, the missus will kill me if I miss dinner.”

The door to the shop closed with a loud bang, leaving the apprentice butcher with a dark feeling of loneliness.  Ethan shook his head, picked up the bag, and headed to the door. He stood in place for a long while with his hand on the door’s handle, questions filling his mind, and a sudden fear taking hold of him.  Finally, overcoming his feeling, he opened the door and headed down the stairs to the back alleyway.

Looking around at the dark cityscape corridor would send anyone into a slight fright.  Often, you wouldn’t hear people describe such places with kind words. Strange evils seemed to always lurk in abyssal corners that surrounded the buildings.

Ethan looked around, finding a sack-shaped blood stain on the concrete next to the stairs.  He sat the sack down over the stain, and then gazed at the urban maze around him. The feeling of loneliness seemed to leave him in this place, pushed aside by another creeping sensation.  As if eyes watched him from all the rooftops, he felt entirely spied on. With a shiver, he retreated inside and slammed the door behind him, letting out a quick sigh of relief.

Ethan walked to the front of the shop, grabbing his coat and gazing at the storefront one last time.  A curious thought arose once more. “What kind of stranger would offer to take someone’s trash?” The siren’s call of the mystery presented itself as simply too much to ignore.  He put his coat on and headed for the back of the store, and into Jimmy’s office.

Opening the drawers, Ethan found mostly business documents and a disorganized array of pens and batteries.  The apprentice toyed with the thought of giving up his search when he saw a small envelope sitting atop some documents in the bottom drawer.  He picked up the old, brown envelope with a slight reel-back as he turned the envelope over to open it and noticed a thick, scarlet stain on the front.

Overcoming his disgust, brushing the stain off as more unused guts, Ethan opened the envelope and slowly pulled out a dusty, folded piece of paper.  The message on the front wasn’t long, but was mysterious nonetheless.

Butcher,

Donations

Nothing major, old fish

Leave trash in back

Do not look

Prefer no seeing

I know

All-Seer

This, of course, only made the mystery even more alluring.  Clearly, the money saved overshadowed any curiosity which possessed Ethan’s boss.  The apprentice wasn’t so easily bought. This note brought a shaking adrenaline over him.  This stranger clearly displayed some kind of mental illness. He wasn’t comfortable working under such conditions, but concern for his bills and his new boss gave him pause to quit suddenly.

A new idea came to Ethan: if he just got sight of the character he could confirm any dangers posed to him or Jimmy.  Maybe this ‘All-Seer’ is just some teenager who enjoys leaving fish guts on his old neighbor’s doorstep. He had to know for himself.  The butchered, freestyle poem was clearly a way to hide the prankster’s identity. He would be doing Jimmy a favor if he simply confirmed his suspicions.

After turning off the lights, Ethan spent several minutes quietly roaming the back of the store waiting for any sounds of a youngster coming to haul off the nightly garbage.  He spent a long forty-five minutes waiting until finally he shook his head in disappointment. Maybe he was simply being overly paranoid about the whole situation. Perhaps it was a bad idea to put his boss’ savings in jeopardy.  He finally turned to leave, taking only a few steps before he was stopped by an odd sound.

A tearing followed by a crunch echoed from outside the back of the door.  Ethan slowly turned, listening carefully. He considered the possibility he was simply mistaken, he wanted to be mistaken, but it continued.  Slowly, he approached the door, placing his ear to it to listen in.

The sound obviously wasn’t a dog.  A strange, slimy dripping, and a gruff breathing.  It certainly didn’t remind him of any drooling dog he has ever heard.  The crunching was followed by an occasional loud coughing that reminded him of a voice with a pitch digitally turned down incredibly low.  This thing was eating the old, useless guts raw from the bag. Could it be some kind of desperate homeless man?

Ethan left the door carefully, tip-toeing his way to the front door.  The identity of the stranger needed to be confirmed. The sound alone couldn’t satiate the mysterious hunger for knowledge that rose up in the apprentice butcher.  He left the store, locking the front door behind him, and then stalked around the side of the store as stealthily as possible by the amateur musician.

Ethan peered around the corner, slowly bringing his target into view.  He found himself frozen in utter silence as the twitchy alleyway lamp illuminated what he now observed in horror.  Every muscle locked into place as his mind tried to grapple with what he was seeing.

The creature stood on six legs, based with webbed hands, its skin dripping with green slime. The top of the creature’s bulbous head shaped itself like an exposed brain that had crusted over.  The brain shape was surrounded with eyeballs, and at the front of the All-Seer’s face was a leech-like apparatus that sucked the fish guts in and grinded the pieces into bits. It occasionally swallowed with a devious satisfaction before continuing to enjoy its trash bag meal.

Ethan knew he needed to turn away.  He needed to walk back to his car, drive away, and pretend like nothing happened.  It isn’t as if anyone, his boss included, would believe what he saw. However, his legs refused to leave their position on the cement.

Finally, the creature appeared to stop its meal, and an intense noise left the creature’s mouth, like a growling hound.  All the creature’s pupils turned to Ethan, and glued onto him, as if holding him in place. It took small steps towards him, until finally Ethan found his footing.

Ethan bolted from his prison, running to the car with the feeling that the creature chased hot on his heels, jumped into his car, turned it on, and drove away with a speed like the devil himself running from the mouths of hell.  He obsessively checked his rear-view mirror, only to see nothing. No matter how much speed his car gained, he just couldn’t escape the feeling of the contemptuous eyes burrowing deep into his soul.

Ethan jerked the car into his driveway, almost crashing his vehicle into his garage door as his tires let out a screech.  He bolted from his car, closing the door behind him, running inside, and pacing about before collapsing on the couch in an attempt to calm himself down.  He rubbed his eyes, wanting to believe he had merely observed some manner of hairless dog. His imagination was merely overactive tonight, and he just needed some time to absorb the situation before calling animal services.

Ethan continued to rub his eyes, as if to scrub away the terror from his very thoughts. As he brushed away the fatigue from his eyelids, a low-pitched snarl rose up around him.  He carefully removed his hands from his eyes to see the All-Seer now standing on two of its legs, looking at Ethan like a bird of prey looks upon a rat.

“I always see.”