Men in the Meat Grinder

In the winter of 1976, four workers at a pork sausage factory in Pennsylvania disappeared under mysterious circumstances, along with a teenage girl. All workers were reported missing after failing to arrive at work for several weeks. The teenage girl was reported missing by her father, the late 1976 factory manager, who resigned shortly after the incident. After the cause of their disappearances was uncovered in 1980, Bell’s Sausages was closed down, and the Von Durham Cooperation interviewed several witnesses about their experiences. The interviews are transcripted below:

George Dwayne
Factory worker at Bell’s Sausages Factory

Interviewer: Good morning Mr Dwayne. Thank you for taking the time to talk to the VDC about your experiences today. Would you mind briefly outlining your previous occupation?

Dwayne: Uh, good morning. Um, I was a factory worker in Bell’s, and I was one of the senior staff. My job was to work the machinery and guide new workers around. In 1976, I was hoping to get promoted to a managing role, but I left immediately after the string of disappearances. Can’t tell you much from then on.

Interviewer: Why did you leave?

Dwayne: I was superstitious, you know? Four people working at the same place don’t just disappear out of coincidence. The manager’s daughter disappeared as well after that, didn’t she? I was terrified I would meet the same fate, I mean, it seemed just odd and suspicious at the time. It was like the place was haunted, you know?

Interviewer: Did you know any of the victims?

Dwayne: Yes, I did. Fred, Billy, Watson, and the other one, it was Ben, weren’t it? They were all chatty lads, all had around two or three years of experience in Bell’s. Making sausages all day long – they had family, kids, wives. Terrible, terrible thing to happen. I couldn’t believe it at the time; I mean, people you knew – one day you’re making jokes about the pigs in the grinders and the next…well, someone tells you they’ll never be seen again. I knew all of them very well, except for the manager’s girl, but I did talk to her once or twice. Yeah, now I remember, we did chat.

Interviewer: What did you talk to the manager’s daughter about?

Dwayne: Ah, I remember. She was a nice girl, sixteen years of age. She didn’t smoke joints like the others, listen to diabolical music or play off guys. She studied well at school and often visited her father at Bell’s, who was the manager, but I heard he resigned that year. The only time I talked to her was once in the hallway. It seemed extremely, um, odd. That encounter.

She had this blank, emotionless expression when she asked me which way the meat grinder was. Her voice was odd too; it was odd because it was too smooth, and the pitch went down as she talked, a bit like she was sighing at the same time. I asked her why she was asking, and she told me her dad was there, so I pointed her down the stairs, through the operating room and to the machine. Then I left her. Apparently, that was the last time anyone saw her, you know? Terrible. Lovely girl she was.

Interviewer: Do you have any idea why she was acting so strangely?

Dwayne: No idea. Only thing I know is, when I got to the end of the hallway, Mr Struss, the manager, was in the reception. I just shrugged it off, I mean, someone probably told her he was in there before, but he came out.

Interviewer: Since your leaving, Mr Dwayne, the police and detectives have discovered the reason behind their disappearances.

Dwayne: What? Really?

Interviewer: Yes. Would you like us to inform you, Mr Dwayne?

Dwayne: I guess it would be interesting to know.

John Fisher
Caretaker at Bell’s Sausages

Interviewer: Hello, and good morning Mr Fisher. I understand that you’d been the caretaker at the factory for more than three decades?

Fisher: Ay, but it weren’t no disappointment when it shut. That place was beginnin’ to make me nervous.

Interviewer: Alright. What’s your take on the disappearances? Did you witness anything strange?

Fisher: Ah, yeah. Them poor lads and that one lass – young Betty Struss, the manager’s girl, that jumped the tub. The first of ‘em to go was old Freddy. Been a grinder for two years or so, Freddy. Decent lad.

Day before he died, he be sittin’ in the hallway, bawlin’ his eyes out. His mother ain’t treatin’ him properly, his wife left ‘im…poor lad, I thought. But yeah, it was odd, cause he never really cried that much, y’ know? Like one of those guys that just keep their mouths shut and work. I found ‘im sobbin’ on them stairs again one day. I was thinkin’, why the sudden weepin’ and cryin’?

Then, I was cleanin’ out the reception bit one day at midnight. Everyone had gone home and it was just me left, doin’ my caretaker business. I ‘eard someone, comin’ in through the window. In fact, they’d fuckin’ smashed it! They were pantin’ like a mad greyhound.

I dash to the noise and there I see Freddy, crawlin’ around on the friggin’ ground. I ask ‘im what the bats he thinks he’s doin’, and he just ignores me. He runs to the hallway room door and throws ‘imself against the door, tryin’ to get in. Scared outta me socks, I think to myself, he’s just forgotten his booze or summat’. His goddamn head is bleedin’ with all that thrashin’. I tell ‘im to calm the nuts down and he spits at me, and kicked me in the ribs. I ran and called the pops. When we was back, he was gone. We searched everywhere, but nothin’.

I didn’t see the others, ‘ol Freddy was the only one I saw. I didn’t lock the grinder room; at the time, I had no idea they’d all dived in there. But I did notice they’d all become pretty down like him. Then they were all gone. Nobody knew then that they’d jumped the tub. Nobody coulda’ imagined such an ‘orrible thing.

Got terrified me-self, thought the devil was here to take us. Worse for me too, I slept there, and I swore I could see ghosts an’ stuff durin’ the night time.

Interviewer: Thank you for your time, Mr Fisher.

Johnathan Green
Manager of Green’s Butchery in P.A.

Interviewer: Good afternoon, Mr Green.

Green: Hi, good afternoon to you too.

Interviewer: So tell us, how did Green’s Butchery become the centre of the problem regarding public health?

Green: As you know, we buy our sausages and several other meat products from Bell’s Sausages. In 1977, a few people called us up saying that some of the sausages in the packet had an odd ‘metallic’ flavour to them. At first, we thought it was nothing, but after more people started complaining, tests revealed that human flesh had somehow gotten into the sausages. Now that the truth has been revealed, my condolences go to the families of the victims. It was inevitable that my company was going to be dragged through hell by the media and the public. It certainly rang alarm bells, and suggested something sinister was taking place, but we stress that the disappearances are nothing to do with us.

Interviewer: How many people complained? Was it an increasing problem?

Green: Two days after the deliveries from Bell’s, we started making the first batch of sausages that year. A week later, an elderly couple complained about the odd flavour of some sausages they bought – not all of them, just some. Other people started coming forward, and soon, the tests had to be done.

Interviewer: How is the company doing now? Has it been able to get back on its feet?

Green: Certainly. I’d say business is better than ever. Even though our long-time supplier Bell’s was closed down, our new supplier is also very efficient and the public is giving their trust back to us. The company followed the course of events very carefully as they unfolded, and were extremely saddened. We will be vigilant in future, and God forbid anything similar will ever occur again.

Interviewer: Thank you for your time.

Dan Whartman
Police officer and volunteer street-patrol officer for the P.A. Public safety council

Interviewer: Very good morning to you, Mr Whartman.

Whartman: Morning.

Interviewer: We’re here to ask you a few questions about a man, Daniel Carter, whom you arrested in the early hours of 2nd January 1977, as you were the only police officer present at the site. Tell us what happened, and what you saw.

Whartman: Well, I was on patrol around the outskirts of the…what’s it called…the meat factory site…

Interviewer: Bell’s Sausages.

Whartman: Yeah, that place. I was basically searching for any suspicious activity, following the tragic and mysterious disappearances not long ago in 1996. It was still dark at around five in the morning, when I saw someone stumbling around the outside of the factory. He was constantly walking into the locked gate, banging his head on the metal bars again and again. My first thought: shit, that’s creepy as hell.

I thought he was a worker, just a little drunk, and very early for work. Presuming he wanted to get into the factory, I unlocked the gates for him with the key the manager had given me, then let him in. I then stopped him to ask him what was going on, but he blatantly ignored me, walking straight into the factory wall, making this constant and loud humming sound. Like, ‘HMMMMM’. On the other side of that wall was the room with the meat grinder in, and he kept on throwing himself at the wall, looking for a door to access, as if he thought he could knock the wall down or something.

Ha ha, yeah, you’re smiling. I know – there’s a million things wrong with that picture, ain’t there? And that was when I finally arrested him. He didn’t reply to any of my questions, and just tried to break free, trying to run back into the wall. That was pretty much what happened.

Interviewer: Where did you send him next?

Whartman: I sent him to the hospital, and I stayed at the hospital with him because I wasn’t on day shift, and I wanted to see what the hell had happened to him. I wanted to see him speak to me like a sane human being and know that he was just fooling around, because otherwise, I’d get nightmares.

Turns out I didn’t get to see what I wanted. They found out his name was Daniel Carter, and he had no history of mental illness, depression or drug taking. He was actually a working man who was the owner of a respectable fast food restaurant in P.A. - just your average man. There was no suggestion why he was being so…fucking odd. He kept on acting weird, and muttering stuff about suicide, and depression, how his ‘heart was torn in two’. The doctors couldn’t get a reason out of him, all they knew was that he was really depressed. They did some tests, including mental assessments and blood tests.

I’m not sure what happened next. I heard something in the results scared the shit outta them, so they sent the guy to the country’s head medical researcher in New York. But yeah, I really hope the guy’s gonna be okay, though I’m doubtful, to be honest. Never been more creeped out in my life.

Professor Miranda Jones
Biologist working at a research lab in New York.

Interviewer: Good morning, Professor Jones.

Jones: Good morning to you too.

Interviewer: Let’s start by asking you about the subject, who had obviously become insane and extremely suicidal. What did you find out?

Jones: Yes. The hospital brought me this man, Daniel Carter, along with some blood tests. It surprised me a lot when I saw him. He had no life in his eyes. Clearly someone in a lot of distress, and someone who didn’t know his own mind anymore.

At first, I wondered why he had been brought to the research lab. He came from P.A. which was miles away. Surely, he should have been in (at least, a more local) hospital, or a mental institution? It turned out that the doctors had sent him to me because they had discovered an extremely abnormal substance in his blood, after they had performed the tests.

Interviewer: Tell us some more about his blood samples.

Jones: His blood contained particles of a gloopy, black substance; it came in different densities in different samples, some clumped like liquid bitumen, some smooth and liquidly, mixed in with the blood like writing ink.

We extracted some of this black stuff and tested it. It was venom, and contained the DNA of spiders, which concerned us greatly. The effect of the venom was absurd; it was present in the blood and acted a little like a hormone. It made Mr Carter extremely depressed, suicidal and violent, not only to others but himself also. He inflicted many wounds on his own arms and head.

My team and I, we went to P.A. to do some research, like testing the soil and seeing if we could find anything. For the first few days, we found nothing, but then one of our researchers made a terrifying breakthrough.

We found a ten-legged spider sort of creature, which we immediately took back to the lab for testing. The spider was much larger than normal – about three times the size of an ordinary spider, and obviously, had an extra pair of legs. We think this may be linked to the leaked radioactive material from the nuclear reactor in P.A. We captured all the ones we could find for further testing and investigation, and for public safety, but some are still lurking about in the shadows.

Detective Wally suggested that these creatures caused the deaths of the victims. He will be able to inform you further regarding our findings and procedures.

Detective Russel Wally
Detective working with police at the scene of the crime

Interviewer: Good morning, Detective Wally.

Wally: Very good morning, and thank you for the coffee.

Interviewer: No problem. You were investigating the disappearances at Bell’s in 1977. Tell us what you found there.

Wally: I was the inspector put in charge of this case, a case which caused the public a massive amount of distress a few years ago. I’ve finally been able to draw parallels between the events and come to a conclusion, but I stress that more investigation must and will still take place regarding these issues.

A team of ten police officers searched the factory under my command, but to no avail. The prompt was the ‘human meat in the sausages’ report. Soon after the ‘scandal’, we discovered tiny traces and remains of human tissue in and around the meat grinder at Bell’s. This led us to believe soon after that all five victims had indeed had a gruesome fate and had ended up falling into the grinder, and eventually in the sausages. This was almost confirmed when we asked Mr Dwayne about his encounter with the manager’s daughter, then we found bits of their remains underneath the grinder. We were sorry to inform the families about their unfortunate deaths, but even more so to hint that they would have died in a rather…unsightly way.

Interviewer: Could you suggest any possible reasons for why they might have fallen in? Do you think it could have been the bugs, which Professor Jones was suggesting?

Wally: I contacted Professor Jones regarding the unfortunate case of a worker contracting a form of…mental disease. And yes. I think it’s safe to say that the creatures caused their deaths and distress. They were crawling around everywhere, affected by the nuclear products, and had bitten the victims. This would have caused the victims’ minds to be controlled by the powerful venom, which caused a hormonal imbalance and caused them to feel depressed and suicidal. The direct cause of their deaths.

This is the closest we can get to finding out how the ‘mind control’ took place, yet we still do not know why all of them chose to end their lives via the grinder. Perhaps the venom programmed their brains to bring them there. The creatures ‘knew’ that there was a meat grinder in the factory, and were able to use this to their advantage - using their venom to program the brains of their victims to their convenience; thus supplying their species with an abundant source of food. Many suggest this theory is ridiculous (goodness gracious, how on earth could spiders perform mind control??), but we are still investigating.

We do know, however, that giant clumps of mutant ten-legged spiders were discovered underneath the meat grinder. They infested the room, hundreds of them clinging to the bottom surface of the grinder, which made them so difficult to spot. After tests in the lab, it was confirmed that they would not eat the remains of animals, but were very much attracted to human flesh and blood, which they devoured cleanly, with little left over. This tells us why so little remains were found; the creatures ate most of the flesh which came out of the grinder, and the rest of it (the morsels they weren’t able to catch) went into the sausages, which were then sent to Green's.

Regrading the mutant spiders: this is a new species, yet to be named, and I’m not going into any more detail otherwise I might mention something biologically incorrect (you can gladly ask Professor Jones for the scientific details), however all I can say is; they’re something mankind has never witnessed before. They are a new threat to mankind, and potentially have the power to control minds with a single bite, so if you encounter any, DO NOT APPROACH THEM. Avoid them at all costs, and call the authorities, detailing where and when you saw them.

Bell’s Factory was shut down this year after the discovery, and the malfunctioning nuclear reactor was also decommissioned. The authorities have removed all the creatures they could find, as well as a whole load of other insects which were deemed at risk to mutate. But there are still many out there which have not been spotted, and they are breeding as we speak. The incredible instinct and intelligence of the mutants could lead us to suggest this theory, in connection to the disappearances:

Perhaps the creatures were lying in wait underneath the grinder for their human victims. Perhaps they were watching us, and knew what would happen.

'''Investigation is still taking place. The authorities warn the public to keep away from the nuclear reactor and the area surrounding Bell's Sausages for the time being. If you see any of the aforementioned creatures or other suspicious beings which could have been subject to radioactive material, DO NOT TOUCH THEM. Distance yourself from them and inform the authorities immediately.'''