I'm a top executive at an international burger franchise. You don't want to know what you've been eating.

You probably know the burger franchise I work for. You’ve likely eaten there before, as have most of the people you know. We’re international, and these days much of our growth comes from franchises popping up in different countries around the world.

I never knew why the burgers tasted so unique, but I’ll admit, I suspected there was something wrong. Not for any one reason in particular, there were mostly just a lot of little things.

The way our CEO smiled, for example, when he said in our board meetings that the hamburgers were 100% beef, no added fillers or other ingredients. A few of the other executives shared knowing smiles with him and I couldn’t help but ponder to myself, how could that be possible at our prices?

I didn’t want to look into it, I’ll admit that now.

I have a sweet gig here, and a nice, comfortable life. I’ve been with the company so long and I’ve been promoted so many times that I have developed a cabal of underlings and yes-men who do all of my work for me. Assistants and secretaries, interns and protégés, they do whatever I tell them to, and thank me for the privilege. I can literally sit in my office all day, watch Netflix while sitting in the most comfortable reclining desk chair imaginable, and make obscene amounts of money while doing it.

But that can get boring after a while. And I decided to get out of the office for a day.

I was in one particular plant, our largest, doing an impromptu walkabout. It’s not something I’ve done in many years, but with my clearance level nobody was going to say anything. I went through the motions, not really looking for anything in particular. I was just trying to get out of my office for a little while, go back to my roots. I had started off in a meat-processing plant very similar to that one, so going back there was bit nostalgic for me.

The folks at the plant were astonished to see me there, since they recognized my name as one of the top executives. That’s one of the perks of being upper management. You don’t have to explain your presence to people. You don’t have to phone ahead or make appointments. You can just show up unannounced and they’ll be delighted to see you.

When I asked to see the meat, what was going in before processing, the plant manager gave a skeptical look.

“Meat?”

“Yeah, you know. One hundred percent beef, right?” With our masks on it was impossible for him to read my expression. He probably thought that I was giving him a knowing smile, like the ones worn by the few executives in the board meetings who knew the truth.

He began to laugh hesitantly. I followed suit, trying not to play my cards too soon. I was curious to learn the truth, in retrospect. He broke into a hearty laugh and I joined in.

“A hundred percent beef! Yeah, right. That’s so classic. Alright come on I’ll show you to the pit.”

He began to walk towards the other end of the plant and I followed. There was an elevator that brought us down to a sub-basement ten floors below ground level. We got off there and began to walk down a corridor that extended the length of several football fields. It took me a while to realize that the walls were very subtly curved, as if we were walking around a massive circle, like a particle accelerator the size of a city.

After walking for what felt like hours, we arrived at a locked door with a keypad. He punched in a number which revealed another hidden access panel. The man swiped his card, did a quick retina scan, and used his thumbprint to unlock the door, which opened with a hiss.

We went inside and I was amazed and subsequently horrified at what I saw.

There was a dark pit below us that was immense and stretched on for a great distance. It was like a great canyon made of what appeared to be concrete, hidden beneath the earth.

Inside the pit were innumerable dead bodies, in varying states of decomposition, as far as the eye could see.

The smell was horrendous, like nothing I had experienced before – acrid and eye-watering in its awfulness. There was a sound as well, a steady droning buzz.

The man pulled down his facemask. Below his nose, his face was not human. I realized this was not a man standing before me.

I saw that the top half of his face was just a well-constructed mask. His real skin below that was like that of a lizard, scaly and green. When he spoke, I saw that his teeth were small and numerous, sharp and pointed.

“We’ve made pretty good progress this week. You know how it is, though. They’re pretty paranoid these days. It’s getting harder and harder to lure them out. They like to stay inside where it’s comfortable. Our Tinder accounts still bring in a steady supply, but the UBER drivers are telling us they can’t get away with stuff like they used to with these new safety programs in effect. Regardless, we’re still managing to skim a lot of net product.”

He then wanted to show me things down below, and I followed, trying to conceal my mounting horror. We were being invaded. And they were slowly killing off the population and feeding our own species’ dead to the rest of us. Or so I thought.

As we got down to the lower levels I came to realize what the burgers are really made of.

“Perfect timing!” he said, and I watched through the viewing windows to our right as the floor holding all of the dead bodies rose up, revealing a grate beneath. The entire thing began to shake back and forth, quickly.

For a second, I thought to myself, is it snowing in there? But then I realized what was falling from the steel grate above. What was raining down from the massive pile of dead bodies. Maggots. Millions upon millions of maggots.

They fell down and I realized suddenly what the subtle buzzing noise was that I had been hearing since we had entered the huge space. It was flies. A horde of them, innumerable. The blood and guts and decomposing flesh of the people above leaked through the grate as well, raining down and colouring the maggots red where they writhed on the steel floor that extended for as far as the eye could see in every direction.

“We’ll let this batch dry out under the heat lamps for a while, then it’ll go up for further refinement and seasoning. You know, the usual.” He started on with some small talk and I tried to maintain my composure and not vomit. It was difficult. The smell was becoming very overpowering. The whole shaking a bunch of dead bodies and stirring them up, knocking their decomposing bits loose, really didn’t make matters any better.

Eventually he led me out of the pit and back up to the entrance. I was so grateful to get out of there I could have hugged him, had I not been so terrified of what he really was.

I really wish I could tell you which burger chain I work for. But if I do, I’m pretty sure they’ll figure out who I am. I’m already getting nervous that they know I found out the truth.

Yesterday in the board meeting, the CEO made one of his little jokes about the beef again, and a few more executives joined in with knowing laughter.

I’m starting to think I might be one of the only ones left.

Does anybody know any good vegetarian recipes?

JG