SCP-6745 - Seasonal Menu

Image Credits:

https://flickr.com/photos/jjbers/39227228541

Item#: 6745

Containment Class: esoteric

Secondary Class: thaumiel

Disruption Class: keneq

Risk Class: danger

The McDonald's restaurant in Martindale, Indiana.

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-6745 is to be monitored by Foundation assets posing as members of the local community as well as law enforcement and code regulation officials. During the seasonal activation cycles, Foundation personnel are to monitor for reports of unusual activity within the site from the civilian populace, and keep a record of those reports at Site-81.

Under no circumstances are any of the relevant details of possible unusual activity to be made publicly available, and any individual who interacts with SCP-6745 and communicates a desire to do so must be apprehended by Foundation agents, administered a Class-C amnestic regimen, and released.

Description: SCP-6745 is a McDonald's fast food restaurant in Martindale, Indiana. In 1997, the site was the focus of an undercover investigative journalism exposé by Christian Kurtis, a writer for the Indianapolis Star, who had spent several months collecting information regarding unsafe food practices in local eateries. As a result of his investigation, Kurtis discovered unusual paranatural activity centered around a seasonal menu item served out of the Martindale McDonald's — the McRib sandwich.

SCP-6745's primary anomalous characteristics manifest during seasonal distributions of the McRib, a pork-based "rib" sandwich popular with regional diners. While frozen meat intended for the McRib that is delivered to the location is unequivocally pork-based, sandwiches emerge from the preparation process almost entirely consisting of human flesh. It is currently unknown where in the restaurant this process takes place, or what function facilitates this transformation, but McRib sandwiches served at SCP-6745 contain, on average, 89% human flesh. It is unknown whether or not the employees of the restaurant are aware of this activity.

DNA testing of these sandwiches have revealed the meat is sourced from a variety of different types of individuals of all sexes, ethnicities, and ages. The overwhelming majority of tested samples have had inconclusive results, though several have returned DNA clearly matching local persons of interest with genetic records on file.

Subject: McRib sandwich tested on November 19th, 1998

Subject Match: Emma Richards

Details: Caucasian female, age 34. Reported missing in June of 1998. Appeared to spontaneously leave her home abandoned. Owned two dogs, both of which were found violently mutilated and buried in the backyard shortly after she was reported missing.

Analysis: Sandwich contained meat sourced from the belly and thigh.

Subject: McRib sandwich tested on January 4th, 1999

Subject Match: Tony Michaels

Details: Caucasian male, age 47. Reported missing in December of 1998. Presumed victim of a drunk driving accident, but was never recovered from the vehicle after the crash.

Analysis: Sandwich contained meat sourced from the cheek and shoulder.

Subject: McRib sandwich tested on November 2nd, 1999

Subject Match: Amy Baker

Details: Caucasian female, age 8. Reported missing in October of 1999. Presumed victim of a home invasion and kidnapping, though no details of her whereabouts were ever discovered and the case was later closed when no other information came to light.

Analysis: Sandwich contained meat sourced from the eyes and hands.

Addendum 6745.1: Investigative Report

Journalist Christian Kurtis, writing for the Indianapolis Star, had been following a story involving a number of restaurants and grocers in the Indianapolis area who had been participating in dangerous food safety practices, resulting in many instances of patrons becoming ill. SCP-6745 was reported to Kurtis by an unknown caller, who Kurtis noted as having made the following remarks:

meat is gamey and unnaturally flavorful - feels off somehow

texture is very unusual, too soft for pork but with a queer firmness upon biting

rib sauce is bitter and tastes heavily of iron, maybe spoiled

Kurtis collected samples of McRib sandwiches over a period of several months, eventually reporting those findings to a local regulatory commission prior to publishing his story. This prompted a response by local law enforcement and code regulation for suspected spoiled meat, and the restaurant was shut down on October 26th, 1997.

Addendum 6745.2: October 29th, 1997 Incident Report

On October 29th 1997, the fourth day after the restaurant had been closed, a large crowd gathered outside of the building at midday. Police reports indicate the crowd was "non-aggressive" but "clearly designed to influence or intimidate" the regulatory personnel on-site at the time. Local law enforcement was called in to clear the crowd, many of whom demanded an explanation for why the restaurant had been closed. From the October 29th report:

Crowd was unhappy and unsatisfied with any reason given as to why the McDonald's had been closed. Several individuals approached the perimeter to ask when it would be reopened and, when told there was no definite date, became agitated and requested permission to cross the perimeter to make a sandwich for themselves. These individuals were persistent, unwilling to take "no" for an answer, and on several occasions had to be pulled back away from the building where they had crossed the line. This continued for several hours, until Sheriff's deputies arrived to help disperse the crowd.

Elsewhere in the report, one Officer Sam Hill comments the following:

They were insatiable. I kept trying to tell them that they couldn't go in, that the meat was spoiled and that there were health concerns involved, but it was like they couldn't hear what I was saying. They didn't even look at me, they just stared straight past us and towards the building. One woman I had to restrain and pull back out, and the entire time she kept repeating "I just need a taste, give me a taste, I just want a taste".

Same thing with Officer Derry when he got there from County - it was like they were transfixed. No amount of explaining what was happening made a difference with them.

The crowd was dispersed at roughly 1720 local time, but due to the unusual nature of the response to the restaurant's closing, a security detail of 10 police officers remained at the restaurant overnight to dissuade looters.

At 2347 local time, Officer Jeff Moore radioed in to dispatch to report an unusual disturbance at the restaurant. Dispatch transcript is below:

MOORE: Officer 116, dispatch.

DISPATCH: Read you 116, go ahead.

MOORE: We're at the Martindale McDonald's scene, and we've got a uh… I guess a 10-45 here, there's a large (unintelligible)

DISPATCH: Say again 116?

MOORE: (unintelligible) kind of carcass, maybe a cow, but it's all sort of messed up, and we're not sure how it got here.

DISPATCH: OK, copy 10-45. You say there's a cow carcass there, where is it at?

MOORE: It's at the…

DISPATCH: Say again 116?

MOORE: It's pushed up against the door, the door to the lobby on the east side, we're not sure how it uh, how it got here. We would have seen it, or Elliott would have seen it from inside, but it's just uh… it's fresh, yep. Really fresh.

DISPATCH: Ok, 10-4. Do you need me to send out animal control?

MOORE: Uh… yeah, we probably need- (cuts off suddenly)

DISPATCH: 116?

MOORE: (Panicked) 10-15, 10-15, we just had a bunch of civies come out from the treeline, they're not - they don't look right, they've got uh… some kind of weird antler hats, and… (aside) I think they're hats, I don't know… why are they moving like that.

DISPATCH: Copy 116, we have units en route to you.

MOORE: Tell them to hurry, please, we're (screaming in the background, sounds of gunshots) fuck! Shots fired! Utley is down, they're - oh god.

Silence.

MOORE: They're not people.

No additional dispatch was received from any of the officers on the scene. Additional officers who arrived roughly eight minutes after the last message from Officer Moore discovered all ten members of the security details had been violently mutilated. Most of the officers had been rapidly disembowled, with their organs and much of their musculature having been removed entirely. The words "REOPEN TOMORROW" were found to have been painted in human blood on the sidewalk leading to the restaurant.

Notably, the building itself was unharmed, aside from signs of a brief struggle when officers who had been inside the restaurant had been dragged out into the parking lot.

Addendum 6745.3: Cleanup Report Excerpt

Foundation assets imbedded in regional law enforcement quickly contained the scene and began assessing for signs of paranatural activity. The restaurant was locked down and a perimeter created using a gas leak as a cover story for the cleanup. Agent John Freeman was assigned with the following investigation. From his report:

What was immediately apparent was the power dynamic between the attackers and their targets. The officers killed were not men with guns, they were prey animals at the mercy of a carnivorous host. There was no law of engagement between the two - most were rendered unrecognizable aside from that which could not be consumed - badges and weapons were left untouched, but the soft meat of the body was picked apart like carrion.

Throughout the entire night we were being watched. They had already had their fill, but the most impassioned among them still demanded our attention. They stayed at the treeline, just far enough away that we couldn't see their gnarled and broken faces, but could still make out the long and twisting antlers extending out of their scalps in the moonlight. They wanted us to know that they knew.

But then, it's no different than when any access to food is removed from a group that depends on it. Remove a population of deer and the wolves begin to starve, and then their behavior changes. They've certainly been here far longer than we have - it's not unexpected that they would have found a way to simplify the process of gathering food the same way we have. How are their actions any different than our own? Reducing animals to neatly packaged meat discs to be sold to the public for just a single dollar, or less. Only real distinction here is that we're the meat.

One of them was standing in the shadows near my car when I went to leave. It was an enormous thing, stretched unnaturally thin and wretched, shuddering and shaking like each breath was the death rattle of every living being around it. Fleshchangers aren't something I'm unfamiliar with, and this wasn't the first time I'd seen their work - but never had I been so close to one. I asked it what it wanted from us, why they had killed those men (though we both knew that I understood it perfectly clear), and in that moment I had never been so small in my entire life. Despite all my experiences, a life lived fully and whatever else I had to offer still ahead of me, in that moment I was a convenient tube of packaged meat, neatly tucked away until such time as it was needed.

When it answered its voice was like dry wind over an empty field. It said six words before it melted back into the dark:

Reopen tomorrow. Don't change the menu.

The investigative report from Christian Kurtis was edited to remove any references to SCP-6745, and the author was administered a Class-B amnestic, as were other individuals at the Indianapolis newspaper who had been a part of the investigation.

Staff at the restaurant were allowed to return to work the next day in order to facilitate containment efforts. No additional civil disturbances were noted in the aftermath, nor were there any signs of the aforementioned humanoid entities afterwards.