The red phone on my desk began to ring around noon the day the plant burned to the ground. I had worked as head of security for Caverna Cattle Processing for half a decade and it had never rung. My heart dropped as I considered the loss of life that would follow the metallic jingling.

I picked it up and held it to my ear.

“Code red?” I asked, voice shaking.

“Confirmed,” said a man from the other end. “Follow tier five protocol. This is a total loss. Start the process immediately.”

The line went dead. I swallowed hard and set the phone carefully back into the cradle. Not that it mattered. It would be a charred pile of plastic before the day was out.

I lifted the plexiglass cover on the wall above my desk and pushed the yellow button labeled Slaughter House. A secondary red button flashed below it. Sweat poured down my face as doubt swept through my mind. I wanted to think it wasn’t too late, but I knew it was.

I pushed the flashing red button to finalize the operation. The slaughterhouse workers were all dead anyway.

Looking at the security monitors for the slaughterhouse, I could see the staff scrambling toward the doors. As soon as I hit the secondary button, the magnetic locks engaged and there would be a mechanical voice playing through the overhead speakers announcing the lockdown. It would tell some soothing lie that normal operations would resume any moment, but they knew better.

In a dead-end town like this, people flocked to Caverna for decent pay and dependable hours. A few years in and most of them even accepted the twisted nature of what we actually did. Most of them probably lied and told themselves nothing bad could really happen.

For a few brief moments, before they died, they understood it had all been a comforting lie.

I turned back to my computer and entered the command to announce the facility evacuation for all of the other floors. Scanning the bank of monitors, I could see the other workers cease their duties and begin to move in an orderly fashion for the nearest exit. The alert sounded like a fire alarm, so they would move a safe distance away from the building before the tier five protocol finished.

The waves of other workers were still marching out, but I turned my head back to the bank of slaughterhouse monitors. In the brief moments I had looked away, nearly a third of the cameras had gone offline. I knew the things were destructive, but I had no idea how quickly they had moved or how they had escaped containment.

On one of the screens, a horrible image flickered lifelessly. In front of one of the exit doors, there was a… pile of people. Parts of them, anyway. I had never been more grateful that the Caverna Cattle Processing plant owners had never transitioned the old cameras to color. My imagination made the scene bad enough.

I turned back toward the other monitors to see a few slow movers still shuffling around inside the plant. There wasn’t much time left before I would have to enter the final protocol command. My face was burning with anger at the stragglers. I picked up the system-wide mic on my desk and held it to my mouth.

“Get the hell out!” I shouted. “The building is on fire and I can’t leave the security booth until the place has cleared!”

The last few slow-moving employees unexpectedly picked up their pace and moved toward the exits. I breathed a sigh of relief as my eyes darted from monitor to monitor. All of the floors other than the slaughterhouse were clear.

I turned to the row of buttons and pushed the yellow and red sequences to finalize the order. Clicks reverberated through the facility as the magnetic locks engaged. The things were trapped inside and the hidden self-destruct system would engage in just a few moments.

Stealing one more look back at the slaughterhouse monitors, I finally saw the things.

Bovine heads extended from their serpentine necks. They waved side to side, bobbing above their arachnoid bodies. Most of them had eight legs but a few had ten or more. The hooves came to a sharp point. Bloated udders randomly spotted their body, dripping some liquid too thick to be milk.

Gore dripped from their slack mouths.

They skittered across the slaughterhouse floor, tracking down the last few survivors.

Every few moments another camera would go offline.

I never understood why they destroyed the cameras. Did they know I was watching them? Could they think? Were they more than just some monstrosity the Caverna Cattle Processing company had developed to cut costs?

The damn things grew too rapidly. They were too dangerous. Surely Caverna knew it.

Sure, they tasted like beef, but I couldn’t help but be sickened by the monstrosities that had overwhelmed the slaughterhouse floor. Dozens of people inside were dead. All in the name of higher profit.

My computer monitor began to flash rapidly, counting down the moments until the incendiary devices would cause the plant to erupt in flames. That was the protocol. Genetically engineer monsters that taste like beef. If they break containment, destroy the plant and any staff trapped inside.

Insurance would pay to rebuild in a new town. The families would get a meager payout.

Caverna would just move on. Open a new plant. Breed more creatures.

Next time you’re at the grocery store, skip the Caverna Meats section. It may be a price you like, but you get what you pay for.