SCP-3896
Item#: 3896
Level3
Containment Class:
safe
Secondary Class:
none
Disruption Class:
vlam
Risk Class:
danger


diner.jpg

SCP-3896

Special Containment Procedures: The section of Alabama Route 43 four miles in either direction of SCP-3896 is to be patrolled by a contingent of Mobile Task Force Rho-66 “Road Hogs”, with exit ramps leading to SCP-3896 blocked under the pretense of ongoing road work.

All advertisements and employment listings referencing “Big Gordo's Grub Shack” are to be immediately censored and pulled from circulation.

Under no circumstances are Foundation personnel permitted to approach within 200 meters of SCP-3896. If this occurs inadvertently for any reason, other on-scene personnel are forbidden from attempting to retrieve the individual if they attempt to enter SCP-3896, and are directed to prepare amnestic treatment to be administered to the affected individual immediately upon their return.

Description: SCP-3896 is "Big Gordo's Grub Shack", a diner located approximately two miles north of Littleville, Alabama, United States of America. The establishment exhibits a number of overlapping mind-affecting anomalous properties, which vary in extent and potency.

The first of these is an autoamnestic and behavioral filter which extends to a radius of roughly 120 meters from the restaurant's walls, including the entirety of the parking lot and a portion of the approaching road. Any individual within this field is rendered incapable of acknowledging that any of the events experienced on the premises are unusual, socially unacceptable, illegal, or otherwise negative, and will behave accordingly for the duration of their stay. However, this does not affect memory or sensory perception, and those exiting this effective radius will immediately regain their previously held beliefs and behavioral inhibitions, becoming aware of the ramifications of any experiences or actions undertaken and suffering any resultant psychological trauma as normal. Amnestic treatment has proven effective in reversing these aftereffects.

This effect field also removes any individual's intent to impede or disrupt the internal procedural status quo of the restaurant's operations. This combined with the structure's tinted windows and imperviousness to active/passive penetrative scanning has made direct research and intervention by Foundation personnel impossible, as researchers and tactical teams consistently forget their orders and enter the restaurant with the intent to patronize its business rather than execute their assigned mission.

However, recording equipment carried by entering personnel consistently functions, and as such indirect observation of SCP-3896's interior is possible.

SCP-3896 operates in a fashion largely indistinguishable from a non-anomalous diner. The restaurant's interior is actively operated, maintained, and cleaned by the restaurant's non-anomalous staff. No individuals, equipment, furniture, decorations, nor any other items have displayed anomalous properties in any capacity. Patrons enter, interact with wait staff, order their meals from a menu, eat, pay for said meals, and depart as normal. SCP-3896's sole deviation from traditional restaurant operational practice is in the content of the meals provided.

SCP-3896's menu is comprised entirely of “dishes” partially or wholly comprised of raw and coarsely-butchered human flesh, occasionally accompanied by other ingredients. These menu items are often arranged in ways that make no attempt to conceal this fact, and are plainly evident to all patrons present. However, these items are listed on SCP-3896's menu as ordinary items typical of a restaurant of its type, and patrons will behave as though the meal they receive is what they have ordered. Examples of several menu items include:

  • “Steak and Eggs, $9” - Whole uterus with attached fallopian tubes, served with 5-7 ovaries
  • “Coffee, 89c, free refills” - A mug of heated blood
  • “Eggs Benedict, $8” - Two circular slabs of dermal tissue, topped with a severed ear each and doused with a thin fluid, presumed to be bile
  • “Huevos Rancheros, $7” - Approximately one dozen testicles, served atop a section of peeled scalp and sprinkled with fingernails
  • “Grilled Ham and Cheese, $8” - A hand severed at the wrist, with all bones removed, served upright arranged in a “thumbs up” gesture
  • “Chicken Caesar Salad, $10” - Whole decapitated torso with limbs removed, either male or female, chest cavity stuffed with approximately 100 severed tongues
  • “Banana Split, $3.50” - A laterally bisected penis atop a bowl of coiled intestines, topped with whipped cream and a single maraschino cherry
  • “Big Gordo's Blockbuster Burger, $13” - An apparently non-anomalous cheeseburger, cooked to order and served with lettuce, tomato, guacamole, bacon, caramelized onions, chipotle mayonnaise, and a fried egg. Notably the only SCP-3896 menu item that appears to match its listed description.

Each customer within SCP-3896 has consumed the entirety of their meal with the exception of any bones, despite occasionally receiving items far larger than the capacity of the human stomach. No exiting customer has ever been observed to suffer adverse medical effects resulting from these meals, despite their size and constituent materials.

Registration information and permits for a “Big Gordo's Grub Shack” do exist within Littleville's municipal administrative department, although the documentation is either incomplete or improperly filed, with administrative inconsistencies such as forms listing the building's owner as only “Big Gordo”, fields listing the owner's Social Security number as “nope”, and the “Reason for Permit Request” block of the business registration form containing only the word “food” written in bacon grease.

Analysis of SCP-3896 employees' appearances and uniform nametags have consistently matched a number of missing persons reports filed by police precincts across the state of Alabama. For unknown reasons, none of these law enforcement organizations have successfully linked these reports to SCP-3896, despite the fact that advertisements for SCP-3896 employment positions have been detected on an approximately bimonthly basis within various Alabama newspapers and on the classifieds section of websites such as Craigslist.1 No employee has ever been observed to arrive at or enter SCP-3896, nor have any been seen to depart the premises at any time.

Employees of SCP-3896 do not display remarkable or unusual behaviors aside from a lack of acknowledgment of the nature of the “food” provided. Additionally, recovered footage has only definitively recorded the presence of wait staff, with no chefs or culinary staff in evidence. The sole indication of the existence of a “chef” present within the restaurant was obtained from a brief moment of chest camera footage from an early Mobile Task Force exploratory sortie, wherein a task force operative under the effects of SCP-3896's behavior-altering anomaly stood from his booth mid-meal to use the restroom and inadvertently angled his camera toward the serving window leading to the kitchen. The view into the window, consisting of approximately 2 seconds of footage, is greatly obscured by the presence of a large quantity of smoke and steam. However, frame-by-frame analysis clearly shows the silhouette of an extremely large, obese humanoid entity at the rear of the room with its back to the camera, having an estimated height and weight of 2.2 meters and 400 kilograms respectively. It is unclear whether this entity is the eponymous “Big Gordo”, though it is presumed to be responsible for the sounds of falling meat cleavers and deep, low laughter heard throughout the majority of SCP-3896 exploratory footage.

Addendum 3896-01: On August 13th, 2015, shortly after SCP-3896's containment and initial visual surveillance, two male waiters exited the rear entrance of the restaurant and remained within the rear parking lot for approximately 6 minutes, apparently for the purposes of a brief break mid-shift. A nearby Foundation surveillance unit was able to record their conversation, a transcript of which follows.

Date: 13 August, 2015
Observed: Two employees of SCP-3896, nametags listed as “Daniel” and “Mario”. Names and appearances match missing persons reports corresponding to Daniel Walker (26) and Mario Trujillo (25), reported missing 122 days and 11 days prior, respectively.

(Walker and Trujillo exit the restaurant and light cigarettes, remaining near the restaurant wall. Both smoke quietly for a moment.)

Trujillo: Pretty crazy shift today, huh? Busy as hell.

Walker: Yeah, I've heard it gets like this in summer. Lots of people on the interstate, on vacation and shit.

(Pause.)

Trujillo: Hey, uh… I don't think I ever mentioned it, 'cause we're so busy all the time, not a lot of chances to talk or whatever, but uh… Thanks for like, helping me out, with uh… like the adjustment process. It would have been way harder to get settled in here without you being willing to show me the ropes and get me on my feet, and uh… I don't know. I just really appreciate it. If that's not like, awkward. Or… y'know.

(Walker continues smoking for a moment, and nods.)

Walker: Pff. Don't sweat it, dude. I was you, once. It's definitely fast-paced in there, and I know how it feels. 'Specially if you don't have a lot of food service experience. You said you were a… what, like a nerd or something before this?

(Trujillo laughs.)

Trujillo: Yeah, I uh, got my degree in IT and had a job at a software company in Birmingham. For a bit. Did servers, e-mail and shit.

(Walker turns to look at Trujillo and raises an eyebrow.)

Walker: That's like, way better than bussing tables and mopping floors, dude. I definitely don't have a fucking degree. If I did I probably never would have come here at all. How come you quit that good nerd shit for this?

(Trujillo sighs.)

Trujillo: It's… hard to explain. And it's gonna sound stupid as fuck probably.

Walker: Dude c'mon. We're fucking pals. I ain't gonna like, judge you or anything. How come?

Trujillo: Like… haha, fuck, this sounds so dumb. But like… I mean, the job paid well. It wasn't hard or anything, the hours were fine. But the whole time I was there, I just felt so fucking numb. Like, I was just this shitty computer goblin that showed up and fixed the dumb shit people did to their e-mail, or reset their account when they forgot their password and whatever. Like I don't know what the fuck I thought it was going to be, but it wasn't what I ended up getting. I didn't make any friends and like… I've never been good at talking to people anyway. I just felt so fucking bored, and alone. Like completely directionless.

Walker: Yeah, I get that.

Trujillo: So one day I was just sitting on my apartment steps smoking and hating myself when I saw a newspaper, sitting right there in front of me. Open, the classifieds. And I saw this and it was just like… like this fucking crystallizing moment. It just sounded right, somehow. So I was just like, fuck this. I'm gonna go work at a place where shit actually happens, where I can turn a new leaf. Work at a place that's tight-knit, where people know and actually talk to each other, and you work hard and it sucks but like, it's honest, and… fuck, it really does sound stupid when I say it out loud, haha.

Walker: Nah, dude. I get that shit completely. That's why I quit my old shit and came here too. Wanted to make a change. Be a part of something. A little something, but still something. Fucking camaraderie or whatever they call it. Like, you got your family, but people should have a work family too, and I didn't have that. Got it here, though. Straight up.

Trujillo: Yeah! Yeah, that's fucking exactly it. Fuck yes. Haha, man, I thought like… I thought I was just fucking crazy or something.

Walker: I mean shit, you might be. But then I am too. And so are the rest of us.

(Pause.)

Walker: Oh shit, dude, I forgot to tell you, Big Chef's dead.

Trujillo: Oh shit, nice! Just in fucking time, too, Sarah told me we were starting to run out. She said there's gonna be like, a thing? No one's like, told me much about that.

Walker: I mean, I dunno if I'd call it like a thing thing, but sort of. We do like a little get-together, say some words, just basic shit before we start grinding and doing the rest of the prep. It's not really a big big deal, but you gotta kind of do the whole thing right or it'll fuck up and we'll have to take the burgers off the menu for a bit, which would be shitty. Last time that happened Big Chef chewed our asses out when he came back, he was pissed. Not like, kick your ass pissed or anything, but he's like, really passionate about making sure the customers always get what they ask for. The burger is like, his signature dish too, so he's kind of proud of it. And shit, I would be too, talk about fucking tasty.

Trujillo: I haven't had one yet.

Walker: Oh dude, you have no idea what you're missing. It's gonna fucking destroy your whole life. Like, you don't even know what food is until you have one of Big Chef's burgers. But after the thing we always have a little barbecue every time Chef dies, so I'll grill you up one myself. He taught me how to do it right, you're gonna fucking love it.

Trujillo: Nice! Thanks, dude.

(Trujillo sighs.)

Trujillo: Man. I cannot fucking wait until I'm on the menu.

Walker: I know dude. You were only here for like, two days I think, but do you remember Dave?

Trujillo: Oh man, how could I fucking forget? The look on his face. I was so goddamn jealous. How long was he here, again?

Walker: I think… something like five or six months. We got here almost the same time.

Trujillo: Oh shit dude, so you might be next up!

Walker: Yeah man, maybe. I've been working like a bastard, been doing all the right stuff. I don't know for sure for sure or anything, but I talked to Big Chef a couple days ago about it, like trying to be sneaky and try to find out what's up? And like, I mean he's obviously not gonna say anything direct, but long story short I'm pretty fucking sure I'm next. So fucking excited.

Trujillo: Fucking absolutely dude. I'm happy for you. Like I said, I'm super fucking hyped. Finally. I finally feel like I'm a part of something that fucking means shit, you know? Letting go of all this stupid bullshit. Finding some goddamn meaning, seeing the bones of everything and feeling that fucking beating heart in the middle of it all. Feeding the goddamn universe, man. Fuck I'm lucky.

(Walker flicks his cigarette into the parking lot.)

Walker: We all are. Praise Gorzugaal, motherfucker.

(Trujillo discards his own cigarette.)

Trujillo: Fuck yes, dude. Praise Gorzugaal. Speaking of which, I'm hungry as shit.

Walker: Yeah man, me too. He's right inside. Let's eat.



Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License