What On Earth Are My Uncle's Holiday Pies Made Of

Right before the fall harvest holiday, my uncle's bakery suddenly rolled out a special holiday pie, priced at a hundred dollars.

The rule was dine-in only, no takeout, and just ten made each day.

The strange part was that everyone who ate one swore it was something else entirely.

Aiden Lambert, a man in the last stages of cancer, ate one and slept straight through to morning.

Mamie Finch, who'd played mahjong for more than twenty years, ate one and couldn't be bothered to leave the house anymore.

A young girl who used to scroll videos until dawn didn't touch her phone for days after.

My younger brother, so hooked on games he'd go a month without stepping outside, ate one and never touched a game again.

"Games are boring. Nothing in this whole world is as interesting as those pies."

Something in me went cold at that.

I do biological research. I know normal food can't make pain disappear.

And it certainly can't make someone hooked on games suddenly lose all interest in them.

There had to be something in those pies.

So I went to buy one myself. Five days in a row, and I didn't get a single one.

I even camped out an hour early, and still came up empty.

The clerk told me the pies were already sold out, but there was clearly no one ahead of me in line.

Then, on the evening of the fifth day, my uncle called.

"Been trying to grab one for a few days now, haven't you?"

My stomach tightened.

"You've been curious about that pie this whole time, right? Why don't you come by the shop tomorrow?"

"I'll show you exactly how it's made."

...

The next morning, before the shop opened, my uncle brought me in through the back door.

"You wanted to know how the pies are made, didn't you? Let me show you."

The back kitchen was cleaner than I expected, just a few workers kneading dough.

I watched the whole thing, from the kneading straight through the seasoning, barely blinking.

No strange powder. No unidentified liquid.

I even picked up the seasoning jars and smelled every one of them. All completely normal.

My uncle laughed watching me.

"What's the matter? My pies taste good, so now you suspect me?"

I set the seasoning back down.

"I'm just curious why everyone who eats one acts like a different person."

Half an hour later, the first batch came out of the oven.

The smell filled the whole kitchen fast.

They really did look no different from ordinary savory meat pies.

My uncle picked one up, dropped it into a paper bag, and held it out to me.

"Fresh out of the oven. Want to try it?"

I took the bag, but I didn't take a bite.

"We've got a rule here. The pies have to be eaten in the shop. No takeout."

I hesitated. I still didn't dare eat it.

My uncle raised an eyebrow.

"You chased one for five days, and now that I'm giving you one, you won't eat it?"

Then he took the pie back out of my hand and broke it open.

Steam rose off it. Inside was ordinary meat filling.

He ate half himself, then handed the other half to a worker beside him.

The worker finished it in two bites. Nothing happened.

"Dare to eat it now?"

I shook my head again.

"Suit yourself."

But the more he did this, the stranger it felt.

If there really was something shady in the pies, why would he let me watch the whole process from start to finish?

He'd even eat one right in front of me.

On the way home, my brother's words kept running through my head.

"Nothing in this whole world is as interesting as those pies."

When I walked in, he was, of course, sprawled on the couch again.

The computer was off, his phone tossed on the coffee table, the whole of him looking like his soul had been drained out.

"Get up. You're coming to the hospital with me."

"I'm not even sick. I'm not going."

"Today you're going whether you want to or not."

In the end I dragged him off the couch and forced him into the car.

I had him screened for addictive substances. Everything came back negative.

My brother yawned beside me.

"I told you, I'm fine. Can we go home now?"

But if it wasn't any of these things, then what was it?

That evening, I swung by the bakery again.

The shop was already closing.

I was about to leave when the motion light over the back door suddenly flicked on.

My uncle came out the back, a black plastic bag in his hand.

The bag was heavy. He was walking slowly.

As he passed under the streetlight, I saw a large wet patch at the bottom of the bag.

A drop of red liquid slid down the corner and fell to the ground.

Whatever was in that bag, it looked like meat.

It wasn't until the uncle tossed it into his trunk and drove off

that I realized I might be losing my grip a little.

A savory meat pie shop.

A bag of bloody kitchen scraps carried out the back. Wasn't that completely normal?

I shook my head and turned to head home.

But I'd barely gone a few steps when a moment from that afternoon flashed through my mind.

The uncle had shown me the whole kitchen, but at the very back there was a cold-storage room.

I'd started toward it when he suddenly called me back.

It's just meat and supplies in there. Nothing worth looking at.

Then the first batch of pies came out of the oven, and I let it go.

But now that I thought about it, wasn't meat the whole point of a savory meat pie?

So the next afternoon, I went back to the shop.

When the uncle saw me, he didn't look the least bit surprised.

You again? Didn't you see everything yesterday?

I made my way toward the kitchen, trying to look casual.

There was still the cold-storage room I didn't see yesterday, right?

He paused for a second, then laughed.

What's there to see in there? You planning to inspect every brick in your uncle's shop?

Didn't dare eat one yesterday, so what about today? This morning's ten pies are already sold out. Want me to make you another?

But all I could think of was that bag from last night, dripping red.

I shook my head.

He clicked his tongue, smiling.

You come every single day to grab one, and when I actually offer, you won't touch it.

I stood there, and my suspicion actually eased a little more.

Would a man with something to hide be this open about it?

That day, the uncle had seemed to be blocking me. I couldn't get into the cold-storage room.

After I got home that night, I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep.

I picked up my phone and searched for ages. The internet was full of all kinds of nonsense.

Some people said certain special kinds of meat could stop pain.

Others said that in some remote places, long ago, human tissue was used in medicine.

The more I read, the harder I frowned.

I'd studied biology. There was no way I'd believe garbage like that.

But after Aiden Lambert ate one, his cancer pain really did vanish.

After the younger brother ate one, he really did seem like a different person.

These things alone were impossible to explain in any normal way.

I threw the phone aside and closed my eyes, and then an even crazier thought popped into my head.

At one in the morning, I climbed out of bed anyway.

There was a small window at the back of the bakery.

I stepped up on the junk crate beside it and climbed in through the window.

At night the shop was so quiet all I could hear was the hum of the freezers.

I turned on my phone's flashlight and walked all the way to the very back of the kitchen.

My heart pounded as I gripped the handle of the cold-storage door.

It wasn't locked. The moment it opened, a wave of cold air hit my face.

Inside, a row of shelves stood in neat order.

I went through several boxes. All of it was ordinary.

For a second there, I started to think I really had lost my mind.

Then my phone's light swept across the very back, and I froze.

Under the bottom shelf sat a white insulated box.

I crouched down and dragged it out.

The lid was tight. It took some effort to pry it open, and inside there was still a layer of kraft-paper wrapping.

I'd just reached in when a voice suddenly sounded behind me.

It's this late. What are you looking for?

My whole body went rigid.

The next second, the cold-storage light came on.

The uncle stood in the doorway.

Won't come in during the day, but you climb in through the window at night just to look?

You don't actually think these pies are made of human flesh, do you?

The cold went straight through me.

I'd never said those two words to a single soul. How could he know?

I stepped back without thinking.

But the uncle was standing right in the doorway of the cold-storage room, blocking the only way out.

I flung the lid in my hand at him and spun to run.

"What are you running for?"

I didn't dare look back.

Charging out of the cold room, my shoulder slammed into the doorframe hard enough to black out my vision.

I didn't even slow.

By day the back kitchen was maybe forty feet across. Right now it felt like it had no end.

Footsteps came fast behind me.

"Stop!"

I glanced back.

The uncle had grabbed a cleaver from beside the cutting board.

He really was going to kill me.

I scrambled up onto the windowsill, half crawling.

"Are you crazy? Get down first!"

Get down and wait to die?

I climbed out the window and lost my footing on the drop, my knee cracking hard against the ground.

No time for the pain. I got up and ran.

My phone was clamped tight in my hand, and I unlocked it as I ran.

Call the police. I had to call the police.

But the alley was too dark, and my foot caught a cardboard box on the curb and sent me sprawling.

The footsteps got closer.

I shrank back two steps.

"Stay away from me!"

He still had that cleaver in his hand.

"My phone's got location on. Anything happens to me, the cops come for you first!"

The uncle caught up and grabbed my wrist.

"Stop yelling!"

"You wanted to know what's inside? Fine. I'll show you right now!"

He hauled me back toward the shop, no arguing.

My eyes stayed on the cleaver in his hand, and my legs still wouldn't hold.

Inside the cold room, he let me go.

He crouched, lifted the lid, and ran the cleaver lightly across the top of the bag.

So the knife was for opening the bag.

Inside were only a few small sealed jars, holding something grayish-white that looked like dough.

The uncle picked one up and gave it a shake.

"This is a fermentation starter I keep going myself."

"The stuff's sensitive to temperature, so I store it separately in here."

For a long moment I couldn't say anything.

"Now you get why I had the knife?"

My face went a little hot. Then it hit me again.

"Then how did you know I suspected human flesh?"

The uncle pointed around the shop.

"You climb through the window in the dead of night, go digging through meat in the cold room."

"Then you see me and your face goes white as a ghost."

"You think I can't guess what's in your head? You really took your own uncle for a murderer?"

I said nothing.

He set the jar back in the box.

"Don't go home tonight. The meat delivery comes a little after four. See for yourself."

The uncle said the meat delivery came a little after four in the morning, so I stayed and waited.

Around two, I was so tired I got up to splash water on my face.

On my way back, my foot caught the trash can, and a few empty medicine boxes rolled out.

I bent down and picked them up.

Painkillers, and something for sleep.

All along I'd suspected there was some addictive substance in the pies.

But to keep a late-stage cancer patient out of pain for a while, you didn't necessarily need anything banned.

Ordinary hospital painkillers would do the same.

And Aiden being able to sleep through till morning after eating one.

That lined up with these drugs too.

I carried the boxes into the back kitchen.

"Uncle, why are these in the trash can in your office?"

He glanced over.

"Your cousin's medicine. The doctor prescribed it."

"You know how it is. The cancer's in his bones now, and sometimes the pain gets bad."

He took the box from me and flipped it straight over.

There was a hospital prescription label on the back, and the patient's name really was the cousin's.

It struck me as almost funny. These drugs weren't cheap.

The uncle's pies sold for ten bucks each. No reason to be dosing them with medicine.

At four thirty, a small delivery truck pulled up at the back door.

The second the driver climbed out, I knew him.

It was Roy Dickerson, who'd sold pork at the farmers' market for over a decade.

I used to buy meat from him all the time.

Roy opened the cargo hold, and side after side of dressed pork came down.

I checked it over myself. Nothing wrong with any of it.

The uncle turned to look at me.

"You feel better now?"

I didn't answer.

The first batch of pies came out of the oven fast.

The uncle lifted one out, golden and crisp.

The smell of meat spread all at once.

"You dare eat it this time?"

I stared at the pie and didn't refuse right away.

I'd even reached out for it.

Just as my fingertips were about to touch the paper bag, the image of the younger brother lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, flashed through my head.

And I stopped again.

"I won't."

The uncle wasn't the least bit surprised. He just took the pie back.

"Suit yourself. You'd think I was begging you to eat it."

"Ten a day, that's all. Plenty of people begging for them."

Then he went back to work.

I stood there, hit by a strange, unspeakable awkwardness.

These past few days, I'd looked for addictive substances, suspected human flesh, even climbed through a window in the middle of the night.

And every single thing turned out to be me overthinking.

Maybe... I really was too sensitive.

It was light out now, and people were starting to trickle in outside.

As I was getting ready to head home, I ran into Aiden.

He looked worse than he had the past few days.

One hand pressed against his stomach the whole time, and he walked bent over.

Once he had his pie, he sat down in a corner.

And ate it, bite by bite.

After a while, the crease in his brow slowly eased.

The hand that had been pressing his stomach dropped away too.

He even leaned back against the chair and let out a long breath.

"Better. I can finally go home and get some real sleep."

I didn't move for a long time.

Whatever this pie actually was, the effect was real.

And I'd looked into so much already and turned up nothing.

What this "better" everyone talked about actually felt like.

Just asking would never get me the answer.

I do biological research.

Feeling it once, myself, might be exactly what let me find the problem.

In the end I went back to the kitchen.

"Uncle, any pies left?"

He glanced at the counter.

"Gone. Today's ten are already sold out."

Hearing that, I felt a small stab of disappointment.

But the uncle stopped me.

He turned, went into the back, and came out with a paper bag.

"Made one extra today. Was going to keep it for myself."

"If you really want to try it, it's yours."

This time, I took it.

The first bite, and I paused.

Perfectly ordinary. Just a savory meat pie.

Not even as good as I'd imagined.

The words had barely formed in my head: this is it?

Then, the next second, a wondrous force swept through my whole body at once.

My gaze went hazy, and the words came out before I could stop them.

"Uncle, is there more? Please, just give me one more!"