If you drank a Red Bull within in the past 90 days I sincerely hope you’re feeling well. But I am afraid for you.
I won’t write my name, for fear of what they’d do to me if they found out I’m writing this. I’ll call myself Zed. I worked at one of the Red Bull production factories in Austria for more than seven years. It was a good job. It helped me provide for my wife and children. Most who worked there were Austrian natives, but I am from a western country (again, can’t name it). I visited Austria as a young man, met my wife, and never left.
It wasn’t what my family back home wanted for me, which is probably why we speak so little. But I was a high school dropout trying to find his way in life. I bummed around Europe for two years just crashing on couches or spending the occasional night in a park. I got used to doing odd jobs for money and blowing it all on beer. But when I met my wife I felt something changed inside me. I promised her I would no longer be the useless bastard I was before. I would hold a steady job and become a man. A good man.
That is partially why I’m writing this. If I were back in the old days, I would have let this information go. It didn’t affect me, so why should I care? But I’m a better person now. What I know could have a lasting impact the lives of millions. I have no choice but to share this.
Our Red Bull facility is unique in that it both produces the liquid for Red Bull and bottles it all in one place. They most likely did this to save on transportation costs. I worked in the bottling portion of the factory. It wasn’t very exciting to say the least. I would stand next to a conveyer belt, the cans would move forward, the liquid would pour in, and the tops would put on last. My job was to basically watch this whole process day after day and make sure nothing went wrong. And nothing did go wrong for seven years. Sure, we had pile ups and spills, but that was ordinary. What happened in September was far worse.
The first time it came up was on just a typical day. I remember making pancakes for the kids and my wife sleepily kissing me goodbye as I left for work. Everyone was tired, as usual. I took my spot on the line, waiting for the whole process to begin.
Stefan, my coworker, was oddly talkative. He was a mostly quiet man with a very private life. But today he leaned over to me and gossiped like the children did. “No bulls,” he said. “Pigs this time.” He spoke German, obviously, so I’m translating.
“Huh?”
“No bulls for the product. The urine, I mean. They had to use pigs.” He tapped his fingers on the metal of the conveyer belt.
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
He rolled his eyes. “Urine. For the product.”
“That’s a myth,” I joked at him.
“No, it’s true. They don’t use as much as they did in the beginning, too expensive, but it’s still in there. Every last yellow drop. But these the bulls they use weren’t enough for this shipment. They had to mix it in with something else. That’s why they got the pigs.” He looked around and then whispered, “I heard they have something wrong with them.”
The conveyer began to turn on and Stefan moved back to his station. I shrugged him off. I spent the day doing the same old thing, watching the cans and pushing my button. At lunchtime we all went into the break-room. Julia, like usual, had a can of Red Bull with her. Not only did she work here, but she was addicted to the stuff. She cracked it open with a sigh. “Fresh off the line,” she said greedily, gulping it down.
Luckily I never touched the drink myself. It had a weird aftertaste I couldn’t get over.
Stefan was telling stories again. “These shipments are going out to North America soon. Not sure what’ll happen when it reaches them. No bulls, you know. Only pigs.” No one was taking him seriously.
Two weeks later, Stefan stopped showing up to work. There was no explanation, no nothing. Someone who lived near him checked his house but no one answered.
It was a Thursday, I think, when Julia had her seizure. Well, that’s what we thought it was. It was four weeks after Stefan disappeared. She flopped to the ground and thrashed like an insane person. None of us had ever experienced a seizure before. She was screaming, “They’re in my eyes! They’re in my brain!” Someone had the idea to shove a wallet in her mouth. I knelt beside her, trying to hold her head up. There’s when I noticed the oddity. There were three small squiggles in her left eye. They were swimming upwards.
Before I could figure out what was happening a supervisor instructed two men to take her away. He told us she had a seizure disorder. He said it was normal. Nothing to be afraid of.
We didn’t see Julia again.
I dreamt of the squiggles in her eye. I was standing in the break-room, except one of the walls had been replaced with a huge eye ball. One curly line began climbing up the eye, scooping bits of viscera as it ascended. Then two more followed. The lines started to come into focus. They looked like white snakes, except blood streaked their long bodies. One of them poked its head from the wall of the cornea, staring at me with its expressionless face. It had no mouth but I swear it smiled.
I woke up in a sweat, breathing shallowly. I could still hear Julia screaming even as I was awake. “They’re in my brain!”
Back at work a few others started suffering as well. It began with headaches. One person described it as a mild pain, then a pounding, and finally a jackhammer ripping through their skull. After the headache came odd vision problems. Small oddly shaped lines would pass across their line of sight. And finally, after just a few days, full-fledged fits. All of them screamed of something in their head. No one came back to work after suffering one.
The facility started to grow dreary. People were nervous to go to work. We never knew who would be next or what was happening. Finally the supervisors had a company meeting. I remember finding it odd that of our giant factory, only about 50% of the workers were present. Even the supervisors’ numbers had dwindled.
The big boss got in front of a microphone and spoke. His voice was calm but threatening. “You may have heard a rumor of something contaminating the product. This is simply not true. You will not be infected if you drink Red Bull. No one has died from it. Any gossip about infection is a lie. If you are caught discussing this lie, you will be terminated immediately. Any questions.” The way he said ‘any questions’ was not actually a question. It was a statement. It was a conclusion to his small speech.
None of us said a word. Another supervisor stepped to the microphone. His voice was much more timid. “At this time we are no longer allowing employees to drink product off the line. You may purchase Red Bull on your own time, but not during work. This is non-negotiable.” He shook a little.
After a few moments we were dismissed. No one spoke. But before I could leave the big boss pulled me aside.
“You’re Zed, right? From __?” (I edited out the country).
“Yes sir,” I replied, more than a little unnerved.
“How would you like to be a supervisor? Twice the pay and much less work.” He faked a smile. “We need talent like yours. Plus you speak perfect English. This is a plus for us.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I responded in confusion.
The big boss pulled out a white folder. “Read what’s in here. If you can accept it, then we will promote you. If you don’t feel…comfortable…then we will have a conversation.” He thrust it into my hands. “Now go home and get back to us tomorrow.”
I have not been completely honest with you, whoever is reading this. Although I do wish to hide my name, it is not because of what the company will do to me. It is because of what I will be doing tomorrow. You see the folder they handed me was a detailed description of how I was to take the blame for everything that happened. I was to pretend to be a high ranking supervisor at the plant. I would admit to allowing untested ingredients into the Red Bulls that were shipped to North America. I would explain that the company had no knowledge of this, and that it was my fault alone.
In return, the company would pay me handsomely every month for the rest of my life.
It was presented as a choice, but I knew it wasn’t really. If I said no to them the best scenario would be losing my job. The worst would be ending up like Stefan. I couldn’t do that to my wife, to my kids. I wanted to be a better man but I loved them more than I loved my own reputation.
So tomorrow, in a world-wide press conference, I am going to take responsibility for something I had nothing to do with. My name will be smearing across headlines. I will be an embarrassment. My family and I will have to move, to hide. But at least we will be safe. I hope.
But before I do all of this I want you to know what happened to those who drank the infected product. I need to tell someone, especially those of you in North America. Because maybe it will happen to you.
The product contains tape worms. Millions of them. They eat through your body like wolves tearing at a deer. Except these aren’t the ones you may have heard of. These don’t live in your stomach. They travel up to your brain. Like thin, hungry predators they move up your body and devour the insides of your skull. If you’re lucky you’ll survive long enough to tell your loved ones you love them. If you aren’t, you’ll meet the same fate as Julia. Writhing on the floor in agony, watching as they swim across your eye balls.
These infected products were shipped between September and November. The recall will start tomorrow but many of you have been exposed to the worms already. Please seek medical help. Maybe a doctor can save you. Maybe I can save you. But this won’t reach as many people as it needs to.
If you’re reading this and feel a headache coming on, or if you can see a small speck in the corner of your eye, I’m sorry. To tell the brutal truth, you might as well already be dead.