Every single day, a 70-year-old retiree visited the same butcher shop and ordered forty kilograms of beef.

The butcher, puzzled by such a massive order, decided one day to explore it what she was really doing with all that meat and what he found was beyond anything he could have thought.

The old woman was small and hunched, wrapped in a worn-out coat, her wrinkled hands gripping the handle of a dented metal cart. “Forty kilos, same as always,” she replied, sliding a neat stack of bills across the counter.

The young butcher weighed the slabs of meat in silence, unable to conceal his astonishment. Forty kilograms – every single day. At first, he thought that she was feeding a large family, but as weeks passed, the routine never altered.

The woman barely spoke, never made eye contact, and carried with her a strange metallic odor that reminded him of rust and decay. Soon, whispers started circling through the marketplace:

– “She must be feeding a pack of dogs.”
-“No, I heard she runs a secret diner somewhere.”
-“Maybe she’s got a freezer full of meat for winter.”

The butcher dismissed the rumors, but his curiosity gnawed at him. Finally, one freezing evening, he decided to follow her.

He waited until she left, dragging her heavy cart through the snow-dusted streets. The woman moved slowly but with purpose, heading toward the outskirts of town. She passed rows of abandoned garages and finally stopped at an old, crumbling factory and one that had been shut down for over a decade.

She slipped inside with the meat, disappearing into the shadows. Twenty minutes later, she renewed—empty-handed. The next day, the same thing occured.

On the third evening, unable to consist of himself, the butcher crept inside after her. The air inside was thick with an unsettling smell – bl00d, iron, and something wild. Then he heard a low rumble that made his skin crawl.

Peering through a crack in the wall, he froze.

Inside the cavernous hall were four enormous lions, their golden eyes glowing under the faint light. Bones and meat scraps littered the floor. In the corner, on a tattered armchair, sat the old woman, stroking one of the beasts and muttering softly:

“Easy, my darlings… soon you’ll have another fight… the people will be here to watch…”

The butcher collapsed back, his breath catching. One of the lions roared, shaking the entire building. The old woman’s head grabbed.

“What are you doing here?!” she whispered, her voice more animal than human.

Frightened, the butcher bolted outside and called the police.

When officers arrived, the truth was explosed. The woman was once a zoologist who had taken several lions after the local zoo closed down “to maintain them from starving.” But over time, desperation and greed twisted her motives.