Dying Bites: The Bloodhound Files-1 by DD Barant
Authors: DD Barant
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Romance, Fantasy fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, Fantasy, Fantasy - Contemporary, Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Occult fiction, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Vampires, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Horror & Ghost Stories, Werewolves, Serial Murders, Criminal profilers, Serial Murder Investigation
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the Shinsou pulls into the small station, where we disembark and off-load a vehicle from one of the cars. It’s a blocky, futuristic-looking SUV with enough halogens mounted on it to light a production of Phantom of the Opera and big, monster-truck tires and suspension. I have to climb a ladder to get in.
Dying Bites – Bloodhound Files 01
Page 85 of 370
Tanaka takes the wheel and we head off, down a narrow paved road that leads through a small skiing village and then into the mountains proper. We turn off the road onto a winding gravel trail cratered with potholes, scrubby pine crowding both sides. The overcast sky has darkened to twilight, the unseen sun crawling into bed behind the mountains.
The road ends at a large wire gate, set into a rusted wire fence that vanishes into treeshadow on either side. There’s no sign, just a sheet of paper in a transparent envelope attached to the fence with plastic ties and a shiny new chain padlocked to the frame. Tanaka gets out and opens it up, then drives us inside.
The camp isn’t far down the road. It’s a collection of dilapidated wooden buildings, most of them on stilts—to prevent tunnels, I suppose. Two long rows of cabins that must have been for housing, and a larger, two-story building beyond them. We park in front of it and get out.
“This is the processing center,” Tanaka says. “It’s been largely gutted. Prisoners were taken inside, bitten, then locked in cells for their first change. It was deemed inefficient to wait for the full moon, so transformation was induced by sorcery.”
The front doors are gone, ripped from their hinges long ago. There are no windows. Tanaka leads us up a short flight of steps and inside, moving carefully over rubble. The interior is dark, but we’ve all been given flashlights; the beams play over a large foyer, with two more doorless entryways in the far wall. Bright yellow triangular pylons mark off an area in the middle of the room, where I can see a large pool of dried blood. There’s an X-shaped void outlined by a yellowish discoloration in the exact center of the stain, with holes near each of the four ends.
“This is where the pole was bolted to the floor?” I ask.
Dying Bites – Bloodhound Files 01
Page 86 of 370
“Yes. We have it and the other physical evidence on the train, including the body of the victim—or rather, what’s left of it.” The yellowish stain must have been caused by the physical remains of the vic’s body, which had mostly liquefied by the time it was discovered.
I look around the room. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing. There’s a six-foot-high wheeled wooden barrier running parallel to the wall on my left. It looks a little like a mobile bar, except it’s too high and too narrow, no more than six inches wide.
Tanaka pulls on a pair of latex gloves and walks over to it. He grabs one end and pulls it aside, revealing a series of holes in the wall behind it. They’re all about the same size, maybe six inches in diameter, and are at different heights; most are about three feet off the floor, though some are lower.
“This is the processing queue,” he says. “Inductees were required to place their arm through the wall, up to the elbow. This partition was wheeled closely enough to press against their bodies, then locked in place to prevent them from withdrawing. A purebred lycanthrope on the other side would bite each forearm in quick succession.”
I tried to imagine what it must have been like. Marched in by guards like the ones outside the NSA offices, their animal musk overpowering. No words, just growls and snarls, long clawed fingers pointing where you were supposed to go. The vulnerability of shoving a limb into a dark hole, wondering if the next thing you were going to feel was fangs tearing it off. The hard wood of the barrier pressing against your back, your face pushed into the wall like a child being punished. The people on either side of you, some of
Dying Bites – Bloodhound Files 01
Page 85 of 370
Tanaka takes the wheel and we head off, down a narrow paved road that leads through a small skiing village and then into the mountains proper. We turn off the road onto a winding gravel trail cratered with potholes, scrubby pine crowding both sides. The overcast sky has darkened to twilight, the unseen sun crawling into bed behind the mountains.
The road ends at a large wire gate, set into a rusted wire fence that vanishes into treeshadow on either side. There’s no sign, just a sheet of paper in a transparent envelope attached to the fence with plastic ties and a shiny new chain padlocked to the frame. Tanaka gets out and opens it up, then drives us inside.
The camp isn’t far down the road. It’s a collection of dilapidated wooden buildings, most of them on stilts—to prevent tunnels, I suppose. Two long rows of cabins that must have been for housing, and a larger, two-story building beyond them. We park in front of it and get out.
“This is the processing center,” Tanaka says. “It’s been largely gutted. Prisoners were taken inside, bitten, then locked in cells for their first change. It was deemed inefficient to wait for the full moon, so transformation was induced by sorcery.”
The front doors are gone, ripped from their hinges long ago. There are no windows. Tanaka leads us up a short flight of steps and inside, moving carefully over rubble. The interior is dark, but we’ve all been given flashlights; the beams play over a large foyer, with two more doorless entryways in the far wall. Bright yellow triangular pylons mark off an area in the middle of the room, where I can see a large pool of dried blood. There’s an X-shaped void outlined by a yellowish discoloration in the exact center of the stain, with holes near each of the four ends.
“This is where the pole was bolted to the floor?” I ask.
Dying Bites – Bloodhound Files 01
Page 86 of 370
“Yes. We have it and the other physical evidence on the train, including the body of the victim—or rather, what’s left of it.” The yellowish stain must have been caused by the physical remains of the vic’s body, which had mostly liquefied by the time it was discovered.
I look around the room. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing. There’s a six-foot-high wheeled wooden barrier running parallel to the wall on my left. It looks a little like a mobile bar, except it’s too high and too narrow, no more than six inches wide.
Tanaka pulls on a pair of latex gloves and walks over to it. He grabs one end and pulls it aside, revealing a series of holes in the wall behind it. They’re all about the same size, maybe six inches in diameter, and are at different heights; most are about three feet off the floor, though some are lower.
“This is the processing queue,” he says. “Inductees were required to place their arm through the wall, up to the elbow. This partition was wheeled closely enough to press against their bodies, then locked in place to prevent them from withdrawing. A purebred lycanthrope on the other side would bite each forearm in quick succession.”
I tried to imagine what it must have been like. Marched in by guards like the ones outside the NSA offices, their animal musk overpowering. No words, just growls and snarls, long clawed fingers pointing where you were supposed to go. The vulnerability of shoving a limb into a dark hole, wondering if the next thing you were going to feel was fangs tearing it off. The hard wood of the barrier pressing against your back, your face pushed into the wall like a child being punished. The people on either side of you, some of
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