Chapter 2: Waking up dead 2
Time seemed to slow as the makeshift projectile whistled through the air, trailing blood and chunks of something Kaine didn’t want to identify. He threw himself sideways, hitting the alley’s brick wall hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs.
The head exploded against the wall inches from where he’d been standing, leaving a splatter of gore and bone fragments.
When Kaine looked up, gasping for breath, the bloodsucker was gone.
The alley fell silent except for the buzz of the dying streetlight and his own ragged breathing. Two bodies lay crumpled by the dumpster like discarded dolls. The third kid was nowhere to be seen—either escaped or dragged off for a snack.
Kaine pushed himself off the brick wall, wiping blood from a scrape on his cheek. Now that the trail was hot, he couldn’t lose it. The bloodsucker hadn’t gone far—he could smell it, that sickly sweet stench they all carried. It was a strange ability he had. Once he was within range of one, he could lock onto their smell and he wasn’t going to let this one go.
Following the scent led him deeper into a warehouse district, past abandoned loading docks and rusted chain-link fences. The trail ended at a converted shipping warehouse, its windows boarded up but light bleeding through the cracks.
Kaine pressed his ear to a side door. Voices inside, multiple speakers talking in low tones. One voice stood out—the bastard from the food truck, complaining about "some hunter showing up and ruining the feeding."
’Should call for backup,’ he thought, then remembered he didn’t have backup anymore. He no longer worked for the shadow guard anymore and that was a story for another day.
He tested the door handle. Unlocked. Either they were sloppy or confident. Probably both.
The warehouse floor opened into a nightmare assembly line. Dozens of people hung from meat hooks along the far wall, some conscious and whimpering, others unconscious or worse. Industrial-sized refrigeration units hummed along the opposite wall, probably full of harvested blood.
Eight bloodsuckers moved between the "inventory," checking vitals and making notes on clipboards like they were running an actual farm.