Dog Blood

through the trees…”
    On the opposite side of the road we’re following is a dense forest. I squint into the semidarkness to try to see whatever it is he thinks he’s spotted. He shuffles around and hops away from me, moving toward a gap in the trees that stretches farther into the gloom. I look down and see that there are muddy tire tracks curving onto the road from the mouth of a barely visible track.
    “What do you reckon?” he asks.
    “Got to be worth a look. There wouldn’t be a track if it didn’t lead somewhere.”
    “Might be more of them down there…”
    He tries to speed up again, eager to kill, but I pull him back. I’m not sure. This doesn’t feel right. I can see the outline of a large building up ahead on the edge of a clearing, and I cautiously edge closer. The building is huge and box-shaped, like a warehouse-but why here out in the middle of nowhere? I take another few steps forward, and realization slowly begins to dawn. Shit, I know what this place is.
    “What’s the matter, Dan?”
    I don’t answer. Can’t answer. My mouth’s suddenly dry, and my legs feel like lead. I should turn around and walk away, but I don’t, and I keep moving forward on autopilot, my mind racing. We enter a dusty, gravel-covered yard, lines of mazelike wooden barriers making it look like a deserted, out-of-season tourist attraction. Up ahead the building’s doors hang open like a gaping mouth.
    “What is this?”
    “You don’t know?”
    He shrugs his shoulders.
    “Should I?”
    “Slaughterhouse.”
    Adam leans against the nearest barrier and works his way along it toward the open door.
    “You told me about these places, but I…”
    “What? You didn’t believe me?”
    “It’s not that…”
    He stops talking and I stop listening. Like a character in a bad horror movie, I walk into the building. It’s almost pitch black inside, but I can see enough to know that we’re in a narrow corridor with a set of heavy double doors directly ahead. It’s musty and damp in here, the faint scents of the forest and wood smoke mixing with the heavy, acrid stench of chemicals and decay. I wish I had a flashlight. The gloom makes it too easy to remember the night I almost died in a place like this. Standing here in the dark I can still see the helpless, terrified faces of the people crammed around me as we were herded like cattle toward the killing chamber. I remember their lost and desperate expressions, the confusion, frustration, and pain so evident. I remember my own terror, convinced I was about to die…
    “You okay?” Adam asks, finally catching up and nudging into me from behind. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped walking. I feel like I’ve stepped out of my body and now I’m watching from a distance. It’s a nauseous, unsettling feeling, like the nervous relief you feel when you walk away without a scratch from a crash that’s just written off your car. You’re thinking, How did I get away with it? How close was I to biting the bullet? and then your mind starts with the “what ifs” and “if onlys”… I know that if I’d have been another hundred or so people farther along the line that night, I’d be a dead man now.
    I lean up against one of the doors in front of me. It moves freely, and I shove it open and walk into what must have been the gas chamber. The dark hides the details of what I know is all around me. There are bodies here. I have no idea how many, but I can see their shapes stacked up in featureless piles. The cavernous room is filled with the buzzing of thousands of flies gorging on dead flesh, and I keep looking up to avoid looking down. There’s a hole in the roof three-quarters of the way down the length of the room, and I can just about make out metal gantries and walkways high up on either side. Wide-gauge pipework weaves in and out of the walls of the building, and an enormous exhaust fan has been mounted at the far end of the room, its blades still turning slowly in the gentle evening breeze.
    “Let’s get out,” Adam whispers from somewhere close behind me. “Fucking stinks in here.”
    I move forward again, dragging my feet along the ground so I don’t trip over anything I can’t see, convinced that the entire floor is covered with gore and bits of bodies. I kick bits of wood and twisted chunks of metal out of the way-remnants of the fallen section of roof-and finally reach the far wall, my pace almost as slow as Adam’s. I work my way along, trying