'Monterey Pulp: The Barker Mysteries' excerpt

'Monterey Pulp: The Barker Mysteries'
Coming soon...
Excerpt from “Monterey Pulp: Book two of the Barker Mysteries” – look for it soon from PageTurner Editions . And look for their newly updated website coming soon as well!
The trail of blood began on the sand not ten feet away from where Barker walked with his dogs Dangler, Zero, Griz, Connor and Destiny. They were wet from swimming in the nearby surf. The hour was too early for most people, the sun had not yet risen, and a blue-gray sky hung overhead.
         Barker, after slipping on a pair of khaki pants and a loose fitting black tee shirt, knelt down to examine the red splatter.
         His boots were a mere ten feet away, right where he had left them prior to his swim with the dogs. The blood splatters had not been there then. Sitting down, Barker ran a finger through his short, dripping hair and began to tie his boots. The five canines contented themselves smelling the odd stains in the sand and marking the odd ice plants rooted along the shoreline as they waited for their master.
         “You probably want to go home and sleep on my legs, don’t you?” Barker asked them. “You’d like to be dreaming of chasing cars and burying bones before these beaches fill up with tourists, surfers and book readers, wouldn’t you?” He patted the small white Shih-Tzu, Zero, on the head. “I would prefer that myself.” He looked down at the dark stain seeping into the sand. Further up the beach, in the opposite direction of Bernie's Camelot, he saw additional bloodstains. “We should follow these stains.”
         Barker began to walk along the shore. With his hands in his pockets, he watched as the sky grew lighter and lighter overhead. In an hour it would be sunny and the beaches would fill with people. He contemplated the blood as he walked. Dangler, the large black Rottweiler, and Griz, the mixed breed coyote, sidled along beside him. The other three dogs scampered ahead.
         “Whoever’s bleeding all over the beach picked an odd spot to start bleeding, wouldn’t you say?” he asked his friends. Dangler’s ears pricked up. “It’s almost as if they waited to get within spitting distance of my shoes before letting the blood flow. One might think it was for my benefit. Look up ahead, guys. I wouldn't be surprised to find the path of blood leading us under that small canopy of trees and bushes.”
         Griz looked up at Barker with a questioning stare. He rubbed the dog’s ears and paused before heading into the direction of the stains. “The newspapers reported a drop in the community’s homeless rate. They say they’re disappearing from the Peninsula weekly. Some suggest the homeless aren’t leaving the Peninsula at all, however, but they’re simply disappearing off the face of the earth.” He looked at the bloodstains. “We seem to be being lured away. I wonder, could this have something to do with it?” He let go of the half-breed’s fuzzy ears.
         Up ahead, the other dogs stopped just prior to entering the small cluster of bushes and trees. The blood splatters on the ground disappeared into the bushes around the first of the trees.
         Barker whispered to himself. “I believe it’s time to meet the fisherman.”
         The area within the small cluster of pines lay covered in shadow. The waning sky had not yet penetrated there, leaving everything under the trees in darkness, Barker and the dogs included. The homeless man walked into the forest and stopped when he came upon a splatter of black on a large leaf ahead of him. Blood dripped from it. Barker looked at his feet and found something he had not expected to find - a dead fish, gutted and sliced, lay on the floor of pine needles and beach sand. Before Barker could grab it, the dogs leaped upon the fish and began rending it with their strong jaws.
         “No,” he ordered. “Drop it.” He knew, however, his pleas would go unanswered by the dogs. They were rather hard-headed when it came to free meals. Searching the area of forest around him, Barker thought for a moment he saw a dark shape moving nearby. It looked like a man. He felt a slight sting in his shoulder and looked down. A yellow dart with a small red feather stuck to the end of it hung from the flesh below his neck. The world around him began to spin. Barker’s legs turned to rubber. He fell to his knees. Nearby, the dogs coughed and hacked and collapsed one after the other.
         “If you’ve poisoned them,” Barker stammered. His vision faded to an ominous black. “I’ll… I’ll kill you.” His head dropped to the sand with a thump.