The Brazilian Blood Trials

Hello, dear reader, whoever you may be. If you are reading this document, it is likely that I have been dead for quite some time. By the time you are reading this, I suspect that you have gone through my other belongings, and you must then be aware of at least a small bit of what I did during my career with our government’s security agencies. What is not so clear in those official documents, however, is what ended my promising career and led you to find my belongings in this run-down estate in Panama. I seek not to preach to you or to proclaim my innocence in the events of these following pages. I merely aim to inform you that what is publicly known, and even what is in the “classified information” in the many other “official” documents, is nothing in comparison to what I have seen. To me, the events of that night in 1972 are just like yesterday. What I have written here is my personal account of what I found in Romania in 1971 and of the following Brazilian Blood Trials that took place.
– George Atwall, Panama 1975

Romania, March 20-30, 1971

Our story begins not in Brazil but on the frontlines of the Cold War, in the Soviet satellite state of Romania. I was first deployed to Romania in the early months of 1971. I was provided fake documentation to return to Romania, posing as an unfortunate communist who had wound up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. By this point, I had been working a basic farming job for a few months. The original aim was to merely record what military equipment the Romanian government was provided by the Soviet Union. By late March, I was supposed to use a small boat to quietly escape to Turkey and deliver the information I had gathered. Unfortunately for me, a few nights before I was set to depart, one of our informants told me of a strange scientist named Alucard. This scientist had allegedly been working with the Soviet government to use bats as spies across West Germany. At the same time, a drastic increase in the bat population had been recorded along the East-West German border. When I pushed for more information, my informants had little information aside from rumours. Allegedly, Alucard had been part of the aristocracy with King Carol II during the interwar and Second World War periods and had been known as a prominent member of the aristocracy before that during the First World War. Assuming this information was correct, Alucard had to be a very, very old man at this point. Along with this information regarding his age, according to my informants, nobody had seen him in many, many years.

Romania, April 1-5, 1971

Despite the lack of information from my informants, I was ordered to either get Alucard himself or his research documents and immediately escape to Turkey. My first thought was that, as a prominent scientist and member of the former aristocracy, now known as the enemies of the people, Alucard must be reliant on the Soviet government for medical treatment. Perhaps, if I could find this Alucard, I could escort him with me to Turkey and offer him world-class medical treatment in exchange for information on his experiments. Alucard would no doubt accept this deal, and he could live out the rest of his days with at least some form of dignity rather than working for those who no doubt took away his status and estate given his sudden disappearance from the public spotlight.

Romania, April 10, 1971

After pressing every informant and local contact I had for any possible information on the location, political status, and health of this scientist, all they were able to provide me with was the location of an old estate in Transylvania. This estate was apparently the main research site for Alucard, and it no doubt also served as his prison. As I was preparing for this operation, one of my closest contacts, Alexi Bogza, had been increasingly suspected of being an informant by the Romanian authorities. In order to save him, just as he had saved me many times, I managed to get an agreement with headquarters that would both save him and make my job easier. This was a win-win for everyone, given that headquarters was getting impatient for me to return with Alucard. The understanding was that, in exchange for his help in getting Alucard and his research out of Romania, Alexi would be granted political asylum. Alexi was hesitant, going on about various rumours regarding this old aristocrat, his estate, and what happened to those who came near it, but as he was desperate, we agreed to get either Alucard, his research, or both in the early hours of April 15th, 1971.

Transylvania, Romania, April 15, 1971, 00:00

The first few hours were normal enough, with small foot and vehicle patrols no different from the military bases that I had been sent to survey in the first place. But as we got closer to this old estate, rather than more security, we noticed fewer and fewer security measures in place.

By 02:00, we had managed to enter what can only be described as a castle through an old, damaged window leading into the basement. What we found was typical of an old estate: wine, books, and old paintings of aristocrats who are long since dead. Making our way through the building was surprisingly easy, as despite our concerns, almost no guards were present aside from the occasional KGB officer doing rounds before heading off to drink, a suspicion confirmed by the strong smell of alcohol on him. Alexi, following me closely behind, kept swearing he was seeing red eyes lurking in the dark, and every time I looked back at him, Alexi would look back like he had seen a ghost. While I had been doubtful of many of my informants, as they were mostly rural conservatives prone to rumour and suspicion, I had known Alexi to be quite rational and not prone to superstition. To ease his fears, I told him he was just getting jumpy and that he must have been seeing things, but I was also concerned, as I had seen those red eyes in the dark a few times myself. Whatever was watching us must have been some sort of experiment by Alucard, and I assumed it must have simply been a tool to reduce security, perhaps some bat trained to monitor our movements, but… why was it just watching us rather than alerting security?

At approximately 02:30, we entered what we could only assume was the main laboratory of Professor Alucard. It contained endless vials of blood and at least a few dozen cages containing at least three bats each. Alucard seemed to be experimenting with vampire bats, but how Alucard had gotten these bats all the way to Romania is unknown. I only knew these bats were vampire bats from Brazil based on what little documentation we were able to read and take with us. Near the back of the room were four coffins. Prying open one revealed a pale, cold, and long-since-dead body. Alucard must have been developing these bats to be used as a new method of assassination, as the KGB had been increasingly looking for new, more covert ways to eliminate the various defectors and informants in East and West Germany. Alucard was nowhere in sight, and lacking the time to search the entire estate, me and Alexi took what we could and ran. I swear I could feel those red eyes staring me down as we left. Ever since I picked up one of the bat cages, I felt them looking at me like fresh meat. Ever since we left that lab, I have felt them almost every night, but I took those damn bats regardless. Despite our fears, me and Alexi made it to Turkey.

Panama Canal Zone, Panama, August 10, 1972

It had been quite a few months since the events of April 1971. I had retired to Panama to lead security on the canal, an easy job to make money as an ageing retiree. I was still afraid, you know? I still felt those red eyes, even as I tried to separate myself from my past work. But, in early July, I had been contacted by my former boss, now some big shot in the CIA, and he told me I was urgently needed, and they weren’t asking.

The CIA had taken the few bats I had managed to bring back along with Alucard’s papers and began breeding them. They were feeding them large quantities of human blood, apparently mimicking the experiments performed by Alucard. They had set up a lab in a cave in western Brazil, and they told me and Alexi that they needed our help based on what we saw in person. I told them we saw nothing, as I never told them about whatever was watching us that night. I was adamant that the only information we had on the experiments was the documents we brought back with us. I was told regardless that we were needed and to meet at [redacted] in Mato Grosso, Brazil, in a few days.

Mato Grosso, Brazil, September 5, 1972

The SNI had been put in charge of this experiment, with the CIA only wanting the results, no matter how they got them. The SNI was more reckless, and with whatever it was that we saw back in Romania, that would only increase the risk of disaster. The SNI had continued breeding those bats we brought back, thus the need for a large cave. The cave entrance was blocked in by electric fencing from the floor of the cave to the celling. Along the right side of the cave was a mobile lab. It was essentially a long series of rooms connected by tubes to isolate the lab from the cave. This was necessary as the bats had grown… aggressive, far more so than the bats we had seen in the lab back in Transylvania. Before we were told what they expected us to do, they wanted to show us the three chambers and the current results they had collected.

The first chamber had bones of various kinds of animals: cows, pigs, sheep, etc. Given the number of bats they said they had managed to breed and the increased aggression in these bats, it was no shock that most of the animals had died within an hour in the first chamber. The second chamber was similar to the first, only the piles of bones seemed to get higher and higher as we progressed through. At this point, the only light source was coming from the lab’s spotlights. I must also note that the bats in the second chamber… were not bat-sized. The first chamber, closest to the entrance and most exposed to sunlight, had normal-looking bats, but in the second chamber they quickly began to grow in size, with a few being the size of a small child. The final chamber was pitch black and was ultimately the reason they had called us to “aid” in their research. In this final chamber, familiar pairs of red eyes peered back at us from the darkness.

Alexi had not been as discrete as I had been, most likely a result of his desperation to be granted political asylum, and he had told the scientists about the creature that was watching us back in Romania. The red eyes in the third chamber, I must note, looked far more… animalistic than whatever had been stalking us before. We were told that these bats had indeed learned to kill humans, and in fact, it became their preference rather than cows or sheep. The final chamber had human skeletons by the hundreds, but the problem was that as they went deeper into the cave, they detected less and less noise. This would indicate that there were far fewer bats in the third chamber, and how could so few bats cause the screams that they demonstrated when they showed us a human test subject being sent into the third chamber?

Mato Grosso, Brazil, September 6, 1972

Alexi and I were given a basic task: in each of the chambers, they had an adult male, approximately 20–30 years of age, strapped to a chair. The subjects, we were told, would last from one to three days, if lucky. The first chamber was not a problem, as during the day most of the bats retreated to the inner two chambers. The second and third chambers had become inaccessible as the cables to the lights the scientists would use to drive the bats away from the subjects had been chewed through. We were told to collect vials of blood from the three test subjects. The scientists had faith that we would be able to quickly collect the samples, as they had success collecting samples from the first two chambers before contacting us. We, however, were chosen because Alexi informed them of what we saw in Alucard’s lab. Whatever was in the third chamber had prevented all previous SNI and CIA agents from being able to approach the subject for a blood sample. These bats seemed to know when they were being fed and when their food might be taken away, and it had gotten to the point that the few scientists and agents who remained refused to collect any samples from the third chamber, as this might be seen as a threat by bats. They originally wanted to cut off the food supply to that chamber, but after recording increased agitation from whatever creature had grown in the third chamber, it was decided that placating its hunger would be the best decision until we could collect a sample from the subject to see how much of a threat the creature was. Regular vampire bats have draculin in their saliva to prevent their prey’s blood from clotting. So, the scientists concluded that taking blood samples from the area bitten would then provide us with a rough estimate of both the amount and size of the bats feeding.

Mato Grosso, Brazil, September 7, 1972, 00:00

Alexi and I had taken the samples from the first chamber on September 6th. The subject had passed from blood loss, but the blood samples seemed to indicate that these were almost regular vampire bats, aside from the increased aggression.

We entered the second chamber through the test chamber doors located deeper in the facility. Alexi was told to protect me as I took the samples; to do this, he was equipped with both UV and regular lights. The UV light helped us see the fresh blood trails and led us to the subject. We were able to collect the blood samples fine, but we did have to hide in a few of the rock formations and hold the regular light pointing outwards, as the large bats in this section of the chamber became far more aggressive upon detecting our movement, but they seemed far more sensitive to both UV and regular light. The test subject in this chamber, unfortunately for us, was still alive. The subject seemed to be in some sort of daze, but when he felt us take the sample, he seemed to snap to awareness and began screaming. Large bats quickly descended on top of us; I was able to escape with the sample… but Alexi was not so lucky… I am so sorry, Alexi.

I wanted to leave, but I was told that my previous withholding of information could end with me being the next subject in chamber three unless I got them their sample so they could end these trials. I now had to both use the light to defend myself and use the equipment to take at least three samples from this last subject, as they had no other samples from chamber three up until this point. Aside from the doors sealing behind me, it was silent in this chamber. There were no bat sounds or any animal noises whatsoever. I did, however, feel something watching me. I had to use the light to keep whatever it was away, as it was fast, and if it got close, I would have no chance to stop it. When I made it to the third subject, they also seemed in a daze like the last subject, but this seemed different. They did not flinch when I took the first sample or the second. I had to get close to find a vein that I could puncture for the last sample, and that’s when it happened. The fucker bit me. I felt his teeth, far longer than those of a normal human, rip a chunk of my shoulder and cause blood to pour out. Whatever creature was watching this from the darkness was unable to wait anymore. I heard a shriek from the darkness, but my blood, now on the third subject, must have been distracting enough, as I was flung off as whatever creature was stalking me devoured what was left of the subject. I was lucky, as I was able to find a place to hide and patch up my injury. I could not tell whose blood was mine and whose was the subject’s. I managed to use this mix of blood to escape questioning and hide my injury, as the scientists were far too focused on the results from the blood samples to bother examining me. I don’t know what was in that cave, but whatever it was, I hope they killed it.
– George Atwall, Panama 1975

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Now, dear reader, this is my story. I hope you can believe me. I don’t know what they did with those subjects or whatever fate befell the creature in the cave. I do, however, understand it better than anyone else, dead or alive. You see, dear reader, I escaped that cursed cavern, but that bite… changed me. I began to change in 1973. At first, it was just not being able to handle the sun. Then there was a desire to eat raw meat. Then, more… exotic tastes, by 1975, nothing I ate would satisfy my hunger. I now understand those creatures feeding on my poor friend. I also understand why those red eyes in Transylvania looked so hungry. I have become so thirsty over the past few years, and before you came… I was not given any subjects to feed upon.

Credit: Snowy The Cat