When I slumped off my bike after two and a half hours, I was covered in fine red dust streaked with rivulets of sweat and patches of blood.
By Saturday evening, patches of blood were visible high on the front walls of the church, which was pockmarked with holes.
We had patches of blood on us and I remember searching my body for wounds, but I didn't find any.
(There's also the question of what the blood actually says about how dark it was, but we'll put that, and the other patches of blood and broken glass found all over the apartment, aside for a moment).
Within minutes of the attack, as police vehicles and ambulances arrived on the scene and medics treated the wounded, sprawled in patches of blood along a quarter-mile route, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was hovering overhead in a helicopter.
A small supply truck carrying food and drink for the fighters parked next to the taxi full of bodies and the flies buzzed between the rebels' water can and the dried patches of blood in the street.
Here in Barrow, the snowy flats by the beach where the whales are butchered (the snow covers an old runway used by the former Naval Arctic Research Laboratory) are splashed with patches of blood and guts until more snow falls.
They collected dozens of bodies, apparently of people executed on the hotel grounds several days ago, but left other evidence behind, like the plastic ties that were used to bind the hands of victims and shell casings, scattered on the dead grass in patches of blood.
Dark, wet patches of blood soaked into the mud floor.
