There were no real grounds for sectioning Mrs. Emily Spillane under the Mental Health Act, since she was not violent or a danger to herself, and suffered only from a fixed delusion.
In the end she voluntarily spent three months in a psychiatric ward in England before checking herself out and resuming her life. She admitted that perhaps her ideas had become delusional, but we must take into account the views of Dr. Trevey and Dr. Ramachadran, both of whom have informed me that they believe she was only humouring the facility staff.
Furthermore, there are those among the police who actually lend credence to Mrs. Spillane’s story. What can I say? Police these days are not up to the standards of my youth. They let anyone into the Police Force now. As for Inspector Medway, a man fast-approaching retirement and more than sixty years of age at the time, he should have known better.
Emily and her husband Adam lived in York, England, until 2018. At this point Adam, a photographer, was offered a job in Milan, Italy, and Emily seems to have been happy enough to quit her nursing career and move to Milan with him. Rather than attempt to find new work as a nurse in Milan, she began to work on a blog, documenting their lives in Italy.
In 2018 Adam was only 26 years old, and Emily 24. The move must have seemed an exciting adventure for the young couple.
They stayed on in Italy after Britain left the European Union, and in 2023 they moved to Bologna. Their lives and thoughts are elaborately documented on Emily’s website. I have read through all her posts carefully, and I can detect no sign of mental derangement, but it is clear that the couple were experiencing some difficulties.
As to the nature of these difficulties, we have only Emily’s side of the story, and from that it appears that Adam had begun drinking rather heavily, and Emily suspected him of having affairs with the models he photographed.
While she doesn’t say so explicitly, I suspect that is a factor in why they decided to move again. They were attempting to make a fresh start.
Her website extensively documents their house search. The lack of opportunity during the COVID pandemic had impacted their finances rather negatively, and it seems their choices were dictated in large part by the cheapness of houses in the Veneto region. A small house in the picturesque middle of nowhere could be had for twenty thousand euros.
The plan was for Adam to give up his work as a photographer for various fashion houses and to work on the website with Emily. She had amassed quite a following by then, and with the addition of Adam’s photography, the site might well have gone from strength to strength.
Instead, it turned into a horror story.
Let’s be clear about this: there is no way we can know for sure what actually happened. I believe the account that Medway constructed in consultation with his acquaintances in the Italian police, to be essentially a work of fiction.
What I can say is this: we have not only the blog, but also numerous photographs, videos and audio recordings made by the couple at the time, alongside court transcripts, and at no point does Medway’s fanciful work contradict the established facts.
What now follows is Medway’s own work, post-retirement, and I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide whether there is any merit in this bizarre story. I encouraged Medway to try to publish it somewhere, before he died unexpectedly of a heart attack, but he fretted about possible damage to his reputation. In my view he worried too much. At the very least we can say that he constructed a story which is highly ingenious in the way it deftly weaves semi-plausible occurrences around documented facts, and there is certainly little reason to fear any legal challenge from Emily, since much of it is based directly on her own testimony.
During the spring of 2023, Adam and Emily Spillane scanned the Italian real estate sites on a daily basis. They made frequent trips to view houses, as documented in Emily’s blog.
In June they thought they’d finally found what they were looking for.
“What’s this about it being part of an estate?” said Adam, peering at the computer screen.
“It’s technically a lease, but we’d have the right to live there for ninety-nine years and we could always sell it.” said Emily.
“Where is it?”
“It’s near a place called Recoaro Terme.”
“Where?”
“It’s in Veneto. The actual house is sort of in the middle of nowhere up a hill but Recoaro Terme is the nearest actual town. What do you think?”
“It’s pretty.” said Adam. “Let’s go and have a look then.”
They started in the early afternoon a few days later. They drove along toll roads towards the Piccole Dolomiti that line the southern edge of the Alps, and then up through forests and villages, soon arriving at Recoaro. From there they managed to get slightly lost.
Recoaro itself was a beautiful little town, much admired by poets and philosophers in the past. Nietzsche is said to have credited its beauty with the musical aesthetic inspiration behind his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The town’s thermal baths had once attracted the great, the good, and the deranged from all over Europe, but now it had fallen on harder times.
The hamlet they were looking for, however, was not very close to Recoaro itself.
Soon they were driving along obscure poorly-paved roads that wound precipitously up and down the sides of steep heavily-wooded hills, looking for a villa somewhere near the minute hamlet of San Pitigliano.
At a certain point they found the road completely blocked by a minor landslide and they had to re-route. Due to this, and various problems with their satnav system, it was almost dark by the time they arrived, and they had given up hope of finding the place by the time they did actually manage to find it.
As the sun was beginning to set, they came across a man walking his dog and asked him the best way back to Recoaro Terme, avoiding the landslide. Only as an afterthought did they ask him about San Pitigliano.
He was clearly more used to speaking a local dialect than anything else and he spoke in Italian that was barely understandable.
“Why do you want to go there?” he said, immediately on his guard.
“We’re thinking of buying a house there.” said Emily.
“It’s dangerous there.” he said, and he began to walk off, shaking his head.
“Dangerous?” Emily called after him. “Why?”
“Animali.” he said, without turning around.
“OK, so they’re a bit crazy round here.” said Adam.
They drove back in a direction that they hoped would lead them back towards the motorways, and it was then that they spotted the sign for San Pitigliano.
“Let’s at least have a look at the house from the outside now we’ve found the place.” said Emily.
“I’m not really sure where it is, exactly.” said Adam.
“Do you have a mobile signal? He’ll probably still show us around if we phone and explain. We can ask him for directions.”
Adam checked his phone. “Nothing.” he said.
“Me neither.” said Emily.
“May as well just go home.” said Adam. “We can get back by midnight if we leave now, even if we get lost again.”
“Let’s just go and see the area.” said Emily.
They drove up yet another winding road, then descended slightly on the other side. A villa came into view, surrounded by an ornate black metal fence. They stopped by the gate. Standing outside the villa was a grotesque statue of a woman, carved from a tree, holding some object that may have represented a baby.
“I think the house is actually inside the fence.” said Adam.
“There’s a buzzer.” said Emily.
She got out of the car and found herself immersed in a silence that was almost oppressive. The air smelt of pine, but also of something slightly dank. The statue seemed a bad omen, looming over them.
She pressed the buzzer twice before someone answered.
“Si?” said a voice.
She began to explain and apologise, and was halfway through her explanation when the gate buzzed and drifted open slightly, and the intercom went dead.
She pushed the gate open and got back in the car.
“Looks like we’re in.” she said.
As they pulled up to the impressive but crumbling villa, they saw a man standing outside in what appeared to be a smoking jacket or dressing gown. He was around sixty years of age and wore round wire-rimmed spectacles. His hair was grey and thinning, and cut very short.
They stopped in front of him, got out, and began apologising for their lateness.
He held up a hand to silence them.
“It’s not a problem in the least.” he said. “Please excuse my attire. In the evenings I like to relax with a little wine and a good book.”
“Are you Italian?” Adam asked him, puzzled by his accent.
“I have lived in many places.” he said. “But that need not concern you. You must be tired after your long journey. Come inside and I will make you a drink, and we will talk, and then I will show you the house.”
“It’s awfully late.” said Adam. “I don’t mean to be rude but perhaps it’s better if we just look at the house, then we can be on our way.”
“Nonsense.” said the man, walking back into the villa.
They followed him into a large, rather pleasant living room, where he offered them wine and coffee. Since they had a long drive ahead of them and were taking it in turns to do the driving, they accepted only coffee, which he made Italian-style, in the form of espresso.
He introduced himself as Zoran Pavić. He told them he had lived alone in the villa since the death of his wife more than fifteen years ago.
“Is the house far?” Emily asked him.
“Two hundred metres only.” said the man. “In grander times, it was inhabited by servants, but that would have been in the 19th century, or early 20th. Since then it has been occupied only periodically. I’ve kept it well-maintained, however. I think you will find it to your liking.”
“The price is certainly very reasonable.” said Adam.
“We are very isolated here.” said Zoran. “The price reflects that reality. There is a town ten kilometres away. With a car, you will be fine.”
At the side of the room stood several large bookcases, packed with scientific books which mostly seem to revolve around a biological theme.
“Are you a scientist?” Adam asked him.
“I’m a kind of freelance biologist.” he replied. “I used to work at the university in Bologna, but that was a long time ago. Almost another life, really.”
“You still do research?”
“Yes, mostly theoretical, but I have a small laboratory in the basement. It keeps me busy.”
After coffee he led them outside, still wearing his dressing gown. By then it was almost completely dark and a mist had begun to descend.
“One of the few disadvantages of living here, at this altitude, is the weather can change quite abruptly.” said Zoran, striding forward along the path.
Inside, the house was habitable, although decorated in a style that was distinctly out of fashion. It possessed only one storey, but contained four bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms had an ancient four-poster bed standing in it.
“The price is incredible, for the size and condition.” said Emily, as they viewed yet another bedroom.
“I have no real need of the money.” said Zoran, by way of explanation. “I just like to get these things over and done with.”
When they stepped outside again the mist had turned into a full-blown fog.
“Listen, why don’t you stay the night in there.” said Zoran. “We can fetch some clean sheets from my house. It’s dangerous to drive in fog like this on these roads.”
“Oh, that’s —” began Adam, but Emily cut him off.
“Thanks, that’s very kind, but we’re anxious to get back.” she said.
“Are you sure?” said Zoran.
“Yes, we have some things we need to get on with tomorrow morning.” said Emily.
When they finally got back to their car, with Adam sitting in the driving seat, Adam said, “I’m horribly tired. Maybe we should have accepted his offer.”
“I want to get out of here.” said Emily. “There’s something really creepy about this place.”
“Maybe you should drive. I’m wiped out.”
“No, me too. I feel like I’ve been drugged. Let’s just go slowly and we can stop at a cafe or a service station or something and drink a bunch of espressos.”
“It’d be better just to spend the night in the house, like he suggested.”
“I’m not staying here. I’ll drive if you really want.”
He looked at her. Her eyes were half-closed.
“No, I can manage.” he said.
He started the engine and began to drive extremely slowly down the hill.
After only a minute, the engine began to make odd, distressed noises, and then abruptly cut out.
“Dammit!” said Adam.
“Maybe it doesn’t like the fog.” said Emily.
Adam attempted to restart the engine, to no effect.
“We’ll have to go back.” he said.
“What about if we just roll down the hill? There might be a hotel down there somewhere.”
“There’s nothing down there. We’ll only get stuck in the valley. It’s practically unpopulated. We’ll have to go back, Em. We’ve no choice.”
She sighed.
“I really don’t want to. What if we spend the night in the car?”
“We’ll freeze out here. It’ll probably go down to a few degrees above zero at this altitude. We haven’t any blankets or anything and the heater won’t work without the engine.”
“We’ll phone someone and get them to come and fix the car, then.”
“No-one’s going to come up here in the fog at this time of the evening. Honestly we’ll be better off just sorting it out in the morning. I don’t really want to go back there either but I don’t see what choice we’ve got.”
Reluctantly, they walked back up to the metal gates and, under the ominous gaze of the looming wooden statue, pressed the intercom.
Zoran didn’t seem surprised that they had returned, and the gates sprang open.
“Our car’s broken down.” said Adam, when Zoran greeted them at the door of the villa. “We’d like to take you up on your kind offer after all, if that’s all right.”
“Absolutely delighted.” said Zoran. “Do come in.”
He led them through the villa and gave them a pile of clean sheets and blankets, along with a key, before letting them out the back door, onto the path that led to the house.
They walked out through the fog, little droplets of water collecting on the blankets.
“He seemed almost excited to see us again.” said Emily.
“Probably doesn’t get many visitors.” said Adam.
Suddenly a strange cry rang out from the direction of the trees, somewhat like the cry of a wolf, but curiously human.
“What was that?” said Emily, shocked.
“Maybe a wolf.”
“There are wolves here?”
“I don’t know.” said Adam, frowning. “There are probably bears at least. Don’t worry, they’re afraid of people.”
The monstrous cry rang out again.
“Let’s hurry.” said Emily, and she began running towards the house.
At the door, Adam fumbled with the key, trying to get it into the lock while holding a pile of blankets, but soon he managed it and they ran inside and slammed the door shut.
“There’s no way in hell I’d live here.” said Emily, throwing down her pile of blankets on a table. “What with that weirdo in the villa and animals roaming about in the fog, I’d sooner live almost anywhere else.”
“OK, OK, message received. We’re getting out of here in the morning and we’re not coming back.”
They made up the four-poster bed and got into it, nervously listening to the periodic animalistic howls coming from outside.
Emily awoke from the middle of a nightmare to the sound of smashing glass. Her scream awoke Adam.
“It’s OK!” he said, putting his arm around her. “You just had a bad dream.”
“It sounded like someone smashed a window.” she said.
She wasn’t quite fully awake and couldn’t entirely separate reality from the dream from which she had awoken, which had involved being pursued by an amorphous malevolent ball of hair while the wooden statue looked on, laughing to itself.
“You were just dreaming.” said Adam.
“You didn’t hear it?”
“No.”, he yawned.
Then they heard something large and heavy scamper past their door.
Emily gripped Adam’s arm.
“It’s the wolf.” she said. “It’s got in.”
Adam swore.
“This is ridiculous.” he said. “No wonder the house is so cheap. Don’t worry, it’s probably more scared of us than we’re scared of it.”
“Well I’m bloody terrified, Adam, whereas that thing just smashed through a window to get at us.” hissed Emily. “What are we going to do?”
The thing, whatever it was, scampered around the house a bit, then returned to the door of their room and began sniffing all around it.
“We can get out the window.” he said. “We’ll go to the villa, ring the bell and wake him up.”
“I don’t want to go out there.”
“If it’s stuck in here then we’ll be safe out there.”
“Unless there are more of them or it goes back out of the window it broke.”
“There can’t be more of them. It’s just some stupid bear or something. And I’ve never heard of an animal smashing a window. Probably you dreamed it. It’ll probably run if it sees us, anyway.”
They got dressed, listening to the sound of the animal running about and sniffing at the door to their room, then they cautiously opened the window to find a thick fog outside.
“How are we even going to find the villa in that?” said Emily.
“Not a problem.” said Adam. “We just need to make sure we stay on the path.”
As they were climbing out of the window, the animal outside their room began throwing itself against the door.
“Hurry up!” said Emily, as Adam levered himself through the open window.
Her opinion about whether it was more dangerous to be inside or outside had abruptly flipped.
Adam helped her out through the window and they began walking briskly towards the villa.
Only when they arrived at the fence surrounding the grounds of the villa did realise they had miscalculated.
“I didn’t even know there was a path leading off this way!” said Adam.
“We’ll have to go back to the house and find the right path.” said Emily.
Then they heard a snarling sound coming from somewhere in the fog behind them.
“It must have got out.” said Adam.
“We should have stayed inside.” said Emily frantically.
“We can get over the fence.”
“What if it can jump over fences?”
They gazed at the fence, which was more than five feet high and didn’t look easy to scale.
“There’s no way it’ll get over this, whatever it is.”
“There’s no way I’ll get over it either.” said Emily.
“You can do it. I’ll climb over and pull you up from the other side.”
“Don’t leave me with that thing!”
“OK, look, I’ll lift you up. You can go over first.”
With a considerable effort on both their parts, Emily managed to scramble over the fence, landing awkwardly and rolling into the pine needles on the other side.
Adam began to try to pull himself over it, but the fence was slippy and wet, and Adam wasn’t accustomed to climbing over fences.
A snarling bark from close behind him gave him a shot of adrenalin, and soon he too was standing on the other side, shivering.
“Let’s go around to the front and ring the intercom.” said Emily. “We can explain the situation to him. He’ll surely know what to do. He probably has a gun or something.”
They began to walk along the side of the fence, stumbling on tree branches in the dark and getting scratched, throwing nervous glances towards the grass on the other side but unable to see anything of any use.
Progress was slow. They had to keep pushing branches out of their way and occasionally making detours around trees that grew close to the fence.
They were almost back at the road when something flung itself against the fence, snarling. They jumped back, startled.
“It’s OK.” said Adam, putting his arms around Emily. “It can’t get us here.”
They hurried on and soon emerged, stumbling and shivering, onto the road, recognising the shape of the weird statue in the fog.
“We should just go and get in the car.” said Adam.
“I’m freezing.” said Emily. “I’m so cold. Let’s ring the intercom at the gate.”
Their clothes were damp from the fog. It was fortunate that they’d left everything in one room so they had been able to put on their shoes and coats, but their jackets were far too thin for the conditions in which they found themselves.
They were almost at the gate when they stopped in their tracks due to a snarling coming from directly in front of them.
“Oh God!” squeaked Emily, her voice constricted with fear and the desire not to make too much noise.
As they stood there, shivering, a dark shape loomed out of the fog, growling.
“We’re going to have to go back.” said Adam. “You go first. I’ll find a stick to fend it off.”
“I’m not going without you.” said Emily.
Adam was about to argue, but then thought better of it. Emily was a shivering wreck, almost paralysed by fear.
“OK, let’s go. Back away. We’ll head for the fence.” he said, and they began to walk backwards, the shape padding towards them sniffing and growling.
“What is it?” said Emily wildly.
“Maybe just a dog.” said Adam.
“Adam, it’s huge. It’s not a dog!”
“It must be a dog. It just looks big because of the fog.”
At the fence, Adam broke a branch off a tree while the thing prowled about, apparently trying to decide whether to risk a full-on attack. By then they were shivering convulsively due to a mixture of fear and cold.
“We can’t go back into the forest.” said Emily.
“I’ve got a weapon now.” said Adam. “We’ll wait and see what it does. We need to get to the car somehow.”
For ten minutes the creature padded about menacingly, then silence returned.
“I think it’s gone.” said Adam. “Let’s go.”
They started moving in the direction of the car, then the creature suddenly emerged from the fog and flung itself at them, knocking them off their feet. Adam lashed out wildly at it and it yelped and ran back down the road.
“Are you OK?” said Adam frantically.
Emily began to cry hysterically.
“I think I wounded it.” said Adam.
Emily made no reply, but only sobbed uncontrollably.
“Em!” he said, sharply. “We have to get to the car. It’ll be OK.”
“It’s huge.” she cried.
“I know, I know.” he said, and he began to gently usher her down the road.
They reached the car, to their enormous relief, without experiencing another attack.
“We’re safe now.” said Adam, as they climbed inside and he shut the door.
He tried to start the car and the engine turned over but wouldn’t start.
“Let’s get into the back.” said Adam.
When the fog start to lighten with the first rays of sun, they were still clinging to each other, sleepless, freezing and terrified, on the back seat.
They had torn up an old magazine they’d found in the boot and stuffed it under their clothing for warmth, but it hadn’t helped much.
“I think the fog’s beginning to clear.” said Adam. “It’ll probably dissipate completely when the sun comes up properly.”
“What are we going to do then?” said Emily miserably.
“We can get hold of Zoran and get him to call someone. Get the car fixed.”
“I don’t want to go back there, Adam.” said Emily. “I want to go home.”
“That is the fastest way to get home.”
“I’m not going back there.” she said. “I’d rather walk.”
“All right then, we’ll walk till we can flag down a lift or till we get to the next town. Maybe we’ll have to walk for a couple of hours but it’ll be fine.”
“OK.” said Emily miserably.
After another hour had passed, it became clear that the fog was indeed lifting. The outlines of the road were beginning to appear, and they could see the form of the villa grounds and the statue further up the hill.
“Let’s go.” said Emily. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
“OK.” said Adam, and he cautiously opened the door, got out, stiff-legged, and looked around, taking the stick from the front seat.
“We’re safe now.” he said. “It won’t come at us in the light.
He opened the rear door and helped Emily out.
“We’ll warm up with walking.” he said.
They began to walk briskly down the hill, but after only a few hundred metres, they heard a scampering and growling from somewhere in the mist behind them. They turned to see a grotesque hairy shape progressing towards them, curiously human in its movements.
Adam placed himself between Emily and the creature.
“I’m going to ruddy well gut this thing.” he said, brandishing the stick.
Then the sound of a person running reached their ears, and Zoran appeared, circling around the creature towards them, pointing a gun at the animal.
“I’m so sorry.” he said. “I should have warned you.”
“What is it?” said Adam.
“It’s … it doesn’t matter what it is. I’m going to tranquilise it.”
The thing approached Zoran, snarling and making a curious whimpering sound.
“Thank God you’re here.” said Adam.
“Yes, quite.” said Zoran, and he turned the gun and pointed it at Adam.
“Hey!” said Adam, stunned.
Zoran fired the gun and a dart stuck in Adam’s shoulder, emptying the contents of a vial into his body.
He staggered and fell to the ground.
“What are you doing?” screamed Emily.
Zoran was reloading the tranquiliser gun.
“I’m afraid this is necessary.” he said. “You’re both clearly hysterical.”
She backed slowly away.
He finished loading the gun and pointed it at her.
“You can’t do this!” she said.
“I can, and I must.” he replied.
She turned and fled, but as she ran, she felt a dart embed itself in her shoulder. Then the foggy ground seemed to spin, and it rushed up to meet her.
When Adam awoke, he was strapped to something resembling an operating table. He turned his head groggily to see Emily similarly restrained on an adjacent table, Zoran bending over her, holding a syringe.
“I’ve given her an antidote.” he said. “She’ll come round soon.”
Emily gasped, and her eyes opened.
Then she screamed; a piercing scream of pure terror.
“Please!” said Zoran. “There’s no need for that!”
“What do you want with us?” yelled Adam.
“I’ll explain everything.” said Zoran. “I just need you to be calm first.”
“Untie me you sick freak!” said Emily, struggling.
“Oh, I will,” said Zoran, “but first, I owe you an explanation.”
“You can untie us first and then explain.” said Adam angrily.
“That’s quite out of the question.” said Zoran. “First I need you to listen to me.”
Emily sobbed but sagged back onto the table, since she was unable to free herself.
“Let us go!” said Adam.
“Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“Bloody get on with it then.” said Adam furiously.
“Good.” said Zoran.
He pulled a chair up at their heads, which he turned around and sat on backwards, leaning against the backrest.
“I was born in a small village in Croatia in 1962.” he said.
“Why don’t we skip the your entire fricking biography.” shouted Emily, almost screaming.
“I’m afraid the context is necessary.” said Zoran. “You see, in those days, Croatia was under the communist boot, so to speak, as part of Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Tito, not the Russians. We were poor, and we had little freedom, but at least we had free education.
“I excelled in science, and I was particularly fascinated by the biological sciences. Accordingly, in 1980, I was enrolled in the university at Zagreb to study biology. After graduating, I followed a PhD under Professor Radić. And following that, I worked at the Institute for Biological Research in Zagreb.
“There I met my future wife, a wonderful biologist by the name of Vesna. Oh, we fell madly in love. I loved her so very much.
“When Croatia declared independence in 1991, Vesna and I felt it prudent to leave the country, in view of the chaos. After some months we were able to secure positions at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics in Warsaw, through our contacts. Poland, of course, was going through its own upheavals and it was not an easy place to live.
When we were offered positions at the University of Bologna, naturally we didn’t hesitate. We moved immediately to Italy, and it was in Bologna that, in 1992, our son Max was born.
How happy we were, in those times. Our little apartment was filled with laughter and joy. I was offered work with a prestigious company in Bologna, and soon we were able to move to a large house on the outskirts of the town.
In 1996, when Max was four years of age, Vesna began to show the first signs of the disease. She began to shake, to get confused. The doctors discovered it was caused by a simple mutation in a certain gene. She must have been born with it. It was quite incurable.
Genes, of course, were my speciality. I purchased this villa and moved us all here. It was a place where I could try, with all my skill and knowledge, to find a cure for Vesna, away from the sight of prying eyes. Here, I could do things that that would not have been allowed by the petty bureaucrats of the universities and institutes and corporations.”
Zoran fell silent, apparently struggling with deep emotions.
“Why are you telling us this?” said Adam.
Zoran held up a hand, as if to fend off his questions. After some moments he composed himself and continued.
“It wasn’t enough. A year later, she died. I couldn’t help her. Max, naturally, was inconsolable. He retreated into himself, not wanting to talk to anyone.
“I remember it was a year after that, that I began to realise that Max was not entirely normal. One day I found him in the forest beyond the fence carrying a dead squirrel in his mouth. He had somehow surmounted the fence.
“I began to watch him carefully and I observed him chasing birds and other small animals, attempting to catch them in his teeth. He wouldn’t talk to me at first, but under the effect of a mild sedative he explained to me that he felt more like a wolf than a human being. At first I thought he had been a wolf in a previous life, but soon I realised he was telling me that he simply felt himself to have been born a wolf, trapped in the body of a human.
“I thought back to the many stories of wolves Vesna had read to him when she was still alive. It was clear to me from the sheer power of Max’s conviction that he was a wolf and this was more than mere influence or fancy. It wasn’t that he had simply decided that the life of a wolf was more appealing than that of a human; it was that the stories had somehow awakened in him a knowledge of his true self.
“I resolved to do everything within my power to help him. I had already lost my wife to a quirk of genetics; I would not lose my child. I resolved to help Max become the wolf he really was.
“At the time it had become known that retroviruses could be used to alter genes in living mammals. I realised I could use these techniques to give Max a more appropriate set of genes. I could not completely make him a wolf at the physiological level, but I could change many key genes into variants more appropriate to his true nature.”
“You’re insane.” cried Emily.
At that moment a door opened and the hideous wolf creature that had attacked them outside lolloped in, alternating between padding on all fours and walking on its hind legs.
“Ah, Max!” said Zoran. “I was just telling them about you.”
Max made a repellant hoarse growling sound halfway between human speech and the snarl of a dog.
Adam and Emily gazed at him in horror.
He was naked and completely covered in long matted hair. His bulging eyes were a startling yellow, and several long crooked and uneven teeth protruded from his otherwise-toothless upper jaw. He began sniffing at Emily’s head.
“Get away from me!” she screamed.
“Don’t you dare touch her!” shouted Adam.
“Please!” said Zoran. “We are not barbarians. I must explain; you see, Max has been suffering from increasingly poor mental health. He is more than thirty years old now and I have reached the limits of the lupinisation process. I’ve done everything I can for him. I cannot physically make him more of a wolf than he already is.”
Max turned to Adam and began sniffing at his face and staring quizzically into his eyes. His breath was foetid and nauseating. He pawed gently at Adam’s face with matted hairy paws terminating in long black fingernails.
“Max needs companionship.” said Zoran. “He needs friends of his own kind. Unfortunately they do not yet exist. True wolves are too wild for him, and I myself am simply too human.”
He rose to his feet and picked up a syringe from a counter at the side of the room.
“You will become Max’s friends. You will remain partly human, but you will also become partly wolf. We will begin the process today.”
He walked over to Adam, brandishing the syringe.
“I have here a viral vector which will modify certain of your genes to express proteins more appropriate to the lupine form.” he said.
“You can’t do this!” said Adam. “We won’t ever be companions to your boy. You need to stop this.”
“I have no alternative.” said Zoran. “I’m only doing what any parent would do.”
“We’ll go to the police the moment you release us unless you stop this immediately.” said Emily. “You’re crazy if you think we’re doing to be friends with your messed-up wolf-child.”
Zoran let the hand holding the syringe fall to his hip.
“You don’t understand at all.” he said. “I quickly discovered, as I began to modify Max physically, that the wolf DNA produced changes in his psychology.”
Max made a horrible grunting, panting, growling sound.
“He can no longer do the things that humans can do.” Zoran continued. “He certainly wouldn’t be capable of calling the police. Neither will you, once we have commenced the process. I daresay there will be a period of socialisation, when I will have to train you and Max to play nicely together, but you will soon be playmates.”
He lifted the syringe again.
“Better than that.” he said. “You will form your own pack, under my leadership as the alpha male.”
“You sick, twisted psychopath!” shouted Adam.
He twisted his body violently, trying to escape the needle, but the straps were too strong and Zoran injected the contents of the syringe into his arm.
“Very good.” said Zoran. “And now for you, Emily, my dear.”
“No!” screamed Emily.
He went back to the counter to and picked up a vial, with which he began to refill the syringe.
Max was panting repulsively, as if excited.
Adam gave a horrible yell and began to have some kind of seizure.
“Oh dear.” said Zoran. “He’s having a reaction.”
Zoran began to look for some drug or other in the cupboard below the workbench.
Adam’s convulsions became so violet that one of his wrists wrenched its restraining strap free from the table where he lay, then he groaned and his body became limp.
Zoran hurried over to him with another needle. He lifted the syringe up to his eye and squeezed an air bubble out of it. Adam hit out at him with his free hand, and the syringe stuck awkwardly into the upper part of Zoran’s eye socket. Zoran cried out in pain and stumbled backwards. Max howled and bounded over to him.
While Zoran was pulling the syringe out of his eye socket and comforting Max, Adam fully returned to his senses and began to frantically unfasten the straps that held him to the table.
Zoran suddenly noticed what he was doing and said, “No, you mustn’t do that!” and hurried over to him, but he was too late.
Adam slid off the end of the table, grabbed an office chair and swung it at Zoran. The chair’s feet contacted the side of Zoran’s head with tremendous force, and Zoran crumpled, hitting his head on the table where Emily was still restrained, then falling to the floor. Blood began to pour out of a wound on his head.
Max howled and began licking at Zoran’s face and whimpering.
“Untie me!” shouted Emily.
Adam unfastened her straps and helped her off the table.
They turned and looked at Max, who was fussing over Zoran’s unmoving body.
“We need to get out of here.” said Emily frantically.
Max turned and gazed at them with pure rage in his inhuman yellow eyes, then sprang at Adam. His few crooked teeth fastened onto Adam’s throat and for a moment Adam clawed at the hair-covered face, then blood began to spurt from Adam’s neck and he collapsed to the ground. Max raised his head and fixed a traumatised Emily with a horribly malevolent gaze, skin from Adam’s neck still hanging from his mouth. She screamed and ran.
She managed to open the door of the laboratory and shut it on Max, before stumbling up the steps, emerging into Zoran’s kitchen. She ran to the front of the villa, and flung open the front door just as the sound of Max scampering out of the kitchen reached her ears.
As Emily ran out of the door, Max gave a monstrous howl, expressive of pain and rage.
Emily ran toward the gate, Max howling behind her.
When she reached the gate, she found it locked. She turned and pressed herself against the railing, shaking with fear, and saw Max bounding towards her.
He stopped a few metres away, baring ragged pointed teeth, embedded in red swollen gums.
“Max.” said Emily. “Please. Please don’t hurt me.”
Max snarled and then suddenly sprang towards her. She gave a scream and desperately pulled herself up onto the railings with a strength borne of terror. Max jumped at her and snapped at her ankles, but she managed to pull herself over the gate.
Then she ran for the car.
She slammed the car door shut just as Max reached her, flinging his entire body against the driver’s window, cracking it.
The key was still in the ignition, but turning it was useless. The engine only weakly turned over before spluttering to a stop and refusing to do even that. Max flung himself at the window again and it shattered.
Emily released the handbrake and the car began to roll down the hill.
She turned so that she could kick at Max with her feet, as he tried to jump in through the window.
The car gradually picked up speed. Max jumped on the roof and Max’s head appeared at the broken window, upside-down, and he began snapping viciously at her feet and ankles. He succeeded in biting her ankle, drawing blood.
She pulled her feet back, and Max pressed his advantage, sticking his head and arm through the smashed window, clawing at her with half-human half-animal fingernails.
Then she realised the car was heading rapidly towards a cliff. Still kicking at Max, she opened the passenger-side door and tried to launch herself out of the car. Max caught hold of her ankle.
She managed to free herself with a powerful kick to his head, but then Max managed to push his entire torso into the car. Emily leapt from the car just before it careered over the edge of the road and down the side of a cliff.
Emily had to pass the wreckage of the car on her way down into the valley.
She approached it with enormous trepidation. The car had fallen perhaps ten metres down an unguarded sheer cliff face, and it seemed entirely possible that Max was still alive, even though the car was badly wrecked.
Only when she was close enough to peer into the wreckage from what had been the driver’s side of the car did she spot Max, his torso caved in by the door in the fall.
The incident was reported in a local newspaper, but strangely, the police stated that the car was found in flames, its sole occupant burned to death.
Adam’s murder was blamed on Dr. Zoran Pavić.
Emily now lives in England, but little is known about her. She has deleted her blog.
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