This strange story happened in St. Petersburg more than twenty years ago. What is true in it, what is fiction - you decide. Although what kind of fiction is there - all the testimony of witnesses, material evidence and expert opinions …
A melancholy howl was heard at night over St. Petersburg (then still Leningrad). But the townsfolk did not listen - you never know what dog howls! However, it was so for the time being - until it became clear that these sounds are not simple dog howls …
Oleg M., a senior police lieutenant, reports: - I was just demobilized and went to the patrol service as a senior sergeant … Can you imagine our St. Petersburg courtyards-wells? Four walls and four gateways. My partner and I were serving in the area of such houses. February, the time is about nine o'clock in the evening. We pass by one of these wells and suddenly we hear: a woman's screeching from the gateway. We go there. We fly in - a lady is standing against the wall, holding a bag at her chest. On me, he says, the dog pounced, wanted to grab my throat. And he shows us the bag. There are, indeed, deep canine marks on it. The lady's coat is light, and on the chest there is a distinct print of a dog's paw, but so healthy …
The victim, when she caught her breath, told how it was. First she heard a growl behind her, looked around quickly, and a healthy dog was running after her. She ran up and ran onto her chest so that the woman flew to the wall. The dog follows her. The woman began to hide behind her handbag. Well, the dog grabbed the bag …
THE FURTHER IN THE FOREST, THE MORE FIREWOOD
Actually, it was not worth a damn. The police then stood beside the woman, reassured, complained that many of their four-legged pets were allowed to walk without leashes, or even kicked out altogether, that's why there are a lot of stray ones, there is any infection from them … The lady refused. Everything would have ended there if it were not for Oleg's conscientiousness: the next day he found the district police officer and told him about the "attempted biting."
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The district police officer also turned out to be a responsible officer and was not too lazy to go to the victim - to question and carefully examine the bag that had been eaten. The purse was made of thick, dense leather, so that the prints of the teeth were very clearly visible. The district policeman measured them, even sketched them, and with this template he walked around all the dog lovers in the district, literally looking into the mouth of each dog. Not a single dog under the description - a very large, dirty-gray color - did not fit, and no dog could boast of such huge teeth.
But in the course of further inquiry, it turned out that the strange dog was seen by many residents of the surrounding houses and almost all the time they heard howling. Moreover, one of the residents, a pensioner, a passionate hunter, assured that it was not a dog who howled, but a wolf.
The district police officer applied to the SES. There he was sent to hell in the most polite manner: there is no means, no transport, no time to react to every stray dog. When they were presented with a bag with teeth imprints, the EU dog catchers scratched their heads: whether it was a dog bite or a wolf bite, they did not say, but that the beast should have at least a meter at the withers, or even more, was unambiguously recognized.
The district police officer, not wanting to endure such a monster in his area - after all, he will bite off his head in one fell swoop! - demanded urgent action, threatening with "papers". The Sesmen took a long time to open up. We hit it off on the analysis of saliva, the remains of which were preserved at the site of the bite. If the dog is mad, they will organize an action, if not, let the police figure it out themselves. The results of the analysis stunned everyone: the saliva turned out to be human!
WEREWOLF?
The biologists who carried out the analysis did not want to admit the mistake, referred to the fact that the source material (saliva, that is) was not enough, and time was lost …
And now let's give the floor to Yulia K., a former SES laboratory assistant:
- I was very interested in all this. I went to the place and started talking to people. Everyone went crazy: werewolf, werewolf! Someone saw a man enter the gateway and immediately a howl came from there. Oleg and I began to be on duty in the evenings, in his free time. The werewolf was not seen, but the howl - believe it or not - on the full moon once heard from the gate. We rushed there - there is no one …
The weather had been slush the day before, but here it was freezing. Young people drew attention to dog tracks - huge paw prints were clearly distinguishable in the frozen ground. By the way, Oleg later recalled that they had not been there two days ago.
Julia and Oleg followed in the footsteps. Paw prints broke off near the tightly boarded-up door of the janitor's utility room in the wall of the gateway, where the inventory is usually kept: scrapers, brooms, shovels.
IF IT WERE NOT A CYLINDER …
Almost a month and a half passed, and rumors began to subside. And suddenly - a new attack. A student of the evening department of one of the Leningrad universities, Irina K., returned at about 11 pm from a lecture.
“I didn’t really believe in all these stories before and walked calmly along the dark streets,” the girl says. - Without any fear, I approach our gateway - we even have a light on there - I look: a man is standing, smoking. I also thought that he must have come out to meet someone. I didn’t look at him very much, I only noted that I wasn’t a bum, dressed normally, about forty years old, maybe more, his hair was dark. Just in case, of course, I put my hand in my pocket, I always have a spray with me, you never know …
This "you never know what" and saved the girl's life. It all happened in one second. Ira suddenly heard a roar or a cry behind her back, turned around - a huge four-legged creature was flying at her. Ira was not at a loss, she took out a gas canister from her bag and how she could plant a stream of "bird cherry" in her face! What happened next - the girl does not remember. I woke up only at home.
“I’m standing, shaking, saying:“A werewolf attacked me,”she recalls. - Parents immediately called the police …
BUSINESS - VISYAK
The outfit, which quickly arrived, did not find a dog, a wolf, or a man in the yard or near the house. But the service dog, which the policemen brought with them, behaved more than strange. Having sniffed the asphalt in the gateway, the search dog suddenly howled, his fur stood on end, and he jerked so that he knocked over the guide. For some seconds the dog became uncontrollable: howling, whining, rushing from side to side.
When the dog was calmed down with some difficulty, the senior of the outfit walked along the gateway, stopped near the utility room and mechanically pulled the handle. The door opened unexpectedly easily. The hammered boards turned out to be just camouflage … The eyes of the law enforcement officers saw a rather inhabited closet: in the corner - a crumpled bucket filled with empty cans, some bloody rags, bandages.
Two drawers - "table" and "chair". On the "table" is a tin with cigarette butts, candle stubs, a board pierced by a dozen nails, reminiscent of a giant comb. Against the wall is a mattress, thickly covered with wool, as if a shedding dog was sleeping on it.
That was the end of it. Since then, no one has heard the howl, talk about the werewolf has died down, no one has attacked anyone else. And that's good! However, not only this. Julia and Oleg got accustomed to each other and fell in love, and soon they played a wedding.
And they cleaned up the utility room, nailed it up conscientiously - out of harm's way. Psychics and other paranormalists who were spinning around for some time did not find anything.
In general, neither the authorities, nor the specialists in this whole strange story had absolutely nothing to cling to. And then - what time it was in the yard: the rampant publicity, not up to werewolves … True, the analysis showed that the wool on the mattress in the back room is really wolfish.
Sergey BORODIN
Journal "Steps" December 2014