The random deaths of people who looked like they had been attacked by animals had been recorded for many years. There was mention of this kind of murder in very early records back to ancient writing on papyrus. The police did not know how these killings were executed and they rarely got a clue about who the perpetrator might be.
The post mortems which had been carried out on the bodies revealed that they had been slashed with something like claws. The murders were in various places around the country and seemed to be random. Occasionally there would be clusters of killings in a particular area and then they would suddenly stop. It was difficult to find the killer when they were not associated with, or related to their victims, and when they were widespread.
They had been called to the site of another murder and the victim was once more a single woman living alone. Angela Smart had been married, but had then divorced. She worked in a nursing home as a care worker and when she had not been to work her manager had gone to her house to check that she was alright. The discovery of the body had been horrifying for the woman who found her.
Joanne, the care home manager had been advised to keep the details of her discovery secret. The police said that it might hamper their enquiries if too much information became known to the public. Joanne was happy to not ever talk about what she had seen again, although the image of her dead colleague would plague her for the rest of her life.
The detective who had spoken to her was following instructions passed down from the top brass. They were eager to suppress the stories of these horrific deaths. They were having little success when it came to solving the crimes and they did not want the gruesome details frightening the public.
The top brass, in turn, took their orders from someone in government. These cases were being handled by the National crime Agency and others who had specialist roles. No one talked about the possibility of something supernatural occurring, but many had thought about it. It was hard enough explaining these killings to the press or public, let alone adding in the occult aspect which had been hinted at.
The legends of werewolves must have been invented to explain the nature of the brutal killings. Alternatively, the killings happened because there were werewolves and the legends were true. Nobody wanted to consider the likelihood of the second option. Still, the detective who had been called to the latest case was considering whether it could be more than a myth.
As the body was being found on one side of the country, another was being discovered on the opposite side. Autopsies revealed that both had been killed at approximately the same time. There was no way that the killings could have been committed by the same person. The details which had come out in the newspapers had been fairly vague, so it was unlikely to be a copycat, but the modus operandi had been nearly identical.
DNA had been recovered at both sites. What was revealed was amazing. They were different perpetrators, but from the same family. What sort of family dynamic led to two of them becoming depraved murderers? How on earth could they find them and stop them?
The police were confounded by the string of murders. They went back for years, so they must have been committed by a number of different people. Were the killers all related? The papers had talked about one murder and said that there was a new ripper. This was not a good comparison. Jack the ripper had used surgical cuts, but these victims had been torn apart.
They needed a lucky break to find out what was going on. There had been some witnesses who had seen men in the area of the crimes. Unfortunately, the descriptions they had given had been vague to say the least. The heights and stature of the men varied as did the way they walked. The only thing that was agreed upon was that the men were dark.
Hours of CCTV had been scoured for a glimpse of someone who might be involved. Blurred images were all that had been found, apart from one picture which had caused concern. The short clip from a camera showed a man who had thick hair growing low down on his forehead. The man had an odd shaped jaw and there was an instant when, what appeared to be fangs, could just be discerned.
A copy of the film was made before the original was wiped clean. It was added to a file of secret documents relating to the bizarre and brutal killings. All the authorities had at the moment were mysteries, rumours and glimpses of something other worldly. There was surely a logical explanation for all of this. They just had to find out what it was.