This hold was secured in Hong Kong.
I don't know how this happened. It makes no sense.
We found the cage still locked. Two of my men are missing.
Who's in charge here?
- You? - Who are you?
My name is Detweiler. I'm the owner of this cargo.
I was to be notified immediately of its arrival.
There's an animal in here, dammit! It needs care.
- Aren't you goin' home? - I am home.
I'm just feathering the nest.
Whatcha got?
Two merchant marines found dead this morning in San Pedro,
in the hold of their cargo ship.
Mind if I ask the cause of death?
On the crime report it says multiple bite wounds.
From what?
The Hong Kong manifest has the cargo listed as a dog.
A dog?
- A dog dog? - Yo quiero Taco Bell.
That alone is not what drew me to this case.
The two men were inside the container, which was locked from the outside.
- What happened to the dog? - Dog gone.
Dog gone. Doggone.
Yeah, I got it. Did anybody examine the victim, Mulder?
Look... bite wounds are rarely lethal in themselves.
I mean, they are not the cause of death.
They lead to it through the loss of blood,
but it makes me wonder how accurate this report is.
Local PD wrote it. Department of Fish and Wildlife is on the case.
An outside source says it was a dog.
Mulder, I don't have to tell you how absolutely and completely wrong that seems.
They were found dead in a locked cage, right?
- Yeah. - Two grown men.
Mm-hm.
You're not gonna tell me that a dog did this.
- Bad dog. - Yeah.
Quiet! JoJo, come on. Shh-shh! Shh.
That's enough now. Come on.
Come on. Come on. It's OK.
Hey, get out of here! Go on! Get!
Come on, inside. Come on. Come on. Inside, inside.
Inside, JoJo.
Get out of here! Go on home!
Go home!
JoJo?
Here, girl.
Better not be on the bed!
There you are. What are you doin', girl?
Ya nut. Big old lazybones.
JoJo! What are you doin', Jo...
Stay away. Go on. Go...
Officer Jeffrey Cahn?
- Yeah. - I'm Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI.
This is my partner, Dana Scully.
The LA Field Office contacted you that we were coming down today?
Oh, yeah.
I hope you don't mind. I had a look around the ship with my men.
- We were pretty thorough. - What did you find?
Nothing conclusive. But I can tell you the dog's not likely still on the ship.
How'd you determine that?
- Have you ever owned a dog, sir? - Yeah.
Had to clean up after it?
I don't suppose you can tell us what kind of dog this is.
I'm not really sure.
The man it was shipped to's name is, uh, Detweiler.
Dr lan Detweiler. Calls himself a cryptozoologist.
- Cryptozoologist? - He deals with animals thought to be extinct.
Animals that aren't supposed to exist, like Sasquatch and the Abominable Snowman...
Don't mind him, he'll go on for ever. Did you have talk to Dr Detweiler?
- About five minutes ago. - Officer Cahn, any progress?
Agents, Dr Detweiler.
- Are you from the FBI? - Yeah.
Who should I see about the theft of this animal?
Theft? What do you mean, theft?
This is a very valuable animal that's disappeared.
A rare breed, and arguably a priceless specimen.
- A breed of what? - Wanshang dhole. It's a canid.
That's an Asian dog, supposed to have been extinct the last 150 years.
Yes. That's right, actually.
- You have one? - I was on the expedition that caught it.
Be that as it may, we now have an unquarantined animal loose.
Loose? This animal's more than loose. It seems to have killed two people.
Oh, no. Let me assure you, this is not a predatory animal.
Chinese folklore has imbued it with mythic qualities, but it doesn't even hunt.
- It scavenges. - Where's Officer Cahn?
I just got a report on the radio. Some kind of vicious dog attack in Bellflower.
Watch your step.
Jake Conroy, aged 30.
He was employed as a customs agent by the federal government.
The bite marks match those of the victims on the freighter.
In this case, it bit off the man's hand.
There's talk that he took part in the theft of the animal and it turned on him.
Talk about bitin' the hand that feeds ya.
Well, it does make sense.
A victim and his dog are attacked inside of a house with all the doors shut.
It can't happen unless the dog's kept inside.
Well, if all the doors were shut, how did he get out?
Well, then what?
We're speaking in common terms about an animal we're calling a dog,
but which displays none of the behaviour of man's best friend.
- You mean covering up crime scenes? - You get a biscuit, Scully.
So, you're talking about a dog that has human intelligence?
If there were such an animal, where would we even begin to look for one?
With a human that thinks like an animal.
Karin?
Karin Berquist?
No. Stacy Muir. I'm just puttin' up this fence for her. She's been havin' coyote problems.
You two lookin' for Karin about boarding?
No, it's actually more of a behaviour problem.
Yeah, he doesn't listen, and he chews on the furniture.
- Can you tell her the FBI's here to see her? - Right this way.
Karin will be out in a moment, all right?
Are you sure this woman's not an authority on bats?
Karin Berquist knows more about canine behaviourisms than anybody on the planet.
She's lived with wild canids and wolves in the wilderness on five continents.
How do you know so much about her but not what she looks like?
I never actually met her.
Yet you assume that she's gonna help us?
It's not an assumption. She is the one who told me about this case.
So you two are chummy.
- I've read her books. - Oh.
The Wolf Inside. Dogs Don't Lie. Better Than Human.
- "Better than human"? - She's not a real people person.
Well, she seems to have made a connection to you.
All right, settle down. Settle!
Karin? I'm Fox.
Fox Mulder. This is my partner, Dana Scully.
It's nice to finally meet you.
I wish I'd known. I don't get many visitors.
Stacy says you have a question about behaviourism?
It's about the animal you mentioned in your e-mail, about its intelligence.
Canids' intelligence is far superior to ours, if that's what you want to know.
- Intelligence enough to murder? - Murder takes no intelligence.
- It's a human behaviourism. - What about hunting?
Coyotes use elaborate trickeries to draw out their prey. Many canids do.
Alone or in packs.
What about a dhole?
If you mean the Wanshang dhole, it's extinct.
Is there any other reason you came here?
No. Thank you, Karin.
Come on.
Mulder?
- She's a friend of yours? - Oh, we met online.
- Online. - Two professionals exchanging information.
This is Fiedler. I'm at an alley just south of Cooper in Signal Hill.
Looks like somethin's been scavenging. I'm gonna check it out.
Copy that.
Hey!
Hello, sir.
I'm with US Fish and Wildlife. Maybe you've seen a dog I'm lookin' for.
Sir? Can you hear me?
You wanna catch a killer?
Arrest that crypto son of a bitch who shipped that dog here.
Is it the same dog?
That's Frank Fiedler over there. He's my friend.
Damn good at his job. You think this kind of thing happens here every day?
I'm sure it doesn't. We're just trying to catch this animal, just like you, sir.
Oh, you can catch it. I want to kill it.
I don't think wolf woman is here to speak to me. I'll just take a look at the body.
I didn't expect to see you.
Dog eats dog-catcher. Story's all over the news. It's sort of uplifting.
- I'm joking. - Mm-hm.
Sorry. I thought you might use some help.
You said that a dog or a canid only hunts what it needs,
but I've got four bodies with bites from an animal that seems to kill for no other reason.
- Who are the victims? - Two men on the ship that it came in on,
a customs agent, and now an officer from Fish and Wildlife.
All these men could have come in contact with the animal before the attacks.
- Classic dominant alpha territorial behaviour. - No, it seems to have ranged many miles
to make its attacks.
In each case, it seems to have outsmarted or at least tricked its victims.
Unlike we Homo sapiens, a canid's motives are simple and direct.
It would be an extraordinary case to find one who kills for sport.
Likely we may never know. I'm sure someone will kill it first.
This guy here, he claims to have caught it once.
Maybe he can catch it again. It's Dr lan Detweiler. Do you know him?
No, but I dislike him already.
I've been over the area. If that was my animal, there's absolutely no evidence of it.
No prints, nothing whatsoever I can find.
- But it's still on the loose. - How did you say you caught it originally?
This is Karin Berquist.
We tranquillised it after tracking it for two weeks.
You admire it, don't you?
I admire its ability to survive.
- I think I'll look around, too. - Mm-hm.
That's one strange bird.
I left my dart gun in the car. I'm goin' to live rounds. I don't care what the regulations say.
I shouldn't be asked to risk my life. Neither should anyone else.
No one's askin' you to risk your life.
- Fiedler's lyin' dead. You realise that?
- Cahn, are you still there? - Look, we need more men out here.
How many more people have to go down before you guys listen?
I don't have a photo of this animal. No one's even seen it.
Now, let's get more men out here so we can catch it and kill it.
If you want pe...
- You scared me. - You kill that dog, and I'll kill you.
Detweiler said he could find no evidence at the scene
but with very little effort, I found several tracks
on the floor of the building where the man was attacked.
Did they tell you anything?
That this is a large, rangy animal with primitive, even pre-evolutionary, aspects.
It isn't perfectly visible, but I can enhance the print so that you can see it.
A fifth toe pad on the right paw.
Canids only have four toes.
He's got a vestigial toe pad on his front paws, right there.
The dewclaw, serving no purpose, although some believe it was once a prehensile thumb.
That's what you think the print indicates?
I am told this animal went in and out of closed buildings.
Yesterday you dismissed the possibility outright
that a dog, or a canid as you call it, would behave like this.
- I dismissed the idea of murder. - But you'll accept the idea
that it behaves in every other way like Jack the Ripper?
I'm just going by the facts.
In Chinese myth, the dhole can be evil, capable of opening doors,
stealing wives, and disappearing into thin air.
Maybe there is a basis in reality for this trickster myth.
Oh, I'm fairly certain there is.
- Everything OK, Scully? - How well do you know this woman?
How well do you know anybody you meet on the Internet?
Well, I question her motives.
You're suggesting this case was a way to get me out here, to meet me?
I'm flattered, but, no.
I don't know her, but I'll go out on a limb and say there's no way in hell
she was involved with those people's deaths.
She's enamoured of you, Mulder.
Don't underestimate a woman. They can be tricksters, too.
Dr Riley wanted me to give Duke three pills a day. Is one bottle enough?
- We can get you a refill. - OK.
Duke. Duke! Enough!
- Can't you control your dog? - He gets this way with strangers.
- Let's take him outside. - Thanks.
- Excuse me. - Duke, come on.
Sorry about that. He's usually well-behaved.
I called about the animal tranquilliser.
The Telazol. I don't dispense it much. If I have any, it's very little.
I'll take whatever you've got.
I have etorphine. Can you use that?
- Yeah. - Can I ask what these tranks are for?
An animal escaped from a pier in San Pedro.
Not that dog that's been attacking people?
If you don't mind, I'm in a bit of a hurry.
This dog, you're not looking for it around here?
I'm afraid we are.
Goodnight, Peggy.
Be sure to lock the front door for me. I'll lock up back here.
- Good night, Sparky.
Bye, Dino.
Hey, Buck. What's wrong, Buck?
What's wrong, Buck?
Come on!
- Where is he? - In the kennel.
- How'd it get in there? - It must have come around back.
Lomas, Young, go around back.
I'm gonna open the door. Doc, you move back.
I'm gonna have to shoot him.
I see him!
Did you hit him?
I think so. He's down.
Duke.
It's the wrong dog.
- You came out for nothin'. - How's that?
- I took out somebody's pet. - What kind of pet?
St Bernard. It was dark. I just saw somethin' move.
OK, Duke.
All done, pal. You're gonna be all right.
Now we gotta find out how you got back in here.
I'm a federal agent! I'm armed! If you can hear me, don't move!
Just stay where you are and tell me if you're OK.
Mulder?
Yeah?
Come take a look at this.
I'll call paramedics.
- Where's Fox? - Continuing his investigation. Come on.
- You're not working together? - No.
- This is my investigation. - Of?
- You. - I have no idea what you mean.
I thought at first that they were eccentricities. Or affectations.
The dark, the clothes. But it's photosensitivity.
Your sleeves cover up skin lesions.
It's why you're here amongst the humans, instead of out in the field.
Systemic lupus erythematosus.
"Lupus", from the Latin for "wolf".
- Ironic, isn't it? - Ironic, or perverse?
I've ignored the symptoms for years.
I've always felt more like a wolf than a person.
But not with Mulder.
With Mulder, you found somebody you could communicate with.
Someone who challenged you.
But that wasn't enough. You needed to lure him out here.
I lack your feminine wiles.
You don't believe it, do you?
Not for a minute, that there's an animal out there killing.
I don't believe that this man, Dr Detweiler, ever caught it.
I lived in Asia. I know about the Wanshang dhole.
And if it survived for over a century, it was because it was more cunning than man.
More cunning than this man Detweiler ever dreamed of.
More cunning than you?
I'm watching you.
You watch... but you don't see.
Officer Cahn, we have an emergency phone call for you.
Officer Cahn, are you there?
Officer Cahn, please respond.
Officer Cahn? Please respond.
This is Jeffrey Cahn. Go ahead.
We have an FBI agent holding for you. I'll patch him through.
- Officer Cahn? - Agent Mulder.
I'm at the animal clinic. Detweiler was here.
- Dr Detweiler was there? - Yeah, he signed for something. Looks like...
"Et... Etorphine... Ettoraphine"?
Tranquillisers. Ampoules.
- Are you anywhere near here at all? - Not far. Why?
If you have access to a lab, I'd like you to check something for me.
I'll be there in 15 minutes.
What are you doin' here?
I heard what had happened. I didn't know how bad he would be.
I thought I might get a description of the animal.
- How did you learn about the attack? - I'd been in contact with Cahn.
- I learned through his office. - No, you didn't.
He didn't want to have anything to do with you.
He was going to kill it.
Does that frighten you?
Please, sir, this is ridiculous.
You aren't hunting this animal. You know it can't be caught.
- Then how could I have brought it here? - No one knows that, except Karin Berquist.
She knows what was in that cage, and she knows that it must be killed.
She can't bear that. She doesn't want this thing to be extinct any more than you do.
- You're not making any sense. - I think I am.
You went to China to look for that animal.
You may have tracked it, as you claim, but the rest is far from the truth.
You found the Wanshang dhole, but you never caught it.
It caught you.
You didn't know what was happening to you at first, but you do now.
- When night comes, you stop being yourself. - That's insane.
You become the trickster. A shape-shifting man who becomes an animal.
- I've heard enough. - No.
You killed... because you could.
You may have resisted it at first. You may have hated what you've become.
Eventually, it took you over.
That's where the tranquilliser came in.
I found traces of etorphine in animal blood at the clinic.
You injected yourself with the tranquilliser hoping to stop the killings.
But they didn't, and they haven't. And they won't.
I protected you as long as I could. I won't any longer.
I can usually get a sense of a person right away from the dogs.
Dogs are the best judges of character I know.
I'm sensing something myself here.
I'm thinking maybe I've been misled, that you haven't been totally honest with me.
I've been honest with you, though perhaps not myself.
I was looking forward to meeting you. I wouldn't admit how much.
But you might have admitted what you knew about this animal, that it wasn't an animal.
I heard the reports and called you out, if only so you could disprove them.
What I knew was, it couldn't be a dog responsible for those killings.
It's Detweiler, isn't it?
- Yes. - So you knew that and didn't say?
I only realised it when I saw him.
My failure was in thinking I was protecting the animal.
That by deceiving you, it might be captured alive.
He's got to be put down, Fox. It's the only way to stop this.
I've got Scully on him, watching his every move.
He'll elude her easily.
- So where's he gonna go? - To the man he only wounded.
To the hospital, to finish the kill.
Scully, it's me. You gotta get to the hospital. You gotta make sure Cahn is protected.
Yeah, he's in danger.
Tell me why you pulled me away from the suspect and chained me here.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of Detweiler here.
That's aptly put. It's not yet dark.
You should take a load off. We might be here all night.
- What do you mean? - It's Detweiler.
It's not Detweiler. It's something that he becomes.
Mulder...
Through some blood curse, this man undergoes nocturnal transformation.
He becomes the same shape-shifting trickster as that mythical dog.
So what is he gonna do? Walk in here, skitter across the linoleum and pee in the corners?
It's about territoriality.
He'll come here tonight to make sure his dominance isn't challenged.
He's gonna put down the threat he failed to eliminate when he attacked Cahn.
Karin Berquist confirmed it.
The only thing Karin Berquist is interested in is you.
You're kidding yourself if you think she hasn't manipulated this entire situation
for her own purposes.
He'll come here tonight, Scully. You'll see.
OK.
He's not comin'.
- You've got no argument from me. - He's not comin' here tonight.
Karin knew that. She lied to me.
Karin, it's Fox Mulder. I know what you're doing.
If you can hear me, lock your doors. I'm on my way.
Come on, dog.
Come on. Come on.
Mulder...
Yeah, it's Detweiler.
You going home?
Yeah, pretty soon.
You think this is your fault.
I think that I...
believed her very quickly.
I think maybe that was my fault, yeah.
- Why wouldn't you believe her? - I barely knew her.
Well, she had a lot of secrets, that's for sure.
I think that Karin Berquist lived by her instincts.
She sized people up pretty quickly, and I think she figured you out to a T.
I think she saw in you a kindred spirit, Mulder.
She may not have been able to express that to you.
Maybe what she did was the highest form of compliment.
Are you gonna be OK?
Oh...
This came for you.
Thank you.
Tram Nguyen Zelnicker
I made this.