Cautiously I reached out to examine the box. I lifted it. It was oddly heavy, and strange to the touch. But no sooner did I have it in my hands when the door opened behind me. Donaldson had come back. * * * * * "What are you doing with that?" he shouted. "I--" He crossed the cabin at top speed and seized the box from my hands. And suddenly the monster appeared. It materialized right in the cabin, between Donaldson and me, its vast bulk pressing against the walls. I felt its noisome breath on me, sensed its evil reek. "Donaldson!" But Donaldson was no longer there. I was alone in the cabin with the creature. I backed away into the far corner, my mouth working in terror. I tried to call for help, but couldn't get a word out. And the beast squirmed and changed like a vast amoeba, writhing and twisting from one grey oily shape to another. I sank to the floor, numb with horror--and then realized that the monster wasn't approaching. It was just staying there, making faces at me. Making faces. Like a bogeyman. It was trying to scare me to death. That was how Max Feld had died, that was how Leo Mickens had died. But I wasn't going to die that way. I rose and confronted the thing. It just remained in the middle of the cabin, blotting everything out behind it, stretching from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, changing from one hell-shape to another and hoping I'd curl up and die. I stepped forward. Cautiously I touched the monster's writhing surface. It was like touching a cloud. I sank right in. The monster changed, took the dragon form again--much smaller, of course, to fit the cabin. Teeth gnashed the air before my nose--but didn't bite into my throat as they promised to do. Nervelessly I stood my ground. Then I waded into the heart of the monster, right into its middle with the grey oiliness billowing out all around me. There seemed to be nothing material, nothing to grapple hold of. It was like fighting a dream. But then I hit something solid. My groping hands closed around warm flesh. I started to squeeze. I had a throat. A living core of flesh within the monster? It might be. I constricted my fingers, dug them in, heard strangled gasps coming from further in. I couldn't see, but I hung on. Then a human voice said, "Damn you--you're choking me!" And the monster thinned. Through the diminishing smoke of the dream-creature, I saw Donaldson, and I was clutching his throat. He still held the black box in his hand, but it was slipping from his grasp, slipping.... He dropped it. It clattered to the floor and I kicked it far across the cabin. The monster vanished completely. * * * * * It was just the two of us, there in the cabin. I heard fists pounding on the door from outside, but I ignored them. This was between me and Donaldson. "What is that thing?" I asked, facing him, tugging at his throat. I shook him. "Where'd you find that hell-thing?"