"I still can't see a thing," I said. He pointed a third time. I stared and saw nothing and was about to say so when something struck the side of my head just above the ear. I staggered off into the fern-brake and sat down. I was groggy and I didn't know what had hit me. There still wasn't a sound in the jungle. When I brought my hand up to my ear and brought it away again, it was red and wet and glistening with blood. I turned around slowly, stiffly-- Jason Woods Stevenson stood there in the fern-brake. He looked gigantic. He lifted the big Marlin Magnum .375 over his head and brought it down, butt-first. I rolled over and away and the big rifle struck half a foot from my head. Several inches of the rifle were buried in the mud and I had time to stagger to my feet while Mr. Stevenson pulled it clear. "What's the matter with you?" I roared. "What's the--" He stood five feet from me. He swung the rifle around and pointed it at my chest. There wasn't a sound--not a sound. It was like a nightmare.... I used my own rifle to knock his aside as it went off. The Marlin Magnum packs a kick and he stumbled back a step. I went after him and when he pointed his rifle at me again and looked as if he would squeeze the trigger I had no choice. I swung my own rifle like a club and brought it down with savage force on his shoulder. There was a sound and the sound said his shoulder was broken. He merely scowled and brought his rifle up again, broken shoulder and all, and then I knew. I shot him. I poured the whole clip into him and the rifle kept kicking back against my shoulder, the stock slapping my cheek, and I didn't want to think. It was not until the last bullet went _whonking_ home that he fell. It was a sound that only a hunter or a killer knows--the _whonk_ of lead into flesh at close range. It is a horrible sound when what you're shooting at is a man. Was a man. Or looked like a man. Because, as he fell, Jason Woods Stevenson changed. The features melted, became indistinct. The limbs fell in on themselves. The body grew big and round--bloated and somehow obscene. In seconds what had been a man was a shapeless, quivering, dying mass of protoplasm. A Wompan. Then Harry Conger screamed. It was a scream of sudden awareness and fear. It was worse for Harry than it was for me. Harry was falling in love with Ginger, and now-- I went crashing through the fern-brake, seeking them. I shouted at the top of my lungs now. "Harry! Harry!" I found them when it was almost too late. Harry was down on his back, a dazed look on his face. There was a smear of blood across his face from ear to mouth. There was a strange look in his eyes. Ginger Stevenson stood over him with the short-barrelled Mannlicher. I shot six times with a new clip before she fell. Harry climbed to his feet and stormed at me, raging like a mad-man. "You killed her!" he cried. "You--"