“My God, it’s not Bear Ross, it’s a real bear!” shouted Jason hurriedly grabbing for his rifle.

But as the creature approached nearer they could see that whatever it was, it was no bear; was nothing they had ever seen before.   It looked more like an oversized, tail-less orang-utan than anything else.

“My God, what is it?” cried Kim as he reversed the spotlight to light up the creature properly for the first time.

“Don’t ask me,” replied Mark, “but it sure as Hell isn’t human!”

So, saying both he and Jason raised their rifles to take shots at the creature.   Although less than ten metres behind the Land-Rover, in the flickering light of the spot, shakily held by Kim Monroe, their own hands shaking from fright as they fired, both Mark and Jason shot well wide of the target.

At the sound of the gunfire, the tall manlike beast propped and stared at the hunters for a second as though just noticing them, then took off at an easy stride.   Without even breaking into a run, the creature passed the Rover before Mark or Jason had time to fire another shot.

“Christ, look at him go!” cried Jason; “he’s not even raising a sweat, yet he’s easily leaving us for dead!”

“Don’t just sit there!” called Mark Blythe to his brother, “let’s get after him.”

“You want to go after it?” asked Don, sounding frightened at the idea.

“Why not, we’re out hunting aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but did you see the size of that bastard?” asked Kim.   “He was two-and-a-half metres easily.”

“So what?   We’re the ones with the rifles,” pointed out Mark.

“Well, all right,” said Don dubiously, starting the Rover to follow after the rapidly disappearing ape-man.

As the vehicle started up again, Kim hunted round for a small instant camera, which he used to photograph wildlife.   Finding the camera he tried to hold the spotlight steady with his left hand, while snapping off photos with his right.

“For God’s sake, keep the light steady!” ordered Jason as the spotlight beam zigzagged across the forest ahead of them, lighting up the fleeing ape-man they were chasing for a second or two, before wavering to the left or right of the creature.   “How can we hope to shoot it if you can’t keep it lit up?”