It was Loretta who saved them. She had to. The Kid and the Stranger were shooting at the juddering, inhuman thing that Carl had become. As though its colossal master had reached across the lake and stuck some terrible feast into Carl’s insides, stretching and bending the human material of the host like a sock. Now the thing that was previously Carl barely resembled anything human. The creature launched itself at them, knocking a vial from the Stranger’s hand onto the floor, before it scuttled away, faster than a bullet could follow, into the train, scenting and hunting for its masters’ prey. What made her grab the bottle she didn’t know, but its contents seemed to sing to her, a faint white glow emanated from its inside, offering redemption. She leaped out of the broken windshield, landing near the burning caretaker’s hut. The snow fell over the flames, sparks shot up, she felt her hair singe and her hands grow cold. It was there, just within reach, the lever, and all she had to do was push it, and she could save them.

Then she turned her head and, under the glow of the moon, she saw it, she saw the face of the Colossus. What sculptor had formed that dark visage? That sneering mouth and that predator’s beak, the taloned hands resting in their opal throne? It never moved, it never lived or breathed, and yet the mountain was no longer in its place but in the water, and when she looked again it was closer, and then closer again. The snow did not fall on its beautiful and ageless face. It crowded her mind, it drove her out of it. There was only room for the Colossi in the world, there was no room for her in it.

Dark waves raced against the shore. They slammed into the island with the fury of elementals, and perhaps it was that, the spray of Chagrin water and the cold wind blowing in from the peaks that broke the spell, that let her finally, with the last of her power, push the lever.

In the cab, the engineer had never stopped cursing but now he suddenly went quiet, as the track shifted, and the little toy train circled one more time round the island, but slow, too slow. The Colossus roared then with a laugh that was pure rage. It was so close, another step, two at the most. The Stranger barked at the Kid, who looked at him in mute horror, but had no choice but to obey. He climbed down to the stoker’s cabin and pried the shovel from the dead man’s hands. He began to feed the flames.