“I’m sure Olive’s right,” said Hugh. “There’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

He was answered right away by a loud, inhuman growl, which seemed to come from the shadows beneath the tower.

“What was that?” said Emma. “Another hollow?”

“I don’t think so,” I said; the Feeling still fading in me.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” said Horace, backing away.

But we didn’t have a choice; it wanted to meet us. The growl came again, prickling the hairs on my arms, and a moment later a furry face appeared between two of the lower railroad ties. It snarled at us like a rabid dog, reels of saliva dripping from its fang-toothed mouth.

“What in the name of the Elderfolk is that?” muttered Emma.

“Capital idea, coming into this loop,” said Enoch. “Really working out well for us so far.”

The whatever-it-was crawled out from between the ties and into the sun, where it crouched on its haunches and leered at us with an unbalanced smile, as if imagining how our brains might taste. I couldn’t tell if it was human or animal; dressed in rags, it had the body of a man but carried itself like an ape, its hunched form like some long-lost ancestor of ours whose evolution had been arrested millions of years ago. Its eyes and teeth were a dull yellow, its skin pale and blotched with dark spots, its hair a long, matted nest.

“Someone make it die!” Horace said. “Or at least make it quit looking at me!”

Bronwyn set Claire down and assumed a fighting stance, while Emma held out her hands to make a flame—but she was too stunned, apparently, to summon more than a sputter of smoke. The man-thing tensed, snarled, and then took off like an Olympic sprinter—not toward us but around us, diving behind a pile of rocks and popping up again with a fang-bearing grin. It was toying with us, like a cat toys with its prey just before the kill.