Free Burial by Graham Masterton Page B

talking about?’ E.C. Dude demanded.
    â€˜
Look at the wall
!’ Stanley shouted.
    â€˜What’s the matter with the wall?’
    â€˜Look at the shadows!’
    E.C. Dude stared at the workshop wall. All he could see at first were the heaving, angular shadows of the struggling cars. But then, off to the right-hand side, he saw a strange shape that wasn’t part of a car at all, but more like a human figure. Except that it couldn’t have been a human figure. Its head was huge and misshapen, and it ducked and dived as it hurried across the wall in a way that no human could run.
    â€˜Shit, there’s somebody there!’ said E.C. Dude, angrily. ‘There’s somebody there, man, and they’re smashing the cars up deliberate!’
    E.C. Dude glimpsed the shadow again. It looked as if the culprit were trying to run along the workshop wall and escape unnoticed out of the back of the lot. E.C. Dude said firmly to Stanley, ‘Wait here, man, okay?’, and dodged forward, trying to see where the shadow might have gone.
    He tried to skirt around the right-hand side of the lot. Maybe he could head the shadow off. But as he approached the wall, he realized that nobody could have made their way through this battlefield of tortured, shrieking, colliding cars. Jesus, you’d be trapped and crushed in an instant.
    E.C. Dude climbed cautiously up onto the back of a turned-over pickup truck; but just as he managed to catch his balance, the truck shifted beneath the soles of his boots like something alive. He jumped back off it and steppedaway. This was seriously bad news, all of this, and he didn’t want to get involved. In any case, there was no longer any sign of the shadow, or the man whose shadow it might have been.
    He heard a tumbling metallic noise and something struck him on the side of the foot. He jumped clear, did a hotfooted dance, and managed to dodge a shower of spanners and wrenches and screwdrivers that were rolling across the concrete to join the tangle of cars.
    Every loose tool and empty bottle and thrown-away box and worn-out tire was being dragged into the heap of wrecked automobiles up against the workshop wall.
    A long section of chain-link fencing began to rattle and shake, and then another, until the whole perimenter fence was jangling. The red-and-white pennants tore themselves loose, and flew towards the workshop, catching on some of the smashed-up automobiles, and fluttering wildly.
    Then — to E.C. Dude’s despair, Papago Joe’s Airstream trailer began to creak and tilt.
    â€˜It’s going to fall over!’ shouted Stanley. ‘Look, it’s going to fall over!’
    Already, two or three cars had stopped on the highway, and people were hurrying from the Sun Devil Bar & Grill, including Stanley’s mother, the waitress with the short blonde hair. In a high panicky voice she called, ‘Stanley! Stanley!’ and came running across the lot barefoot.
    She scooped Stanley up in her arms just as the Airstream’s suspension collapsed, and the whole trailer rolled over onto its side. There was a deep crunching of broken glass and stoved-in aluminum sheeting, and E.C. Dude heard all of Papago Joe’s china and glass and books and pots and pans go tumbling from one side of the trailer to the other, followed by a heavy thump and a bang which was probably his TV set.
    After that, however, quite abruptly, the destruction seemed to be over. The hot noonday silence was broken byan occasional clang and rattle as another hubcap dropped off, or a capsized automobile settled on its roof, but that was all.
    E.C. Dude surveyed the lot and didn’t know what the hell to do. All that seemed to have been left standing was the sign saying PAPAGO JOE BARGAIN USED AUTOS —, with its buffalo skulls. Even the ‘buckskin’ fringes had been ripped away.
    Stanley’s mother came up to E.C. Dude and stood frowning at him. She was small and