A quake knocked me off balance. I would’ve discounted it as a passing semitrailer if not for the reaction of the rust troll. Its gasping laughter heightened into a strangulated mewl, and its twiggy arms flapped in a state of blind ecstasy. Oil coated every one of its scales, and in seconds the troll was gleaming with black liquid.

The rumble grew stronger. The tires stacked around me began to jar apart. A section of the rubber cave collapsed. I put my chest to the ground and covered my head with both arms just in time—a tire landed on my back, knocking the wind out of me. While I heaved for oxygen, an orchestra of groaning metal struck up from the junkyard. Glass shattered, steel whined, and heavy objects avalanched from the car-part foothills. My rust troll gibbered with delight because he knew what we’d hear next.

Gunmar the Black’s scream shot from a thousand different metal mouths at once. It howled through exhaust pipes, blasted from defunct car radios, gurgled through battery acid, and blared between truck antennae like the prongs of the devil’s tuning fork. The entire junkyard was being played like a pipe organ.

Scrambling on my elbows, I shouldered aside each tire that battered me. I made it out into the open and flopped onto my back, only to see two tons of mangled vehicle parts sliding at me like snow from a roof. I shrieked and ran into a world that was raining scrap, burying all of us. Engine hoses slapped my cheeks; windshield wipers stabbed my ribs; edges of license plates sawed at me like teeth; and headlight lamps dropped and fractured, each of them glaring like an Eye of Malevolence.

The Hungry One’s echo gave way to the sound of him chewing on his tongue, each moist squish piped up from the underworld, softer and softer, until there was silence and the dissipation of dust. What was revealed was a prison of tangled metal. Jack fought for the necessary leverage to cut himself free. Blinky’s eyes bobbed above the surface of the rubble like eight periscopes. Trapped beneath several entire vehicles, ARRRGH!!! frothed with frustration, which at least told me that she was fine.

Rust trolls had none of these problems. Their slim forms easily snaked through the entanglements, and the two that had not yet died were on the move. I tried to make myself invisible, but the one with the cross-shaped scar sniffed me out, asphyxiating itself with hoarse laughter. A long vertical slit opened along its stringy torso, revealing teeth that circulated like a rusty chainsaw. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the first bite.