“It’s like the eyes follow you round the room,” said Dozy.

It was true. No matter where they stood, the gathered vampires kept a close watch on them.

“Unkebyem?” said Mumbles.

Dozy shrugged.

“I’ve no idea who’d buy one of those pictures and put it on his wall,” he said. “Except maybe your dad, to remind him of your mum.”

Mumbles kicked him in the shin again. The bulb above their head flickered one last time, then died.

“This isn’t doing us any good,” said Dozy. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I feel like we’ve been walking in this basement for hours. We must be under the sea by now.”

They trooped on, Dozy limping slightly from the repeated kicks to his shin, and Mumbles sulking in front of him.

“I like your mum,” said Dozy. “Seriously. You’re just lucky you got your looks from your dad.”

Mumbles turned to aim another boot in Dozy’s general direction, but he paused midkick.

“Erat?”

“Hear what?” said Dozy.

“Erat!”

Dozy listened. From the shadows behind came the sound of something landing on the floor. It didn’t sound like a big something, which was good. On the other hand, it was definitely a something, which was bad. The sound came again, and again, and again. Not a something, then, but lots of somethings.

Which was very bad.

“Rats?” said Dozy. They hadn’t seen any rats or mice yet, which he found odd. There were usually rodents in old basements.

Dozy listened harder.

“No,” he said. “That’s not the sound of claws. It’s more like soft fruit dropping on a floor. Maybe someone’s making jam.”

The two dwarfs faced the darkness. The sounds had stopped, but now there was movement in the gloom.

A small object rolled toward them and came to a halt a couple of inches from Dozy’s right foot. It looked up at him. It couldn’t do much else, since it was just an eyeball.

“Somebody will be missing that,” said Dozy.

Another eyeball rolled into view, and a third. Very soon, Mumbles and Dozy were looking down on a field of eyeballs. They were all slightly yellowed, and all very familiar, since the last time the dwarfs had seen them they had been lodged in the skulls of the vampiric pictures in the previous room.

I had to say it, thought Dozy. I had to say that the eyes seemed to follow you around the room. Mumbles had just the same reaction.

“Adzaeyfollroo!”

“I didn’t mean it literally,” said Dozy. “It’s not like I was hoping it would happen. All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to ignore them. After all, they’re eyeballs. What can they do, stare us to death? We’re going to turn around, continue our search, and pretend that they’re not there, agreed?”

Mumbles nodded. “Ooly.”

They each took a deep breath, spun on their heels, and started walking.

• • •

It turned out to be a lot harder than they had expected to ignore the eyeballs. Most of us, at some time or another, will have had the sensation that someone is staring at us. Our instinct is to find out who, and why, and make them stop doing it. If lots of people stare at us, we start wondering what might be wrong with us. Has our face turned a funny color? Do we have a bird on our head? Have we left something unzipped that shouldn’t be unzipped in public? Being stared at for any length of time is very unpleasant.