Burial by Graham Masterton Page B

there were very few shadows on the wall, because all of the light came from the dim chandelier suspended from the ceiling. The main shadows were mine and Naomi’s, in small misshapen pools around our feet. So how had Naomi seen shadows on the wall?
    â€˜Michael … could you bring me a desk-lamp, something like that?’
    â€˜Sure,’ he said, and went back through to the living room.
    Karen stood in the doorway, her arms cradled, her face pale. ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t realize how difficult this was going to be.’
    I grunted. ‘Difficult? This isn’t difficult. This is so far out it’s meeting itself coming the other way.’ I wasn’t angry with her. I just felt inadequate, and seriously embarrassed.
    Michael returned with a small red enamel desk-lamp and I set it down on the floor and plugged it in. As I stood up again, however, it slid sharply across the room, unplugging itself as it did so, and clattered up against the opposite wall, next to the dining-table.
    â€˜â€œA slight element of the paranormal,”’ Michael quoted me.
    â€˜All right, no problem,’ I retaliated. ‘I deal with this kind of stuff every day of the week.’ In actual fact I didn’t
really
deal with this kind of stuff every day of the week. I had never dealt with anything like this before, ever. But I wasn’t going to let Michael’s scepticism get the better of me. I could understand the man’s bitterness; I could understand his sense of frustration; but the fact is that there isn’t
anybody
trained to cope with the supernatural, there aren’t any Duc de Richelieus or Harvard professors of Occult Goings-On,no matter what they tell you in Dennis Wheatley novels and Stephen Spielberg movies. So I was just as qualified as the next guy. Or just as unqualified. It depends how charitable you want to be.
    I crossed the room and picked up the lamp. I had to pull at it with almost my entire strength in order to carry it back across to the far side of the room.
    â€˜Michael, I’m going to plug this in again. Do you want to hold it, please, to stop it from sliding away?’
    Michael came into the room and knelt down beside the desk-lamp, holding it by the neck like a live rooster — and, believe me, if he had let it go, it would have rattled away from him just as fast. He switched it on, so that it illuminated the opposite wall. I stood in front of it and did a few of my shadow-tricks. A rabbit. A dove, with flapping wings. A turtle.
    â€˜What in God’s name are you doing?’ Michael wanted to know.
    â€˜Shush. I want to attract Naomi’s attention, but I don’t want to upset her. Well, not yet, anyway.’
    Naomi was watching my shadow-pictures out of the corner of her eye. She flinched slightly when I made them move, but she didn’t look away.
    â€˜Now, Naomi,’ I asked her. ‘Is this the kind of shadow you saw on the wall?’
    She shook her head. But still she didn’t look away.
    I did a dog, and a giraffe, and Oliver Hardy. That was about the sum total of my repertoire. No wonder the kids always used to boo me when I tried to entertain at children’s parties. But then I tried to imitate Naomi. I covered my face with my hands, so that only my eyes peered out. Then I slowly wriggled my fingers.
    Naomi was staring at the wall with widened eyes. I kept on wriggling my fingers, and I gradually lifted my hands higher and higher, the same way that Naomi had done, until they crowned my head like antlers.
    Naomi’s scream was so high-pitched that I couldn’t hear it at first. It was far beyond the normal register of human perception, like a dog-whistle. But I was aware of it, I was aware of her panic, and I turned toward the wall to see what it was that had terrified her so much.
    I saw my own shadow. A hunched, heavy-headed creature like a goat standing on its hind legs, with a crown of writhing