Legacy Of Terror Part 9

'Now?' she asked.

'Better.'

'I'll stay with you until you're asleep.'

'You won't forget your promise?'

'I'll lock the door,' she a.s.sured him, though she didn't know why she should.

'I don't want him getting in again.'

'Who?'

'I don't know who it was. All I saw-I saw the knife, in the light from the window.'

She felt her own heart beat faster. In her professional role, so deeply involved in carrying out her nurse's functions, she had momentarily forgotten the Matherly house and its legacy of madness.

'You don't mean that someone tried to kill you, again?'

He nodded his head affirmatively.

She knew that she should drop the subject, but she could not. She said, 'But why couldn't you see who it was? The nightlight would have-'

'There was no nightlight when I woke up.'

She knew, then, that he must have dreamed the entire affair, for there was always a nightlight burning here, at his own insistence. She clearly remembered seeing to it before she left the room earlier in the night.

He continued: 'I was awakened when he stumbled against the chair in the dark. When I opened my eyes, there was no nightlight. Just the dim light from the window. I reached for the cord and pulled the buzzer to get your attention, because I found I couldn't build the lung power to scream.'

'There's no one here now,' she said. 'When the buzzer sounded, he fled.'

'You rest now,' she said. 'He's gone and can't hurt you.'

'Do you believe me?' he asked, fighting the drugs that worked on him.

'Of course,' she lied.

He leaned back, exhausted, and soon found sleep.

Elaine listened to his heartbeat again, took his pulse. Satisfied that the attack had pa.s.sed, she turned to leave-and saw the small, blue bulb of the night-light. It was lying on the floor where someone had dropped it after uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it from its baseboard fixture.

Numbly, she picked it up and threaded it into its socket again; it lighted and glowed against the palm of her hand. When she had entered the room and switched on the main lights, she had been too concerned with Jacob's condition to notice that the night-light was out. The old man had not been dreaming, after all. When she left his room, she carefully locked his door as he had requested.

In the corridor, she stood in darkness, holding the ring of keys and wondering what her next move should be. Back to bed? Or should she wake Lee Matherly and tell him what had happened? The darkness seemed to close in, like a living thing, and it made clear thought impossible.

She hurried down the corridor to her room, closed and locked her door behind.

She could not sleep.

The storm had begun again, complete with rolling thunder and the heavy patter of rain on the roof and against the windows. Lightning snapped open the clouds and peeled back the darkness for brief moments, then gave way to the thunderclaps again.

But it was not the storm which kept her awake. She could have slept through a hurricane if only she had not had to cope with the certainty that a madman roamed the night in Matherly house.

Perhaps she should not have left Jacob alone. She doubted that the killer would force the door. But if she had remained with the old man, she would not be alone now*

Elaine remembered the dream from which the buzzer had awakened her, remembered the mammoth canvas that filled the universe with a skillfully rendered portrait of her blood-stained countenance. And that did not help her state of mind at all. It so disturbed her, in fact, that when she first heard the noise at the door of her room, she thought it was nothing more than a figment of her overworked imagination, generated by these unpleasant memories. She tried to turn away from the door and concentrate on regaining sleep.

But the noise continued.

It sounded as if someone were testing the lock.

Finally, unable to ignore it any longer, she rolled over. In the light of the bedside lamp, which she had not been able to bring herself to extinguish, she looked at the door. The bra.s.s k.n.o.b moved slightly. It turned first to the left-then to the right.

She sat up in bed.

Someone, on the other side of the door, turned the k.n.o.b as far to the left as possible, then cautiously put their weight against the panel. She could see the oak bulge slightly against its frame, and she was thankful that the door was as thick as an old tabletop.

She slid out of bed and stepped into her slippers.

A shattering blast of thunder swept against the house and made her gasp and whirl, as if her unseen enemy had somehow abandoned the door and come in through the window, behind her.

At the door, the would-be intruder twisted the k.n.o.b back, all the way to the right and, again, applied pressure to see if the lock could be snapped.

She considered screaming for help and realized that might not be the wisest move. How could she, after all, be certain that her scream would be heard by anyone but the man who was trying to force the door to her room? The walls of the old house were thick; the storm further served to cut the effectiveness of a scream. And if a familiar voice answered her scream and told her that everything was fine, how could she be sure that, when she opened the door, he would not turn out to be the killer-holding a knife and smiling at her?

The movement of the door k.n.o.b ceased.

For a time, there was not the slightest sound to betray any furtive activity.

Elaine stepped up to the door, treading softly, hopeful that whoever it was had given up and gone away. It did not occur to her, at that moment of intense fear, that-if the killer had departed-he might very likely have gone to attack someone else in the house. She never once considered that her own safety might be at the expense of another life. All that mattered was that, for whatever reason, he should leave her in peace.

The roll of thunder was somewhat more distant than it had been, though still loud enough to set her nerves on edge.

The lightning flashed intermittently, like some lone, forgotten, guttering candle.

As she leaned against the door to better listen to whatever was transpiring in the corridor, the thin blade of a wickedly long knife was thrust through the crack between the oak panel and the frame, inches from her face, almost as if the killer had seen her and knew where to strike! As if he might have been watching her through two inches of solid oak!

She leaped back, too terrified even to cry out. She might as well have been a mute, for her lips moved and her throat worked without producing a sound.

The blade withdrew.

And came back.

It worked up and down the tiny slit where the door met the jam, clicking audibly against the mechanism of the lock. She realized, then, that the killer had not seen her, but was merely trying to spring the lock with the blade.

She leaned closer to the door now and said, in a small voice which sounded utterly unlike her, 'Who is it?'

The blade continued to work.

'Who is it?' This time, she hissed the request louder.

The blade stopped.

It withdrew.

Silence*

'Are you still there.'

More silence.

She waited what seemed like hours, though only ten minutes pa.s.sed according to the bedside clock. Even with her ear pressed to the door, she could not hear anything in the corridor beyond.

Had he left?

Should she open the door and see?

As if in warning, the thunder's greatest rage returned, smashing the stillness of the air. In its booming voice, she seemed to hear it cautioning her against unlocking the door.

She retreated to the bed and sat on the edge of the rumpled sheets, leaning against the old-fashioned footboard. Aware that the danger might not yet have pa.s.sed, she fixed her gaze on the oaken door.

Long minutes pa.s.sed, and her mind rambled over dozens of memories, as if seeking escape from this ugly moment. She recalled her first look at the Matherly house from the road and the first premonitions of unpleasantness which had possessed her. She remembered, earlier than that, graduation from the University Hospital and the eagerness with which she had packed to leave the dormitory for this job and a new future. And before that: the orphange, the changing nurses and house mothers, the children she had rarely gotten along with. Before that: the social workers bringing word of the accident, trying to break the news of her parents' deaths with the least amount of nasty detail*

Abruptly, she looked up, aware that she had drifted into sleep, slumped against the footboard in an uncomfortable position.

At the door, the intruder was working the knife in the jam again, intent on springing the lock.

She required all her strength to rise up and go to the door and lean against it while he worked, trying to hear some other telltale sound. All she could hear was his heavy breathing which only frightened her more. He sounded like some sort of crazed animal.

'Go away,' she said.

The knife stopped moving but remained thrust through the crack.

'Go away.'

He said nothing.

'I never did anything to you,' she said.

For a moment, she felt as if she would go mad herself, driven into insanity by the simplest of things: -the silence, deep and foreboding; -the persistent wind, howling at the windows, pressing on the gla.s.s and driving the rain like fingers on the panes; -the sound of her heart, pounding so fiercely and so loudly that it must surely burst; -the gleaming blade of the knife, still most of the time but now and then jiggling as his hand twitched*

Minutes pa.s.sed as if they were cast of lead and given a minim of life, crawling minutes that eventually brought a withdrawal of the knife blade from the door. And then, thank G.o.d, the pa.s.sing minutes also brought the sound of his footsteps as he retreated down the hall. He walked quietly and was soon gone.

She almost laughed, but managed to choke the urge down. She was afraid that, if she once gave in to laughter, she would be unable to stop. She was on the edge of hysteria.

She went back to the bed and crawled onto it and began to lift the sheets to wrap around her. But she saw that was no good. She dare not fall asleep again this night, lest the killer have another change of heart and come back after her. 'I never did anything to you,' she said to him. And he had been satisfied with that, apparently. But he might not remain satisfied for very long.

Her hands were sweating. She wiped them on her pajamas.

Her mouth was as dry as sand, but she was afraid even a gla.s.s of water would make her ill.

Twenty minutes later, she found herself standing in the middle of the room, swaying back and forth, staring at nothing, thinking of nothing. For a third of an hour, she had lost track of the world, slipped into a self-protective sh.e.l.l.

That was dangerous.

She shook herself, figuratively and literally, and she angrily berated herself for being unable to control her fear. There was nothing to fear. Nothing concrete. Not until he returned, if he did. She had always believed in keeping things as simple as possible, hadn't she? All right, then. The danger had pa.s.sed. Relax. Don't let your imagination run away with you.

She drew the easy chair to a spot ten feet away from the door, and she sat down in it, facing the only entrance to the room. She would maintain a vigil. And she did. Until she fell asleep, utterly exhausted, two hours later.

Chapter 11.

It was 9:45 when she woke the following morning, and the knowledge that she was going to be late performing Jacob's morning checkup helped to keep her mind occupied and held the previous nights terror at bay. When she had showered and dressed and applied what little makeup she required, she found herself hesitant to unbolt the door. But, because she was late and because she was-above all else-professional in the performance of her duties, she overcame that hesitancy in short order.

The corridor was empty; the house was quiet She unlocked Jacob's door and entered his room to find him sitting over the remnants of his breakfast, perusing the morning paper.

'Ah,' he said, 'good morning! As always, you look charming.'

'Thank you,' she said, a bit embarra.s.sed, as she always was when anyone complimented her. 'I hope your locked door wasn't the cause of any trouble. I should have been up earlier, but-'

'Nothing to it, nothing to it,' he said, waving away any apology or excuse she had prepared. 'Bess unlocked it and locked it after herself.'

'Well, shall we go through the ritual?'

'Get out your infernal devices,' he scowled in mock perturbation. 'See if I'm alive or not.'

When everything checked out as well as they might have expected, she said, 'Is Lee home this morning?'

'He and Gordon are in the city on business again. If I'd worked myself as hard as they do when I was young, I'd never have lived to earn a pretty nurse!'

She could not understand his cheerfulness or why he had decided to take last night's incident so lightly. He did not appear-except for his insistence that the door remain locked-to fear anyone or anything.

She had hoped to find out what she wanted to know and unburden herself to Lee Matherly. If he was not at home, the next best sympathetic ear was Jacob's.

'Have the police talked to Celia yet?' she asked, watching the old man carefully.

'Yes,' he said.

Then that is why he's relieved, she thought. The girl must have positively identified her a.s.sailant as a stranger. Yet, why should he still want his door locked if that were the case?

'What did she tell them?'

Jacob pretended to want to return to his paper, but he did manage an answer for her. 'She can't remember it at all. It was too much of a shock to her, poor child. Those last few minutes, from the moment she turned into the driveway, are blank. No memory of them.'