Legacy Of Terror Read Free

that?”
    “Only three weeks ago.”
    She wondered why Lee Matherly had not told her. It was plainly still weighing upon the patient's mind, and it would have too be taken into consideration when treating him.
    She said, “Where did this take place?”
    “Here, of course.”
    “In this house?”
    “Yes.”
    She began to feel uneasy as she considered the possibility that the old man might actually be experiencing illusions.
    She said, “Perhaps it was a dream.”
    He was adamant that it could not have been. “I saw the serrated edge of it. I screamed. I don't have much volume, and I had only been back from the hospital for about two weeks. I frightened the killer, whoever he was. He ran… but I saw… saw that serrated edge of the knife in a glimmer of moonlight from the windows.”
    He had exhausted himself again.
    “It was at night?”
    “Yes,” he said. “I couldn't sleep, despite the sedative I take very evening.” He wrinkled his face in disgust. “I absolutely hate taking medicine to make me sleep.”
    She decided that cool, careful logic was the best way to handle the old man's accusations against the household. “But you haven't got any enemies here,” she said. She had been in contact with the victims of strokes before, and she knew that disagreeing with them only caused them to be more nervous and more positive in their delusions. But why hadn't the younger Matherly told her about this? She was a competent medical nurse, but she could not be expected to recognize minor mental impairment so quickly. If Jacob Matherly had not told her what Lee thought about the story of a knife, she might have even placed a bit of trust in the notion.
    “No enemies,” he agreed. “But there are those who don't require a reason to kill.” He said it with such a flat tone of voice that he had bled most of the preposterousness from the idea.
    “Living here?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Who?”
    “You'll meet everyone at the supper table,” Jacob said. “Watch all of them closely.”
    He went abruptly uncommunicative, for he had recognized the tone of disbelief in her voice, no matter how cultivated was her professional good cheer and comradeship.
    She did not know what to say to re-engage him in pleasant conversation. She could not continue to humor him as she might a child, for he was old enough to be her grandfather. Yet she was so rattled by his fantasy of madness and murder that she could not think how to rechannel him into more acceptable topics of conversation.
    A patient who lived in illusions, misinterpreting reality, was not her favorite sort. So closely linked to reality herself, she could not cope with someone who attempted to escape from life through daydreams and night dreams, sleeping and awake. She rarely had dreams herself. Or, if she did, she rarely remembered what they had been about.
    “Well,” she said, “if you won't be needing me for a while, I think I'll go freshen up and unpack.” She nodded to the bell cord attached to the head of the bed. “Is that linked to my room?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Then you can call me if you need me.”
    “Wait a moment, Elaine.”
    She had turned and taken a few steps towards the door, but she stopped now and turned back to him. She cocked her head inquisitively, waiting for him to speak.
    “Do you know about Christmas Eve?” he asked.
    It was the sort of nonsensical question she had feared, and she felt uncomfortable standing here. She said, “What about it?”
    “You don't know anything about what happened in this house on that Christmas Eve?”
    He had risen off his pillows a few inches. His body trembled, his neck was strained so that the veins all bulged and the pulse in the main artery was clearly visible.
    “I'm afraid I don't know,” she said.
    “Until you've heard of it-and you will, soon enough-don't judge me. Don't count me off as a babbling old man… old man with brain damage. Don't count me off like Lee has… not until you know what happened that night before Christmas.”
    “What happened?”