Legacy Of Terror

pain…
    She woke to the sound of the emergency buzzer and leaped out of bed, her professionalism taking precedence over her grogginess. She pulled on her robe and hurried down the corridor toward Jacob's room.
    The door was standing ajar, but she did not stop to consider the importance of that. She went in, turning on the light as she passed the switch, and found the old man doubled over, retching, panting for breath, his angina as fierce as it had ever been.
    She got two glycerine tablets from the medicine cabinet, poured a glass of water. She held his head while he swallowed the first pill and lowered him back onto his pillows again. His face was furiously red; perspiration dotted his forehead and streaked along his cheeks. His hair was damp, as was the pillowslip under it. She gave him the second glycerine tablet, then began filling a syringe with a charge of morphine.
    “The key-” he wheezed.
    His voice was thin and birdlike, all but unintelligible.
    “Key?”
    He pointed toward the top of the nightstand where a ring of keys lay, his long fingers shaking uncontrollably.
    “The key… for this room,” he said.
    “Relax,” she told him, working up a smile that she thought would soothe him.
    “Lock me in… when you… when you go!”
    “Please rest, Mr. Matherly. Relax, and we'll have you better in no time at all.”
    “Swear… swear you'll… lock me in.”
    “Let's just roll up your sleeve,” she said.
    “Swear it!” He was purpling with fury. His whole body shook as if someone were repeatedly striking him. She saw that it was worse to ignore his rantings than to give in to them.
    She said, “I will.”
    He slumped back, his face quickly paling, his lips taking on the blue tint of death.
    She rolled up his sleeve, swabbed the area on the inside of his elbow joint and administered the morphine.
    Shortly, color returned to his cheeks. His eyes looked heavy, but they were devoid of the agony they had contained.
    “Better?” she asked.
    “Tired,” the old man said. “Very tired… so tired.”
    She listened to his heart with a stethoscope, listened for a long while. At first the beat was so ragged it frightened her, and she had decided to call an ambulance if it did not soon subside into a more regular cadence. In a few moments, the beat did soften and fall into a steady rhythm.
    Jacob's face was healthy again, both in color and tone-except, of course, for the damaged half-and his lips had lost the deathly pallor.
    She filled a basin with water from the adjacent bath and wiped his forehead and face with a cold washcloth. That done, she changed his bedclothes and made him comfortable once more.
    “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 assured 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 passed, 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 unscrewing it from its baseboard