Legacy Of Terror

on it with the handle of the knife.
    Jerry opened the door, wiping his hands on a soiled rag. A streak of grease marred his chin, and he appeared to have been working on some piece of machinery. He said, “Well, hello!” Then he saw the knife in Gordon's hand. He looked quickly at Elaine, correctly interpreted the expression on her face, and tried to close the door.
    Gordon still holding the knife reversed in his hand, slammed the heavy handle against the side of the old man's head.
    Jerry staggered, clutched at the door, then crumpled at Gordon's feet, unconscious.
    “Inside,” Gordon said.
    She went in.
    He followed, pushing Jerry out of the way, and closed the door. He locked it too.

Chapter 19
    Elaine sat in one of the large, flower- patterned, heavily-stuffed lounge chairs, nearly engulfed by the plush seat and the high, thick arms. The chair smelled unpleasantly of dust and age. But that was, she decided, the least of her worries.
    Across from her, Bess and Jerry sat together on the purple brocade sofa, bent over themselves, shrunken, withered as if they had been dehydrated. Jerry held his head and from time to time let out a low, trembling moan of pain that sounded, to Elaine, somewhat like the bleat of a cow. She could not manage to be concerned about the old man. His agony was too carefully rehearsed, his moans too well-timed to be genuine. Bess cowered in fear, certain-Elaine began to understand-that Gordon was not really Gordon any longer, but was the reincarnate spirit of Amelia Matherly. The same fear, of course, was what so completely paralyzed Jerry. But he was either too ashamed to admit it or reluctant to come to grips with his own fears. He relied on his wound for an excuse not to act.
    Gordon stood between the three of them and the door. He paced back and forth, always keeping his eye on them, far more alert than Elaine would ever have expected a madman to be.
    He had cut the telephone cord.
    Elaine was furious with the old couple. There were three of them and only one of Gordon. If Bess and Jerry had not been so consumed with superstitious fear, they could have overpowered him, despite his size. But neither of them, she knew, would make a move to help her if she initiated a confrontation.
    “You asked for an explanation,” Gordon said.
    His face was like a screen upon which a film loop of emotions was projected, one following the other- fear, happiness, hatred, envy, doubt, joy, awe, love, disbelief, fear again, happiness again-with little relationship between what he said and what his features expressed. He was much farther along the road of madness than he had been downstairs, in the garage. Something about this “explanation” stirred deeper evil within him and set him off into greater depths of manic-depressive contrasts. Surely, he would kill all three of them when he was done. And he would start, being clever, with Elaine, the only one who could seriously resist him.
    “Do you have an explanation, Gordon?” she asked. It was a calculated risk, egging him on. But she knew their only chance was to take as much time with the “explanation” as possible. Perhaps no one would miss them. Perhaps no one would stumble upon them. But the chances improved with every minute they gained.
    “I told you I'm not mad,” he said.
    “He isn't crazy,” Bess said. “It's more than that. We tried to tell you, Miss Sherred, we tried to tell you it was more than that.”
    “The book,” Elaine said.
    Bess nodded.
    To Gordon, Elaine said, “Explain to me why you did these things and why you want to kill me too.”
    “It started just after grandfather came back from the hospital.” His eyes seemed to look at her, and yet beyond her. “For a while, we had a private nurse here by day, another by night, while we got your room ready.”
    He stopped, fidgeted a bit, rolled the knife over and over in his hand as he stared down at the point of the blade.
    “Go on,” she said.
    He looked up, as if he had forgotten them, then continued. “That room used to be the nursery.”
    “My room?” she asked, beginning to see connections, subtle webs between this event and that.
    “Yes,” Gordon said. “It had been closed and locked for fifteen years. No one had been in that room ever since the police finished with it.”
    “Why wasn't it converted earlier?”
    “Father didn't want to go in the room. He said, for years, that he wouldn't be able to use it for anything, even if it no longer looked like a nursery. So it was sealed.”
    Elaine