Night-World Read Online Free

last glimpse of the lights of the place where she’d stopped for gas and a sandwich. Then the distant glimmer disappeared. Fog swirled over the winding roadway ahead, and Karen cut her high lights, reducing her speed to a cautious crawl as the car ascended around sudden curves.
    There was no traffic here, no sign of habitation in the woods below the hilltops. The moon rose higher, and somewhere far off a coyote paid it a mournful tribute.
    The fog was quite thick by the time Karen reached the fork, but she recognized the small, inconspicuous white board sign, lettered Private Road, and turned her wheels to the graveled surface snaking through tall trees.
    Somewhere amidst the trees she lost the moon, and now there was nothing but the dim headlights against gray gravel. A pair of tiny yellow eyes glared up momentarily from the roadside ahead, then quickly disappeared into the woods beyond, leaving Karen alone.
    Suddenly she came to the high wire fence at the end of the road. It was quite an imposing fence, curving off as the eye could follow on either side of an equally high gate, but Karen sensed its purpose and was not surprised. What did surprise her was finding the gate wide open, and for a moment Karen wondered, until she remembered that her coming was expected.
    She drove through the gateway and onto blacktop that wound through the wooded grounds. Then the trees thinned out and she found the moon again, peering down at the shadowy silhouette of the house ahead.
    It was something more than a house, Karen acknowledged; whoever built it had realized the dream of a mansion set in solitary splendor. Two-story brick, with an imposing façade, and wings on either side. A millionaire’s home, in the days when a million dollars was still a lot of money.
    Now it was a home of a different sort—a rest home, as the polite euphemism has it—and its occupants, while not millionaires, were still far from impoverished. As Karen knew only too well, it took money to become a patient in Dr. Griswold’s private sanatorium. No wonder residence was limited to a half-dozen or so at a time.
    Rounding the driveway, Karen pulled up before the front entrance. The house’s silhouette was no longer entirely shadowy; she could glimpse lines of light behind drawn drapes covering the windows—lines which cast a reflection of wire mesh.
    Karen opened the car door so that its top-light flooded the interior. For a moment she surveyed herself in the rearview mirror. Hair in place. Makeup fresh—she’d attended to that in the washroom of the cafe. But she did look a bit tired, a bit tense. Ever since leaving she’d made a conscious effort to put the conversation with Rita out of her mind, but phrases still echoed. Suppose he isn’t ready? Suppose seeing you sets him off again? A big risk. I’m warning you —
    Well, it still wasn’t too late. She could close the door, turn the car around, head for home. Home? That empty apartment—she’d rattled around in it alone for the past six months, and that was long enough.
    Forcing a smile, she got out of the car, walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No one answered.
    She pressed the button once more, heard the muffled chime soften into silence. Only a little after nine o’clock—even though she realized the staff was small, surely they couldn’t all be in bed for the night.
    Karen reached down to rattle the doorknob and discovered it turning in her hand. The door swung open.
    Stepping into the high, dimly lighted hall, she caught a quick glimpse of terrazzo floor, paneled walls and closed doors of dark wood set on either side, a high open staircase ahead. At the foot of the stairs, a floor lamp beside a reception desk. And seated behind it, a woman in a white uniform—the night nurse.
    For a moment Karen hesitated, awaiting a greeting. But the nurse said nothing, merely stared at her. As Karen moved towards the desk, she saw that it was more than a stare; the woman was positively glaring