House of Thunder by Dean Koontz

part of the disease is a lot worse for her than the knowledge that she’s dying. She has a great many friends in town, but she specifically asked them not to come visit her in the hospital this time. She wants them to remember her as the woman she was. Doesn’t want anyone but doctors and nurses to see her. That’s why I drew the curtain around her bed. She’s sedated, but if she woke up even for a few seconds and saw the curtain wasn’t drawn, she’d be terribly upset.”
    “Poor soul,” Susan said.
    “Yes,” Mrs. Baker said, “but don’t feel too badly about it. That time comes for all of us, sooner or later, and she’s held it off longer than a lot of folks.”
    They retraced their path around the bed, and then Susan got up into it and leaned back gratefully against the pillows.
    “Hungry?” Mrs. Baker asked.
    “Now that you mention it, yes. Famished.”
    “Good. You’ve got to put some flesh on your bones. I’ll bring you a snack.”
    Raising her bed into a sitting position, Susan said, “Do you think it would bother Mrs. Seiffert if I switched on the television?”
    “Not at all. She won’t even know it’s on. And if she does wake up and hear it, maybe she’ll want to watch, too. Maybe it’ll draw her out of her shell.”
    As Mrs. Baker left the room, Susan used the remote-control box to turn on the TV. She checked several channels until she found an old movie that was just beginning: Adam’s Rib with Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn. She had seen it before, but it was one of those sophisticated, witty films that you could see again and again without becoming bored. She put the remote-control box aside and settled back to enjoy herself.
    However, she found it difficult to pay attention to the opening scenes of the movie. Her eyes repeatedly drifted to the other bed. The drawn curtain made her uneasy.
    It was no different from the privacy curtain that could be drawn around her own bed. It was hooked into a U-shaped metal track in the ceiling, and it fell to within a foot of the floor, blocking all but the wheels of the bed from view. Her own curtain had been pulled shut on a couple of occasions during the past two days—when it had been necessary for her to use a bedpan, and when she had changed pajamas.
    Nevertheless, Jessica Seiffert’s closed curtain disturbed Susan.
    It’s really nothing to do with the curtain itself, she thought. It’s just being in the same room with someone who’s dying. That’s bound to make anyone feel a bit strange.
    She stared at the curtain.
    No. No, it wasn’t the presence of death that bothered her. Something else. Something that she couldn’t put her finger on.
    The curtain hung straight, white, as perfectly still as if it were only a painting of a curtain.
    The movie was interrupted for a commercial break, and Susan used the remote-control box to turn the sound all the way down.
    Like a fly in amber, the room was suspended in silence.
    The curtain was motionless; not even the slightest draft disturbed it.
    Susan said, “Mrs. Seiffert?”
    Nothing.
    Mrs. Baker came in with a large dish of vanilla ice cream covered with canned blueberries. “How’s that look?” she asked as she put it down on the bed table and swung the table in front of Susan.
    “Enormous,” Susan said, pulling her eyes away from the curtain. “I’ll never finish all of it.”
    “Oh, yes, you will. You’re on the road back now. That’s plain to see. You’ll be surprised what an appetite you’ll have for the next week or two.” She patted her gray hair and said, “Well, my shift just ended. Got to get home and make myself especially pretty. I’ve got a big date tonight—if you can call bowling, a hamburger dinner, and drinks a ’big date.’But you should get a gander at the guy I’ve been dating lately. He’s a fine specimen of a man. If I was thirty years younger, I’d say he was a real hunk. He’s been a lumberman all his life. He’s got shoulders to measure a