TEUCH WOKE AND WORKED HIS JAW. HIS STOMACH ACHED, BUT he was hungry for only one thing. He listened to the sounds around him, the beep of the heart monitor, the hissing rise and fall of a respirator from the next bed, the low chatter of nurses at the station outside. His eyelids glowed intermittently. He cracked them open, just a bit, and marveled at the yellow light flickering in the barren window, wondering what tricks his damaged brain played, until he heard the faint rumble of thunder.
He shifted his legs under the covers and flexed his fingers, letting the muscles fire in sequence until his shoulders shrugged beneath the sheet. Above him, the IV dripped steadily and he studied the morphine dispenser, wondering how bad the pain would be without it. He stared at the crack in the curtain surrounding his bed, listened again, then removed his hand from the sheets, feeling the edges of the bandage that covered his head like a helmet. The blood on the lip of the bandage had become crusty, a good thing, since it meant the bleeding underneath had stopped.
From the mindless talk of the nurses during the day he knew it was Saturday and knew that meant a reduced staff on every front. He breathed deep and slipped from the bed, glad for the sensation of the cool floor beneath his bare feet. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he studied the IV, carefully peeling back the tape before tugging the needle free from the vein in his arm. He swung his legs over the other side of the bed now, careful not to pull the sensor clip free from his fingertip, and gently pushed open the curtain to learn that the person in the next bed was an old man with tufts of snow-white hair and a wrinkled face, toothless and wearing a grimace of pain.
Teuch studied the setup until he had it figured. He took hold of the man's hand with its long nails and soft pale skin and closed the fingers around the respirator tube. He studied the cracked-open door for a moment, then yanked the man's hand, tearing the tube free from his mouth and setting off a wild scream of alarms inside the room as well as out in the hallway.
He ducked behind the curtain and quickly tugged the sensor free from his fingertip, setting off a smaller alarm of his own. Two nurses rushed into the old man's space. The lights in the room went on. Another patient on the other side of the room groaned in agony. Teuch fished open the curtain at the foot of his bed and slipped past the nurses bent in wild motion over the dying old man. His legs felt rubbery protruding from the thin cotton robe and he gripped the rail along the wall, working his way down the hall. In front of him a door swung open and a bleary-eyed young doctor dashed toward him. Teuch pointed back at the room.
"He's dying!" Teuch said, and the doctor sprinted past.
Teuch didn't look back. He hurried for the exit door at the end of the hall, nearly falling flat as it swung open into a stairwell. A single flight down and he came to a metal door with a red bar, an exit, clearly marked for an emergency.
Teuch leaned against it and spilled out onto a concrete walk, another alarm now piercing the night. Above, the dark sky guttered with lightning. Rumbling thunder filled the air with the damp smell of coming rain. Teuch glanced around at the three-story brick building, the sign that read ennis medical center, the surrounding trees and grass, and the nearby lights from the town. He began to jog away from the building, the wind blowing grit into his face, blood from the disrupted IV drizzling down the length of his hand to spot the concrete. Stray papers rattled past and the pale blue robe seemed to glow even under the waving shadows of the trees along the parking lot.
Behind him, the wailing emergency alarm began to fade.
His hunger did not.