The Hunted by Alan Jacobson

of unease, of the need to protect himself. He looked away from Farber. “No, I—I don’t.”
    Farber pulled a penlight from his breast pocket and flicked it into Chambers’s eyes. Farber shook his head, then sighed again. “Well. Until we can find out your name, we’re going to call you John Doe. Like I said, you’re scheduled for that brain scan and I’ve been told the police have some questions for you—”
    “They asked me to let them know as soon as he’s lucid,” the nurse said.
    Chambers’s gaze shifted to the nurse. “The police—for what?”
    “Anytime a person comes into the ER with a gunshot wound, we’re required to notify them.”
    “Can’t it wait, I’m still feeling real tired.” He gave them a slow, gaping yawn and looked at the doctor with glassy eyes. “I don’t think I’m up to answering a bunch of questions just yet. Besides, I can’t remember anything.”
    Farber turned to the nurse. “Would you tell them he’s still out and it may be a little while?”
    The nurse frowned. “Yes, Doctor.” She disappeared out the door.
    “Doc, this memory thing is temporary, right?”
    “I’d prefer to look at it optimistically. But to be honest with you, until I get that consult from the neurologist, I can’t say how permanent, or temporary, it’s going to be. Diagnosing it properly is the key. There are a number of possibilities—postconcussion syndrome, retrograde or posttraumatic amnesia, and a host of psychological or organic causes. We’ve drawn blood and we’ll run a tox screen to make sure you haven’t ingested any kind of drug that’d explain your memory problems. The MRI will help. And depending on what that shows, we may also get an EEG to rule out epileptic disorders. Until we know when and where that bullet came from, it’s possible the bullet and the accident are completely unrelated. In which case, a seizure could explain why you drove off the road.”
    Chambers let his head fall back onto the pillow.
    Farber gently patted Chambers’s shoulder. “Radiology should be down for you shortly. You can rest here in the recovery room. When the X-ray techs come and wheel you out, the police may see you, so you may not have any choice but to speak to them at that point.”
    Farber scribbled his signature on the metal chart and hooked it to the end of the bed. “I’ll tell them they have to wait until after you get the brain scan, but my experience with the police is that they seldom listen to what I have to say.”
    “Thanks for your help, Doc. I’ll remember you in my will.”
    “Then for my sake, I hope that concussion isn’t too bad.” Farber turned and headed for the hallway.
    “Hey, Doc,” Chambers called after him. “You forgot to ask me something. Magenta.”
    Farber smiled, then walked out of the room.
    As soon as the door closed, Chambers eased himself off the bed, the pain from his left thigh finally masked somewhat by the medication. He felt a slight pulling sensation and reasoned it was stitches. As he stood upright, he felt dizzy and his head began throbbing more intensely, like a jackhammer on cement. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and waited for a few seconds for his eyes to clear before hobbling across the floor and through a pair of double doors that led to a supply room. There were trauma capes, surgical gloves, stethoscopes, sphygmomanometers, and an assortment of cath kits, electrode pads for ECG units, trach tubes... and surgical scrubs. He pulled out a pair of freshly folded burgundy pants, a shirt, and a surgical cap. He quickly slipped them on, tossing his hospital gown into a basket in the corner of the room.
    A bullet?
he thought.
That can’t be good.
    Until Chambers could determine if he was a felon wanted by the police or an innocent bystander, he could not put his trust in law enforcement. But one thing he felt he
could
trust was his instincts. And right now, they were telling him to put as much distance between himself and the