Somewhere In The Middle

by Lucas Coon

  "Grab his gun." Mitchell spouted a command to Darren. He walked over and picked up the handgun that Denver had used to cut into Mitchell's arm. He pulled the clip out and looked at it. There weren't any bullets in it and the chamber was empty. Darren looked up at Mitchell. "Ah, so the last bullet was the one he shot at me, perfect." He turned back towards Denver. "Doesn't change anything though."

  Denver slowly pulled himself to sitting up. He leaned his back against the desk and looked at the group in front of him.

  "Well, now what are you going to do with me? Are you going to throw me out into the infected to die?" He spat blood onto the floor next to him.

  "Get up." Mitchell stepped closer to Denver, he flinched. This man was obviously not of sound mind at all. "Get up, Denver." Denver worked his way to his feet. He kept his back to the desk as much as he could. "Do you have the keys to this floor?" Denver nodded his head. "Give them here." He shuffled around in his pocket and handed Mitchell the keys. "Is that it? There's no spare key or anything?"

  "No. What are you planning?" Mitchell ignored this inquiry.

  "Go, walk." He waved the gun forward. Denver walked toward the front door and to the stairs. "You can stay in that office down there, but if you even try to come up here, I'll make sure it's the last thing you do." Denver turned and looked at him.

  "You can't be serious. If the infected get in here I'll be dead." The look on his face was aggressively puzzled.

  "Listen you bastard, you just shot me and then pointed a gun at a five year old girl over nothing and you expect me to give a damn about you? You expect me to care what happens, or whether or not you're safe? If it were up to me, I would've put a bullet in your head five minutes ago. The difference between you and me, is the fact that I’m not completely insane. I don't know who you think you are, or why you think that you deserve special treatment, but let me tell you something Denver; no one is listening to you out there. The city is desolate, no one is taking the time to listen to some washed up jack ass that was spewing his psycho-babble into the microphone. Now you have two choices. The first one, and this is the one that I highly suggest, for everyone's sake, you walk down the stairs, march yourself into that office and sit there thinking about how much you've messed up in your life. The second, and this is the one that I personally would prefer, but don't recommend, ends with me throwing you down these stairs, taking you into that room myself and then pulling the trigger once, or possibly twice. Let me reiterate that the second decision does not specify where I put the bullets in you, just that I pull the trigger a couple of times. Now, I'm going to let you take a few seconds, oh, let's go with five, to think these options over. If you choose option two, let me know so I can inform Darren of your choice." Mitchell had a fantastic feeling after letting that out. He never expected that threatening someone's life would feel good, but this was the kind of person that really was the scum of the planet. With people like Denver waving their weapons, threatening other survivors, putting fear into the hearts of other people, there was no chance anyone would live.

  Denver looked at Mitchell, then back down the stairs. He started to walk down to the bottom.

  "Will you at least tell me when you leave? So I can come back up and do my radio show?" Mitchell looked down at him. He couldn't believe that he had really just said those words. He shook his head at Denver, turned around and locked the door behind him. He stepped back into the room and placed his firearm on the table. He was greeted with the sight of the other three looking at him. He couldn't tell if it was fear, gratification, or just shock. He really didn't care at this point. While these were his only friends and he did what he just did for them, it was also for him. He had been bottling a lot of anger over the past few days and having a mobile punching bag helped tremendously.

  "Mitchell, man, holy crap." Darren's concerned face turned slowly into a smile. "What the hell was that? Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful that you just risked your neck for my daughter, but I never would've expected that from you!" He chuckled. "I'm a little jealous that you didn't let me pop him one." Mitchell disregarded Darren's attempt at uncomfortable humor. He stepped over to the desk and leaned on it. He looked at Lilly and saw that she was still crying. He assumed it was fear and general confusion. He didn't blame her, that situation was less than favorable.

  "Are you alright Lilly?" He tried to muster some sweetness into his voice. It wasn't easy.

  "Is he going to come back and hurt us?" She sniffled as she asked her question. He noticed that she had slowed her crying for the moment. He felt a sort of warmth in his stomach and couldn't help his mouth as it slowly turned upward. He felt his cheeks pulling back. Was he smiling?

  "No, Lilly. He's not going to hurt us anymore." He couldn't help but huff in a laughing manner. It wasn't as much as a laugh as it was just a heavy exhale, but it had the same feeling as a laugh. This had to be the feeling that a parent felt when they interacted with their child. It felt like pride and joy all in one. Even with what happened less than a few minutes ago and what was happening outside, he was feeling happiness. The same happiness he felt when he and Aria would talk about baby names. It was always a giggly feeling, like he was a five year old girl getting a chocolate bar from a friend. It was moments like this that he was glad he didn't give up. Even if it was temporary, it still made breathing for the moment worth the effort. "I made sure that he won't come back."

  "Did you hurt him?" Her sobbing had stopped entirely.

  "Well, I think I might have Lilly." Mitchell wasn't going to lie to her, she saw what he had done.

  "Good, I don't like him. He's mean." Lilly pushed away from Kayla and on to the floor. She stood with her back still leaning against Kayla's knee, but it was obvious she wasn't as afraid anymore. "You got an ouchie on your shoulder mister Mitchell." She pointed at Mitchell's right arm.

  "Oh, yeah I did." He looked at the wound on his arm. It was still bleeding, but not tremendously. It had stopped hurting right up until the moment Lilly pointed out that it was there. "Yeah, it, uh, hurts." He looked at his shirt and noticed the blood on his arm. This was just his luck; he got a new shirt and within the day it was covered in blood and had a hole in it. He scoffed at the idea, it didn't bother him that much anymore. He didn't care about the shirt, or how he looked, all he cared about was living long enough to see Aria again, and that's what he was going to do. He looked around the room to see if there was anything he could use to wrap his arm to stop the bleeding.

  "Hey guys, I'll be right back, I'm going to look around in the other room. There's got to be more to this building than just these two rooms and the small area downstairs." He looked at Kayla and Darren. They nodded at him. They were occupied with trying to clear out the back corners for a sleeping place and calming Lilly down with food. He accepted their gesture and moved into the next room. There was a large table hooked to the wall that was covered in sliders and knobs. He assumed this was the sound board that they used during broadcasts and recordings. Other than the table, the only other object occupying the room was a ragged office style chair. It definitely didn't compare to the chair in Richard's office back at MTU, but it looked like it served its purpose. He pushed it in under the table and walked towards a door off to the side of the room. As he stepped closer the carpet began to feel different, almost to the point of being wet. He looked down and noticed that the once tan carpet was stained red. It was a dark red and it could only have been one thing. He looked at the door and assumed that the other side wasn't going to be pretty.

  He put his hand on the knob and slowly turned it. He took a breath in as he pushed it open and was greeted with the scent of bleach. The fragrance hit him in the face with the force of a prize-fighter. His eyes immediately turned red and he struggled to catch his breath. He pulled back and shut the door, coughing forcefully. After a few moments he was at a point of being what he considered OK. He took a deep breath, covered his mouth with his shirt and attempted to enter the room again. He looked in and immedia
tely realized why the scent was so strong. There were bleach bottles sitting empty on the floor and pools of their contents on the floor near the sink.

  Mitchell looked around the room to try to figure out what Denver was doing, when he figured it out. He noticed a tarp that was covering something of good size. Seeping under the tarp was a stream of bleach and what Mitchell guessed was blood. Mitchell walked towards the covered area. He knew what he was going to find under it, but his curiosity got the best of him. He crept slowly to the corner and crouched to grab the end. He moved his right arm to pull on it and was met with a stinging pain which reminded him of his original purpose. He shook his head and dismissed the idea of moving the tarp; he didn't want to know anymore.

  Mitchell stepped towards the sink and opened the drawers around it. He pulled a hand towel from the drawer and folded it into his pocket. He looked back at the pile to reconsider his decision. After a second of thought he turned and began to walk towards to the door. As he put his hand on the knob he heard a noise that he could only describe as a groaning. He slowly turned back and looked at the tarp. There was no way that, with the amount of blood and bleach in this otherwise white room, anyone kept in here could possibly be alive. As much as Mitchell agreed with the notion that it was impossible, he was standing in the same room as something that seemed to still be living. He stood and stared for a few moments. The silence was broken with another groan and then another. It kept happening and the groaning sounded like pain.

  He stepped slowly towards the tarp and leaned to grab the corner. He ignored the pain this time and gave it a single hard yank. As it pulled off the pile, Mitchell experienced on of the worst sights in his life. Under the tarp was what appeared to be a pile of three bodies, two female and one male. The worst part of this experience, was the fact that they were dismembered. The limbs were removed from the bodies and strewn within the pile. Mitchell was able to gauge the different levels of damage, as two of the bodies appeared to be completely dismembered and the third was only missing its legs. This didn't help the situation at all.

  "Oh my god..." Mitchell took a step back and looked the sight over. He began to feel sick to his stomach. 'This is what Denver is capable of? Is this what he would've done to us if he had more than just the one round?' His thoughts were disrupted by another groan. He slowly stepped closer to the pile to see if someone was in fact alive. He was met with a pair of open eyes looking straight at him. While the eyes that met his were alive, he was disappointed with what he saw looking back at him. The skin on the girls face was pale and appeared malnourished and her pupils were fully dilated. She may have been alive, but she was only hanging on because the parasite wasn't willing to let go yet. She raised her arms and began swinging them in Mitchell's direction. He stood there staring at her, she was on her back and partially covered by the other bodies and their limbs and Denver, in his sick process, had removed her legs, so the threat was minimal. He stood there staring at the infected woman struggling to move. Their eyes remained locked for several minutes as he thought about this situation. If the parasite was capable of separating, it would've already. He assumed that they weren't all capable of doing this, meaning that it was a process of change, of evolution. The problem with this was the fact that they could change further and could get much worse. What would happen then?

  "Hey Mitch, we were wondering... Holy sh..." the door opened for a moment as Darren spoke to Mitchell and immediately shut again. Mitchell assumed it was the bleach hitting Darren as hard as it hit him. The door reopened and Darren reentered the room with his mouth covered in the same way Mitchell was. Darren looked at the scene that Mitchell was looming over and shut the door behind him. He stepped over and stood beside Mitchell. "What the hell is this? Wait, is she alive?" He stepped forward to get a better look and the infected swung her arms at him.

  "To some extent yeah, but I'd step back." Darren took Mitchell's advice. "It looks like Denver is a little more disturbed than we thought. I have no idea if the other two were infected prior to being killed, but I'm guessing he didn't know she was. Otherwise, he would've killed her." The two men stared at the woman. She was sluggish in swinging her arms and was definitely hitting the end of her time.

  "Wait, I thought you said that the parasites were detaching." He turned his head to look at Mitchell.

  "I was thinking that same thing. I don't think they all can. I would guess that it's a case of nourishment; the more they feed, the more they change and further progress. Honestly though, that's just an assumption." Mitchell wasn't sure of his ideas, but based on his analysis of what had happened a few days ago and what was happening now, there was definitely a difference between the parasites. "You know Darren, I realized that you and I have ended up in situations like this several times. We've stood side by side looking over something and discussing what we thought, or what we know."

  "Eh, I think it's because we work well as a team. We typically have each other's backs and, well, it just kind of works." He put his hand on the back of his head and looked up. "That's why, when this is all over, I'm going to make sure that we end up in houses right next to each other. I will be your personal stalker and I will buy the house next to yours." He chuckled. "That sounded weird. It sounded alright in my head." The infected groaned one last loud groan and reached out towards the two men with all of its might. After stretching and making its noise the arms slowly fell limp and the woman's eyes fell shut. She was gone. "Well, I guess that's the end of that, huh?"

  "Darren, I need to talk to you about something." He looked down at the floor and put his hands in his pockets. He gripped the towel and held onto. "I didn't kill Claire. I shot at the wall and told her to go find her husband."

  "Yeah, I kind of figured. I saw the bullet hole in the wall. You only shot once and there was no blood. I kind of put two and two together. It's alright though, I don't think I could've done it either." Mitchell didn't expect this from Darren. He expected him to get angry, or disappointed, but he especially didn't expect him to just accept it. "I really don't blame you for letting her go though I kind of wish you would've told me sooner."

  "That police officer in the restaurant was her husband." Mitchell wasn't sure why he told Darren this, but he felt the need to spill his guts. "I gave her his badge, said that I met him and that he was out there helping people; when in reality I crushed his skull with a fire extinguisher. I killed her husband, stole his badge and gun, then lied to her about where he was."

  "Uh, wow. OK." He scratched his head. "I wouldn't blame you for that. I wouldn't expect you to be blunt about if you had to take me out, then had to confront Kayla with it. I mean, I would expect you to tell her, but honestly I don't know what I'd want you to say. He was infected, he was attempting to kill me. In the end you did the right things, since he was nothing more than a shell for the parasite and--"

  "That's actually wrong." Mitchell sighed and turned towards to door. "Unfortunately, they're not dead. The infected are still alive."

  "Hang on, what? You're the one that said they were already dead anyway. That's the only thing I held onto to get me past killing the infected that was trying to kill you!" Darren was visibly angered by this.

  "I know. That was before I knew though. I watched one outside my window. The parasite detached from the man and he was still alive. He was responsive, he reached towards the window I was standing in and had the appearance of someone that was scared and confused." He looked back at the floor again. "It didn't last long though. Within a minute he fell over dead."

  "What the hell Mitchell? Is there anything else you haven't told me?"

  "No, that's everything." He looked around the room again. "Does it really change anything though? Does it really alter the actions that we've had to take to get to where we are today? If you hadn't shot him, I'd be dead. If I hadn't killed Harold, you'd be dead. In the end, and I'm using this phrase loosely, the ends justify the means." He took a step towards the door. "We should probably leave this room. Leave it and
forget it even existed and never mention it to anyone. This is sickening and honestly, I don't want to think about it."

  "You're probably right. I would've done just fine not knowing how sick that bastard really was. Let's go." Both men walked toward the door. Mitchell opened it and Darren walked through back into the producer's room. Mitchell turned and looked at the pile of bodies one more time. He shook his head and shut the light off as he pulled the door tight. He met eyes with Darren as they proceeded back into the main room.

  "What took you so long? Lilly and I are starving in here waiting on you two!" Kayla smirked as she sarcastically punished the men.

  "Sorry, I was looking for something to dress my wound." Mitchell responded so Darren wouldn’t have to think of anything. "Would one of you guys want to help me out with tying it on?" He pulled the towel from his pocket. Kayla grabbed it and wrapped it around his arm, tying it tight enough to cover the graze. It wasn't bleeding nearly as bad as it initially did, but it still looked painful.

  "Well, you're a little late to stop the bleeding. It's starting to scab over. Hopefully this will at least make it a little more comfortable." She patted him on the arm where the wound was when she was done.

  "Ow." He winced as she did it.

  "Oh, man up Mitchell." She winked at him and turned back to Lilly. "We were trying to figure out what we wanted to eat. Either of you two hungry?"

  "I could go for some of those chips" Darren reached over and grabbed a bag of chips from in front of Kayla. "Mitchell, man, you hungry?" Mitchell wasn't sure how Darren could dig in so quickly after what they just saw. He assumed that he was taking the forgetting part quite literally. Mitchell opted to take the same path.

  "I think I'll take one of the jerky bags we grabbed." He grabbed it and looked at it. It was going to be more difficult than he thought.

  "Oh, going straight for the meat. Brave man." Mitchell felt that this comment from Darren was completely unwarranted. He grimaced at Darren and looked back at the bag with a frown.