Somewhere In The Middle

by Lucas Coon

  "That sounds like a solid plan then. Let's go." Darren was taking his role as leader again. Mitchell still didn't feel that he had the proper qualifications to actually lead a troop onto the battlefield and that's exactly what he was doing. Mitchell decided that he wouldn't hurt his ego, he would let him keep leading, until it became a problem. Darren walked to the door and looked out left and right, still clear. He turned to address the group to continue but was cut off by an incredibly loud sound, one that Mitchell hadn't heard in a while. He turned around and the group was met with the quick visual of a large military truck zooming by at an incredibly high speed. Mitchell assumed they were going at least a hundred, if not more. He doubted that the people in the truck even noticed them standing in the doorway. They gunned past the building and barely made the next turn.

  "Hey! Hey, stop!" Darren ran out into the street at them flailing his arms like a mad man. He tried to get their attention after they flew past, but it didn't work. Mitchell knew it wouldn’t. "Dammit!" Darren walked back to the door of the office building and stood just outside.

  "Darren, do you have any idea how incredibly stupid that was? Running out into the street like that? If there were any infected out there you would have been killed!" Kayla laid into him. She was, once again, right.

  "Yeah, well, it was worth a shot." He shook his head. "Dammit, if they would've stopped we could've been safe."

  "At least we know there are others out here, so we're not alone." Mitchell attempted to give a silver lining to the situation. It really didn't help, but it was an accurate statement. There was a moment of silence between the four of them. It was a strange silence, as if none of them knew what the next step was. They all knew where their destination was, they all knew where they were going, but just couldn't connect the dots.

  "We should, um, probably get going. We don't exactly have forever." Kayla broke the tension. Even with Darren pretending to lead the group, she still stood above him in ranking.

  "Yeah, let's...let's just go.” Darren had the sound of disappointment lining his words.

  "Alright." Kayla turned and looked over the horizon. She took a deep breath and looked up at the horizon. "Let's go."

  Chapter 12 – To Denver

  The sun was beating down on the city just as it had every summer since the city was created. Prior to the city's existence, the sun would lend it's warmth to the grassy fields and trees that grew where there were now small towers of steel. The metal walls reflected the suns light back and the concrete roofs absorbed it. It was a never ending cycle of light being absorbed and reflected. The sun would set soon and the heat that it was offering would waver off the buildings as the night sky cooled everything back to an acceptable temperature. The passing summer was average at best, but to anyone outside the heat would be sweltering. Typically anything above the low eighties on the street was uncomfortable.

  On the second floor of a small brick building, the light of the sun was concentrating a small beam into a window and lighting up a small section of a wall that was covered by a poster. The poster was covered in a dramatic photograph that was dark in nature. It showed three men, all wearing black shirts and jeans. The man standing in the front was covered in a leather jacket. All three men had an illegible scribbling over them in silver marker. The signatures looked fresh, they hadn't faded or been rubbed off the poster and the silver still shined from the light creeping in the window.

  The evening radio DJ pulled the Microphone down and waited for the sound in his headset to stop. He clicked over his screens and read some of the script that he was told to read. He hated reading anything with a script; he felt that reading something made it feel more staged and it never had the same impact as anything improvised. He assumed that this trait was from his years in drama class during high school. He was best friends with the instructor and managed to always get the lead role in the plays. He was accused of doing a hundred different things with the teacher, most of them illegal or unethical. He didn't care, he knew they were all false and the people that started the rumors did so out of jealousy. He was good at acting, it was something that he had aspired to do with his life. From the time he was nine to the day he applied for college, he dreamed of being an actor. It was unfortunate for him that the sun had set several thousands of times between when he attempted his dream and the day he stepped behind the microphone at the local rock station. The minute he did that, he knew his dream was dead. He'd come in every day for twenty years now. His face was showing signs of aging. His goatee was thick and peppered with random white spots. He'd kept his hair shoulder length to remind him of what he considered a better time, but even that was beginning to turn against him. Every time he looked in the mirror he could only see a man that was whittling life away one day at a time behind a pair of thick lensed glasses. He was never truly happy with where he ended up, but he didn’t complain too much. At least people knew the sound of his voice.

  The song playing through his headset was at the bridge and would be over within the minute. He looked around to make sure that he had everything ready for his couple minutes of talking when he noticed a figure move on the camera monitor. A man wearing a baseball cap, a collared shirt and carrying a large rectangular bag walked up and pushed the buzzer. When the buzzing started, a small red light on the desk lit up.

  "Dammit, you would show up right before I went on." The man pushed the button near the monitor and spoke into the speaker box. "Hey bro, I see you. If you could wait for like, five minutes, there's a twenty spot in it for ya" The pizza guy looked confused as to where the voice was coming from then he noticed the camera and the communicator. The man thought that he didn't look a day older than eighteen. He could see the delivery driver's name tag hooked to the top of his cap. It clearly read "Kyle" in bold, capital letters.

  "Oh, uh, yeah I can wait." He stepped back from the door and sat the bag of pizza on the bench by the entrance.

  "Thank you Kyle, you rock brother." The DJ stood straight and cleared his throat. The song was hitting the last note and he would have to read his part quickly, he didn't want to make Kyle wait too long. The song finished and the bright white "on air" board lit up. He leaned forward and began his part.

  "Hello to all you lovely people! You are listening to FNTM; that is Phantom Modern Rock and Alternative. You all know me by now, but in case you don't, I am your host Denver Grant, playing all the hot tracks from today, a couple from yesterday and maybe a couple from tomorrow." He paused for a second; he hated segues. “Let's take a look at the weather for this beautiful night.” He clicked over to the window with the local forecast. "Alright, it looks like we are looking at a current temperature of seventy-one and we will hit a low of sixty-four tonight. Not quite a record, but pretty close. Tomorrow is looking to be another lovely day with a high of seventy-two and low of sixty, with about a twenty percent chance of storms in the late evening. While it would be nice to get some water out here, I wouldn’t make any bets on it though." He chuckled at his own remark. "OK. It is time for our one-hour, commercial-free, evening block. We got some good ones for you guys tonight, but, if you have something you'd like to hear, feel free to call in." He looked back at the screen where Kyle was staring at his cell phone patiently. "One shout out real quick. I'd like to shout out to Robin's Pizzeria for being so good to me and would like to specifically call out their delivery drive Kyle for being such a cool kid. That boy is stellar my friends. If you guys out there at Robin's are listening, give Kyle a raise! Anyway, as always I have to cram five minutes of commercials down your throat before we hit our hour free block. So, enjoy the following messages from the corporations that pumped the most money into our parent company's bank account. This is Denver Grant. See you kiddos later!" He clicked the play button and listened for a moment to make sure that the commercials started. A voice started to talk through the set.

  "Is your medical firm in need of I.T. personnel? Are you moving or planning on upgrading your technology? Medical Technologies Unit
ed can help! MTU is a leading firm in medical technology and we..." Denver pulled his head set off and stepped away from the desk. He exited the studio floor and made his way down the stairwell to the entrance. Kyle was still standing there staring at his phone.

  "Hey, Kyle, thanks for waiting man. You got here right as I went on." He took a cigarette out of his front pocket and lit it. "What do I owe ya?"

  "It's, uh, eighteen dollars and forty eight cents." Kyle handed Denver the poorly printed receipt; he looked it over. One extra-large pepperoni pizza with coupon for ten dollars, fifteen bone-in buffalo wings for seven dollars, plus a little on top for tax. He folded the paper slip and put it in his pocket as he reached for his wallet.

  "You guys upped the price of your wings I noticed. I used to be able to get fifteen for five-fifty. You guys are just lucky they're worth the seven bucks." He pulled two twenty dollar bills out of his wallet and handed them to Kyle. "There ya go kid. Don't report the full twenty as a tip. Just tell them I gave you the dollar fifty-two. That way they won't tax you on it." He laughed a raspy laugh. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and pushed it into the small tray by the door, exhaling the smoke from his lungs. "Have a nice night Kyle." He limply waved at Kyle as he walked back to his car and drove off.

  Denver pulled his keys out of his pocket and pressed his fob to the door. It beeped and clicked, he pulled it open and took his spoils up the stairs. He looked over the pizza, it was decent sized, but to his dismay there wasn't enough pepperoni on it. "Dammit. They never put enough on these things. Why offer an extra-large pizza if you're going to top it like a medium? Eh, whatever." He took a slice and bit into it, it was going to be a long night.

  -----

  Denver sat in his chair in front of the microphone. The sun was starting to set and the light was reflecting on the same poster it had every day since Denver last had an extra-large pepperoni pizza and a box of fifteen wings. As he sat there in silence for a few moments, he thought about his weekly ritual of ordering from Robin's Pizzeria. He decided that today would've been the next day he would order from them. He would've gotten a large Italian sausage and olive with boneless wings today. Kyle would probably drive it up and would be a good kid waiting for him at the door. He would hand him an extra twenty for waiting, and everything would be back to how it was.

  He looked around the room without turning his head. It was still and empty with the exception of his computer and the pile of trash in the corner from his food scraps. The food had attracted roaches and they were crawling on the pile. Denver didn't care anymore, they were almost like friends to him at this point. He sat staring at the microphone trying to recall the last thing he had shouted into it. It was something angry, or possibly it was just something warning people of impending doom. The thoughts inside his head felt like a crazy whirl-wind of broken dreams and thoughts of death mixed with celebrity determination and the desire of getting information to people that were listening. 'There are still people listening to me. They all know me by name. They depend on me to get the information out to them. They need me.' He wasn't sure who they were, but he was certain they were there. He'd been checking the frequencies regularly. He knew that there was someone else out there in the WMQZ building and he wanted nothing more than for them to be killed by infected. He wanted to be the only station still live. He didn't care about the military doing their boring recorded broadcast, or the babbling Russian. All he cared about was being the only voice with emotion on the radio.

  He clicked the radio on again. He started at the first mark, it was the military evacuation broadcast. He clicked over to the last mark, it was still speaking in Russian. He angrily clicked the dial into the center of the numbers towards the WMQZ station. His face began to show aggression as he neared the number for the station. He pressed his jaw together hard and hit the number. He waited, nothing happened. He pulled his head back in confusion. He turned the volume button up as high as it would go, still silence.

  "Ha! I win, you bastard! You died didn't you? You lose!" He started to cackle insanely. "I knew I'd outlast you! I knew you were going to die! Now how did you go? Were you infected and you changed? Were you eaten like a Thanksgiving turkey? Oh, better yet, did you do it yourself?" He continued his raspy laugh. After exhaling too hard through his laughter he started to cough. His coughs brought no relief to the feeling in his throat and they kept coming. He hunched over and attempted to catch his breath. He gasped in and shoved the air out of his lungs. He was able to catch his breath and sit back up comfortably. He kept his sadistic smile on his face. He sat completely still in his chair and clicked the power button on the microphone.

  "Hello all of you lovely people. It appears our friend at WMQZ has passed away and I think we should take a moment to reflect on what we've all been through and also take a moment to appreciate that your savior, Denver Grant, is still live and comin' at ya loud through your speakers! Next up we are going to... uhh... we're going to…" His voice trickled off like a weak stream. He leaned back in his chair once again. He sat staring at his microphone for several minutes. His eyes were wide and he neglected to blink during this motionless time. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something moving on the screen. For the first time in a number of days he saw something approaching the door that wasn't an infected. He saw a small group of people trotting up to the entrance. He looked at them; two men, a woman and a little girl. None of them were injured, the two men were carrying back packs and it looked like they were both armed. Denver's eyes grew drier with seconds passing as his eyes grew wide staring at the scene.

  "This place should do. If not there are a couple of places to camp out for the night." Darren pulled on the door, it didn't budge. "Dammit! Of course it's locked, why wouldn't it be? Oh well, let's go next door or somewhere else nearby to--"

  Denver reached and pushed the button on the speaker box. "Hey..." He watched the taller of the two men turn around and look at the door. "I can...I can see you."

  "Someone's in there." Mitchell looked up at the camera. "And I'm guessing that he can see us just fine." He pointed up at the camera. The rest of the group looked up to be met with a lens pointing straight down at them.

  "Hey, whoever you are, could you let us in please? We really would like to get off the street before it gets dark and this building looks like it is safe. You marked the side window and all that." Darren wasn't sure what he was trying to say, he just knew that he wanted to get inside this building before they were slaughtered like cattle.

  "Could you..." Denver smiled maniacally. "Could you wait for just about five minutes?"

  "What? We don't have time to wait man. You do understand that there are infected out here that are unwilling to let us, you know, live?" Darren was visibly angered by Denver's request. "Just let us in man. None of us are infected." There were a few moments of silence. "We have food. We could share some with you, as long as it's just you."

  "Could...Could you wait just five minutes for me." Denver repeated his question. Darren looked up at the camera confused. "Just...just five minutes, I promise."

  "I...” Darren spun and looked at the group. Mitchell shrugged in confusion. “...yeah. Please hurry though. If you could make it less than five minutes that would be fantastic." Darren submitted to the request.

  "Thanks...Kyle...you rock bro..." Denver's voice lingered away from the speaker as he finished his statement. His words left the group visibly confused.

  "Who the hell is Kyle?" Darren looked at Mitchell and Kayla.

  "Don't ask me. Maybe you look like someone the guy knew or something." Kayla shrugged her shoulders. "Is that your second life’s name, Darren?" Mitchell chuckled at this statement. He didn't know why it was so funny, but the thought of Darren leading a double-life was one that tickled him. "I know, he couldn't lead a second life, could he?" Kayla nudged Mitchell.

  "Will you two shut up?" Darren snapped back through a shy smile. They stood and waited as the sun started to slowly creep under the horizon. "Hey,
man, could you please hurry it up? It's getting dark out here!" Darren yelled into the speaker box. His words fell on deaf ears as Denver stared at the screen with his mouth open. Saliva began to pool on his lower lip and make its way to his shirt. He sat with a blank stare, his eyes remained open for the entire five minutes. As the clock struck what would've been the fifth minute, he shook his head and hit the door unlock button.

  Darren heard the click of the door unlocking and turned the knob. He pulled the door open and rushed the rest of the group in. He tightly shut the door behind him and looked out the small glass window. He couldn't see any infected yet, but, as the darkness of night took over the city, he knew that they would pour themselves onto the streets. He turned and looked at Kayla.

  "If we could better plan on when we're going to seek shelter, that'd be fantastic. I have a feeling that, if we hadn't stopped, we would have been attacked here within the next few moments." He looked at his watch. "The sun is starting to set earlier. I'm guessing that we should start taking better advantage of the light we have guys. We should get to the hospital by tomorrow afternoon. That is, if we leave early enough." He looked up the stairs to see Denver staring at them. "Hey, thanks for letting us in." He reluctantly thanked the man looming at the top of the hallway. Darren felt unsure about the man. He didn't say anything, just stood staring at them. "Uh, hello."

  "Hi." He finally spoke. "I'm glad you guys are OK." His voice had what felt like random pauses within the words he was speaking. It was monotone and lacked any emotion at all. "Would you like to come up stairs and have a seat?" The group looked amongst each other. "It's safe in here." His blank face turned to a smile. It was a confusing smile. His mouth curved upwards, but no other part of his face indicated that he was smiling. His brow remained unmoved and his eyes were still as blank as they were before.

  Upon looking around, Mitchell realized they didn't have much of a choice. The layout of the building was one that didn't include many rooms on the bottom floor, there were two restrooms and an office. Their other option was to go back outside and deal with the chaos that the night had become. Mitchell took a deep breath and stepped onto the bottom stair. He treaded to the top and looked around. There was food piled onto one side of the room that was crawling with scavenging insects. The chairs were laying in a manner that suggested they were thrown angrily. There was a room off to the side that once had a large glass window, which was now displaced all over the floor on both sides of the frame. As horrible as it was, Mitchell opted to believe that being in the station was a better option than being outside. He walked in and turned around to see the rest of the group make their entry. He noticed that the other two made the same analysis of the situation.