Somewhere In The Middle

by Lucas Coon

  "What're you doing?! Call it again!" Darren pushed Mitchell to redial the number. He did so and they listened for the ringing again. "It's coming from upstairs. Listen..." They paused again and listened for the tone. "It's traveling through the vents." Mitchell hung up.

  "Can we go ahead and look upstairs then?" Mitchell began to consider the possibility that she was still alive.

  "Yeah, let's go." Darren was on board. "Kayla?"

  "How safe do you think we are here?" She looked at Mitchell when she stated this question. It was a good one.

  "Wow I really don't know dear." Darren answered for him. It was close enough to what he would've said. "Why? Are you wanting to stay here?"

  "Honestly, if we're safe here, I'd rather stay. Not that I don't want to go, I just don't like forcing the little one into these horrifying situations. I'm trying to cause as little damage to her as possible, you know, after Denver and all that." She was sincere in her reasoning. Mitchell looked at her and saw the look of fear gleaming through her irises. Lilly had been through what Mitchell could only consider to be hell for a five year old. The adults knew what was going on and all, but she was more than likely lost in her own mind. She knew that they were in danger, she knew that people were trying to kill them and that was probably about it. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled Harold's gun out. He placed it on the table and looked her in the eye.

  "If you absolutely had to, would you be able to use this?" He slid it over to her. She looked down at the gun and back up at Mitchell. She hated guns, but this offering was a necessary one. "Only if it came down to it. I just want to make sure that you are safe if you're staying here. You were safer in the office with the push button lock, but here, where it's much more open..." He looked up and around the room.

  "I hate guns, but yes, I could use it if I needed to." She sighed over her statement.

  "Are you sure you want to stay here?" Darren wasn't excited about her wanting to sit this one out.

  "I'm exhausted." She shook her head at him. "I've had to carry Lilly all over town for two days now. Honestly, I'm just at a point where I want to hole myself up in a small room and sleep."

  "Alright, I can understand that." Darren looked around. "I'd say that you would be good if you went in one of the exam rooms and took a break." He pointed at the nearest room with a number. "Right there, room one eleven. It's easy to remember, it's close to the entrance and we'll know exactly where you are." Darren had made a good suggestion, Kayla could get some much needed rest and they'd be in a safe place.

  "I think that I will go ahead and take you up on that." She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "You're too sweet, really." She gathered Lilly, put the gun in her pocket, strapped on her backpack and took a walk to the side wall. She pushed to door open and looked in. "Oh! Looks like the honeymoon suite!" She sarcastically laughed, walked in and shut the door behind herself. Mitchell looked over at Darren, he was definitely nervous.

  "You're not OK with that are you?"

  "No. No I am not." He picked his shotgun up and propped it over his shoulder. "But it's not like I had much of a say." He grinned an incredibly fake smile at Mitchell. "I'm sure they'll be fine though. As long as she stays there, I don't expect any problems..."

  Chapter 15 – All Things Considered

  She was breathing heavily. She remained cramped in an uncomfortable closet as the phone started to ring again. She could hear the catchy tone blaring from the other side of the door. She shook her head again as the tone played all the way through. 'Dammit! Why did I drop it? If I could have held on tighter... that could be him.' She listened to the phone ringing and wondered if the coast was clear. If she opened the door prematurely and the infected was still waiting on the other side, it would all be over.

  "OK, I'm just going to open the door and check. One, two, three..." She cracked the door slightly. Light from the hallway was shining into the glass window on the door and was reflecting onto the floor in her direction. The light in the room was off and added no sense of security. If it were on, she may have felt a little safer. The door creaked as she opened it. When the hinges made their scraping noise she paused; that was definitely not something she needed. She let the light hit her skin as it shined through the slight opening of the closet. The room was silent, much like a majority of the hospital. She felt like the hospital had become a morgue more than anything. It was the kind of quiet that could drive someone insane and the number of dead bodies strewn around the building weren't exactly strong points in assisting sanity. She pressed the door a little more in an attempt to check if the room as safe. Her opening of the door was met with an ear-piercing scream and a hand attempting to reach into the closet.

  She pulled the door as hard as she could, catching the infected's fingers in the door frame. Her struggle to shut the door was conducted through the high pitched screams of the infected and piercing screams of the young girl beside her. The panic spread throughout her body and she could feel herself starting to cry through the fear. She pulled the door as hard as she could and could hear the bones starting to crack. The sound was enough to make her feel sick, but she couldn't give up. She let up just slightly and the hand pulled out of the door. She pulled it shut tightly and kept ahold of the door knob. The only sound, outside of the infected screaming in pain, was her breathing as heavy as she could and the sobbing of a little girl.

  "No, no, no, it's OK." She leaned down on her knees. The closet was cramped, but she was able to squirm down to the little girl’s height. "Calm down, we'll be OK." She put her arms around the little girl and hugged her tight. The two of them had been trapped in the closet for a little while, so her eyes had adjusted to some extent. She could barely make out the shape of the child, but she could see enough to know where she was. She held her tightly and felt like she needed to cry as well. She opted to hold it in and be strong for the two of them. It was a hard situation to be in, but she knew they'd get out of it. She didn't know how, but she had a feeling that it would all be OK.

  "I promise that we'll be fine. We just have to wait here for a little while and..." She thought for a few seconds about what to say. "It'll leave. Yeah. It'll leave." She sat down on the floor and moved some of the janitorial supplies so she could lean against the wall. She looked up at the ceiling and sighed. 'We're dead. We've been through all this and we're dead.' She sat there for a moment and listened to the infected continuing to scream. She heard the phone ringing under the screeching.

  "I'm scared." She could tell that the girl was crying under her statement.

  "I know you are Brynn. I know you are. We'll be OK though." She put her hand on her shoulder. "I promise you that we'll get--" Her thought was cut short by the sound of shotgun firing followed by the sound of silence. She jumped and looked at the door. She wasn't sure whether or not they were safe, or if this was going to be the next problem. She noticed the phone had stopped ringing and she could hear someone talking.

  "She's not here." Mitchell picked the phone up and pushed the ignore button. "Dammit. Where the hell are you Aria?!" He kicked the bed in the center of the room. He caused himself to stumble and caught himself on the edge of the cushion.

  "Mitchell, it's alright. If her phone's here, then I'm betting she's here. We just have to keep looking." He attempted to comfort Mitchell, which was not an easy task at this point.

  “Yeah, I know. At least I can be sure that she was here. I don't know why her phone was sitting somewhere in the middle of a hospital, but she was here." Mitchell put her cellphone his pocket. "Should we get back to--"

  "Mitchell?" The woman opened the closet door and walked out cautiously. Mitchell turned to look at the woman as she stepped out of the darkness and into the room. She was as tall as he was with bright blond hair. She had freckles on her face and slightly pale skin. Her eyes were dark blue in color and they were focused straight on him.

  "Is that...?" Darren motioned towards the woman.

  "No, I don’t--" Mitchell was confused b
y the fact that he had heard his name. "I'm sorry and I know this may be an incredibly inappropriate question given where we are and what we're dealing with, but, do I know you?" He looked her over. She was wearing a set of scrubs, which indicated that she was probably a nurse or a doctor. Mitchell had no clue who she was.

  "We've met, but I wouldn't say you know me." She composed herself and reached out her hand. "I'm doctor Rafferty, just call me Madison." Mitchell shook Madison's hand. "I actually know Aria quite well. I was Cynthia's doctor."

  "You were her mother's doctor. I thought I'd seen you before but I didn't feel like I knew you very well." He chuckled. "Heh, small world." His smile turned quickly into a slight frown. "Wait, why were..." Mitchell wasn't sure where to begin asking questions.

  "We were being chased by infected, that one specifically." She pointed at the dead body on the floor. "I dropped the phone in here when we were running."

  "OK. Hang on, we?" Mitchell felt that this only confused matters further.

  "Brynn, you can come on out, it's OK." Madison leaned into the closet and pulled the young girl out. She had dark skin, and shoulder length black hair. She looked to be a little older than Lilly, but not by much. Her eyes were puffy and it was obvious that she had been crying. "This is Mitchell, and, uh..." She looked back up once she realized that she didn't know the other man's name.

  "Oh, Darren. Nice to meet you." He waved an informal wave and went back to slouching against the wall. She smiled at him and motioned the young girl to introduce herself. She shied away from the two men hiding behind Madison.

  “Oh, alright then. This is Brynn. She and I have been here for a while now. There were more of us, but now it's just us two." Madison looked them over and frowned. It was fairly obvious what had happened to the rest of the group. The only question that Mitchell had in his mind was, why were they still there? Obviously the hospital wasn't safe. At the same time, based on the amount of infected outside, it wasn't safe to leave either. It felt very much like a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Was this how it was going to be? Was life now going to be a game of waiting for death? Mitchell looked at Brynn, the shy girl hiding behind Madison's leg.

  "How old is she?" Mitchell looked at the little girl.

  "She is, uh, how old are you Brynn?" Madison had no clue.

  The little girl was reluctant but spoke under her breath. "I'm six. I turned six last month." She was a little older than Lilly and was old enough to not be so shy. Mitchell assumed that her shyness was less that and more fear. He couldn't blame her, he was scared too. "How old are you?" Mitchell smiled. Her asking a question was a good start, it meant that she wasn't terrified of them.

  "How old am I? Way too old!" He laughed it off. She smiled back at him. "Brynn what's your last name sweetheart?"

  "Hushisen..." The words barely came out of her mouth. She spoke them as if she was trying to drop them to the floor and kick them under the counter so no one would ever know they were there. It wasn't going to be easy to get her to open up. Mitchell knew just the person to get her to be open, he just had to get her back to Lilly.

  "It's Hutchison." She looked back up at the two men. "I was actually treating her father. He'd had a stroke a while back and was in here getting taken care of. He was making great progress too. He could walk straight, he'd regained his vision. It was going great..." Mitchell felt Madison's words take the same path as Brynn's. Straight to the floor and away under the counter.

  Mitchell stood up from his bent position in front of Brynn. He looked at Madison and back at the little girl. They both looked exhausted and neither looked like they had bathed in quite a while. Their clothes were tattered and they looked as if they would fit the bill as extras in a post-apocalyptic movie. He didn't pass judgment on them; he assumed that he looked just as bad, if not worse. The building they were in was larger than the third floor of the office building, but the larger building offered very little in ways of security. He guessed it was probably the size of the building that made this situation even more unsafe. The more rooms, the more the nooks and folds and hidden areas a building contained, the more likely that it would have infected. If they could get in somewhere dark until the evening, they would.

  Mitchell glanced over at the body on the ground. Sure, the infected had jumped at them and was screaming violently and, sure, he was going to attempt to kill one of the two men, it was bound to happen. All that aside, he felt like Darren had been a little too willing to pull the trigger. He didn't hesitate or consider any other way. Mitchell wasn't sure that there was any other way and, unfortunately, he had no room to talk since he had killed at least two people since this whole thing started. He still didn’t want to consider the fact that these people were still alive mentally. They were still there, he decided not to bring it up.

  "So, Madison, mind telling me why you had my wife's cellphone?" Mitchell turned his head back towards her. The situation was a good one for the two men. Madison and Brynn didn't pose a threat as they were, but with Mitchell and Darren standing in the doorway, one of them armed, there was little room for her to lie. Mitchell didn't want to assume the possibilities, but he was ready to hear something along the lines of "She was infected and I killed her", or "I found it", or anything that ended with Aria dead and Madison being a thief, murder or arsonist. He wasn't sure why arsonist stuck in his head, he thought he was maybe considering the fact that Aria died in a fire set by Madison. 'That's stupid...' he shook his head and went back to the question.

  "Ah, uh, well, she actually gave it to me." She looked down. Mitchell could see that she was turning red. He couldn't tell if it was through anger or embarrassment. "She was here with her mother and the military came to evacuate the premise. They .didn't have enough space to get all the people out, and I had to stay behind to watch the patients." She stopped and took a breath. "At some point our phones went down and I needed to get ahold of my husband to tell him that I had to stay behind. Aria handed me her phone to call him."

  "OK, but why did you still have it?" Mitchell understood that Aria lent her the phone, this was very much like Aria. She was one of the most altruistic people that Mitchell had ever met and that was probably why he loved her so much.

  "Well, I finally got ahold of him and as I was talking they were forcing people out. I didn't have the ability to get her the phone back before they pushed her out into their bus." She looked at Mitchell, visibly upset. "I'm sorry, I know you were hoping she was here."

  "Do you know where they went?" He felt like he was grasping at straws, but he had no idea what else to do. She wasn't here. This woman had her phone and he had no way of getting ahold of her.

  "They were heading to the subway station, I think. The one down off twelfth. That's all I know." She looked disappointed in herself again. Mitchell could tell that she was taking her lack of knowledge personally and it was tearing her up that she couldn't help him. While he was disappointed, he didn't want her to feel like she was at fault.

  "The subway station off twelfth? As in Mayer and twelfth?" Darren stepped forward. “That’s the evacuation zone, isn't it Mitch? She's probably on a train or a hundred and fifty miles out of the town by now! That's great news!" Darren chuckled.

  "As long as they got there, got on the train and got out of town. Yeah, that's great news." Mitchell realized how bad this sounded after he said it. Darren meant well, but he couldn't think positively here. She was gone and now he really had no clue where she was. Regardless, they couldn't stay cooped up in the room they were in, it was time to go back to Kayla. "Well, thanks anyway." He sighed and cleared his throat. "Would you guys like to come back with us then? That way you two aren't stuck up here and alone." He smiled.

  "That would be great!" Madison was willing to hop on the offer immediately. Brynn was still shying away from talking, but it was obvious that she wanted to come with them.

  "Let's go then. I know someone that would love to meet you Brynn. Darren's daughter is about your age and she's a
s friendly as can be. I bet you guys can be best friends." Mitchell leaned down and tried to convince Brynn that he was a friend. She slowly opened up her shell and started to talk to him.

  "OK. I'll go too then." That was all he needed to hear. The group of them started out the door and into the hallway, when Darren stopped suddenly.

  "Wait, Mitchell." Madison and Brynn stopped and Mitchell turned towards Darren. "We, uh, one second ladies." Darren put his arm around Mitchell's shoulder and huddled in. "We didn't check if they were infected."

  "No, we didn't, did we?" Mitchell wasn't looking forward to this. If they found that they were infected, what would they do? They couldn't just leave a six year old to die. "What do you suggest?" Mitchell was a little uneasy waiting for how Darren would respond. Once again, he had a point, but Mitchell didn't want to force these two into an uncomfortable position.

  "I got it..." Darren stood up and turned towards the two women. "Alright, we need to check something on both of you before we go any further." He stood in front of them with this shotgun resting at his side. Mitchell understood what he was doing; he was attempting to be assertive, but not threatening.

  "Oh, OK. What's that?" Madison looked frightened at Darren's sudden change in attitude.

  'Dial it back Darren, these people aren't a threat.' Mitchell was slightly disappointed in the way Darren was handling himself. These people were survivors, regardless of whether or not they were infected, they were still people and were just as scared as his wife or daughter. Darren stood quiet for a moment. He turned and handed his gun to Mitchell.

  "Here, hold this for me." He pulled his small flashlight out of his left side pocket and clicked it on. "I just need to check to see if either of you are infected. It's nothing personal, it's just a necessity." He stepped towards them. Brynn quickly pulled herself behind Madison. "It's OK Brynn, I'm not going to hurt either of you, I just want to look in your mouth. Is that OK?"