Midnight Nation 6 Synopsis

"Midway to Judgment"

The bitterly cold Chicago wind cuts through David Grey and Laurel.

Laurel is upset. She thinks that they should have stayed south as long as possible before cutting up to New York. By coming through Chicago the weather will slow them down.

David told Laurel that he wants to see Chicago one last time because he used to live here, but that is a lie. He's only been to Chicago twice before. His ex-wife, Sarah, lives here, and he really wants to see her.

David has been thinking about Sarah during his six-month journey across the country. They had good times together, but they turned bad when David allowed his work to come first. David made Sarah feel like she was selfish to expect herself to come first. He realizes now how wrong he was. Sarah was always first in his heart, but he didn't know how to show her. He resolves to let her know that their failed marriage was his fault, and he needs to do it now in case he doesn't survive his journey to New York.

Laurel tells David to go into an abandoned building for warmth while she seeks out people who have fallen between the cracks to help them with food and shelter. She walks off complaining that David couldn't want to see someplace warm. David regrets lying to Laurel, but he knows she would never approve of his plan.

As David walks down the street by himself, he is observed from one of the Walker's black vans.

David knows that the longer he spends in the place in-between, the harder it is for him to see the people who haven't fallen between the cracks. However, he is also evolving into a Walker, a being that can move back and forth between the two worlds at will. David pulls up his shirt and considers the Walker tattoo that is forming on his chest.

David grips his chest in concentration and is wracked with a burning pain. When he opens his eyes, he can see ghostly images of people from the real world who were previously invisible to him. He can hear their voices also.

David knows Sarah's address from the alimony checks he sent. He quickly makes his way to her apartment as a black van quietly follows him. Sarah has left the doors to her balcony open. She likes fresh air and never heeded David's warnings about burglars. David climbs onto the balcony and enters her home.

He can sense that she is near. He grips his chest and forces himself further into the real world. The Walker tattoo spreads a little further across his body.

Suddenly David can see and hear his former wife. To him she appears as a translucent, ghostly image wearing an open bathrobe. She is talking on the phone with her mother. David calls out to her, but she can't hear him.

To David's surprise, she is talking about him. She finds it very suspicious that he disappeared from a hospital room, and she has been searching for him ever since. Sarah's side of the phone conversation indicates that her mom thinks she should just let him go, but Sarah maintains that she lived with him for two years even if he was a jerk. Her mother reminds her that she called him an asshole at the time of the divorce.

David's initial surprise is replaced with the understanding that Sarah still cares about him because she always cared. He was the one who messed things up.

Sarah tells her mother that she has to go to a job interview. She hangs up the phone and heads to the bedroom. David stands in the doorway, but Sarah walks straight through him without seeing him. The contact is uncomfortably cold to David, and he vows to never again occupy the same space as someone in the real world.

David follows Sarah into the bedroom and watches her strip naked. He feels like a voyeur even though they used to live together. Since she can't hear him, he decides to leave her a note. He reaches for her organizer, but he can't touch it. He can only use things that have been abandoned, so he looks in the trash can.

David finds a crumpled piece of paper and a discarded lipstick. He scrawls a short note in the limited space: "I'm sorry. Forgive me. Forget me. I love you. David."

David leaves the note on the living room table, walks into the bathroom, and watches Sarah in the shower. Even though she can't hear him, he tells her that he left her a note just like they used to do when they were mad or needed to apologize. He apologizes for all the things he said that he didn't mean. The only thing he did mean was "I love you", but he usually only said that when she was asleep. He says goodbye and leaves Sarah's apartment.

Laurel is angry when she finally finds David, but that is nothing compared to her furor when he tells her what he did. She keeps screaming that he doesn't understand, but then she realizes that he hasn't been through this experience before.

Laurel explains that the Walkers are watching everywhere. David should never let them know what he cares about. He should pretend he doesn't even care about Laurel. David asks why the Walkers don't just kill him if they're always watching him. Laurel says that's not the point. They don't want to kill David, they want to break him.

As a nude Sarah begins to dress in her bedroom, two Walkers watch through the open balcony doorway.

David rushes back to Sarah's apartment. The place is in disarray, and Sarah is gone. David senses that she is still alive and asks Laurel where the Walkers would take Sarah. Laurel suggests that he doesn't want to go there. David grabs Laurel by the arms and demands again to know where Sarah might be. Laurel agrees to tell him because this is his journey, but she advises him that she will kill him if he ever touches her like that again.

Laurel does not actually know where Sarah is, but she knows where they can find a Walker. She tells David that if they can find one, they can find the others.

Laurel lures a lone Walker into an alley, and David tackles him, demanding to know where Sarah is. The Walker fights back, but David quickly subdues him. Laurel advises the Walker to answer David's question. She tells the Walker that he knows for whom Laurel speaks and what Laurel can do. She also reminds him that his leader will do nothing to save him.

A battered Sarah cowers in a room in an abandoned building. The Walkers have forced intravenous drugs into her. Their ghoulish, sometimes translucent appearance adds to her delusional drug trip. One of the Walkers places a tattered doll's head on a stick and stands it upright in front of Sarah. He speaks into it as if he is using it as a microphone. "This is why you want to kill yourself," he tells her.

Outside the building, two Walkers play with a hypodermic needle. Laurel's boot crushes the syringe, and David attacks them with a tree limb. With the guards dispatched, David and Laurel enter the building to find nearly a dozen more guarding the staircase. David and Laurel fight their way up to the second floor.

The walker with the doll's head microphone taunts Sarah. There is no hope. No one loves her. No one likes her. She walked out on the only man she ever loved, and now he hates her. She's not as pretty as she used to be, and as she gets older she'll never find someone else to love her. Sarah would be better off dead, but first she should leave a note saying that it's David's fault. He drove her to kill herself.

David bursts into the room. Sarah can see him, but to her he looks more like a Walker than a man. She flees in terror through the fire exit and climbs up the fire escape to the roof. Laurel tells David to go after her while she holds off the Walkers.

David catches up to Sarah on the rooftop where she is precariously balanced on the edge. She is echoing the Walker's words in her drug-induced haze. It's better to die, and it's David's fault. David clutches his chest and makes himself more visible and more human in appearance. He walks towards her, telling her that he loves her and that he is sorry.

Sarah sees him and speaks his name before she loses consciousness. She topples over backwards from the rooftop, but David catches her just in time.

Later, as Sarah is taken away in an ambulance, Laurel asks David if he knows why he was able to touch Sarah. David guesses that it's because Sarah believed she had been abandoned, but he is wrong. Laurel points to the Walker tattoo on his chest and says that that is the reason. Laurel sensed it the day it began even though David tried to hide it from her. The more he uses its power, the more quickly he will become a Walker. Laurel tells David that although he saved Sarah, his actions probably cost him a week from his short time left. David says he would do it again for Sarah.

David apologizes to Laurel because she got hurt fighting the Walkers. She calls it the Bleeding. This is first blood and there will be more. David says that when Laurel said the Bleeding was coming, he thought it would be his blood. Laurel says of course that's what he thought. She's asks to postpone that topic and suggests that they get moving quickly to make up their lost time.

David wonders if Sarah will remember seeing him. Laurel doesn't think so because of the drugs and shock. Sarah will remember that someone saved her and that someone cares for her. David suspects that Sarah may learn more than that, not telling Laurel about the note he left.

Laurel urges David to walk faster. As they head down the street, David's note wafts out of Sarah's apartment and lands in a puddle on the street.