Chapter 6: The Interrogation
Mark sputtered awake as a bucket of cold water hit him directly in the face, making him shake dripping water and his wet blonde hair out of his face. Shivering as he instantly felt cold from the water attack, Mark groaned slightly as the pain of his face came back to him. The left side of his face felt swollen and Mark could only partially see out of his left eye. Licking his lips, he tasted water, sweat, and blood confirming to him his lip was also busted from the rifle hit. The room swayed in and out of focus making Mark think to himself ‘I might have a concussion.’ He tried to rise out of the chair he was seated in but the fact that his legs and arms were tied to the chair stop that notion. Mark looked up as he felt his now tender face becoming too warm and examined the bright white light pointed directly at him. Mark squinted as he tried to look past the glaring light to make out his captures. He could only make out the lower outline of a man and in his hand, Mark saw the wooden bucket they used to wake him. Looking at the bucket for a second and then at the light again and testing the duct tape that held him prisoner to the chair, Mark blurted out the question that was on his mind. “What, am I in an old cliché movie? The splash of water, the tied to the chair, and the bright light I can get with, but a wooden bucket? A bit cheesy guys if you ask me.” The next thing Mark saw was a fist flying at his face before he blacked out again.
Water splashed over Mark again making him repeat his routine of sputtering awake and shaking water off his face. “Okay, okay not cool but I probably deserved that,” Mark said wincing in pain as now his whole face felt inflamed and in pain. Testing the restrains on his arms Mark’s muscles bulged as he tried to break free but to no avail. Sighing in defeat Mark slumped in the chair before asking no one in particular “What do you want?” No response came and Mark strained his eyes again to look out and find anyone in the room. A scrap of metal rang out causing Mark to wince in pain as the noise hurt his already throbbing head. In return for the noise, a man came into view carrying a metal chair. Plopping the chair down a couple feet from Mark, the man sat, his hazel eyes curiously looking Mark up and down. “So, what do we have here?” the man asked, “sewers are an odd place to be hanging out don’t you think.”
“Tell me about it,” Mark said as he eyed the man. He didn’t know what to make of the man across from him. He was trying to get a feel of what kind of man he was dealing with and Mark sensed the man was doing the same to him. The man wore tan cargo pants and a green camouflage shirt with a US military army patch on the sleeve but Mark wasn’t getting a military vibe from him. The short brown hair made sense if he was, but the short brown beard, on the other hand, did not. Mark locked eyes with the man and only saw coldness there and Mark knew at least one thing about this mysterious man, he was dangerous. The man was sitting in a comfortable relaxed position in the chair but Mark now knew that could change in an instant. “You know for someone in a situation like this,” the man said as he motioned with his hands around the room “you still have a sense of humor.” Not backing down from the challenge Mark replied: “I like to look at it as more of a form of optimism.” The man smiled at the response and it made Mark feel uneasy. Shifting in his seat Mark pressed on “so, what’s the plan here?” as he mentioned with his head at the restrains, “is there a reason why you guys knocked me out and tied me up?”
The man leaned forward “That all depends on your answers. First off, you were on our turf and we deal with all uninvited guest the same way. So now we are just trying to decide if you’re a foolish thief or just an innocent bystander caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. You don’t look like a thief at least not a very good one, but the way you were fighting off those zombies before we intervened also suggests you’re not just a bystander. So, tell me what I should think.”
Mark looked at the man for second before angrily responding “You watched me fight the zombies before helping, what the heck man, I could have died.”
“We had to see if you were worth saving, just be glad I was on that patrol and not my second in command. Now again I ask who are you, and I won’t ask again.”
The man didn’t pull out a weapon to demonstrate his point but his tone was enough of a threat.
Mark leaned forward as well or as far as the restraints would let him and said: “Look I’m a nobody okay and I’m not a thief.”
The man sat back slowly in his chair and folded his arms and Mark couldn’t decide if the answer had satisfied him or not.
“For a nobody, you sure had a nice gun,” the man said quietly, causing Mark to look at the holster attached to his left leg. The pistol was gone and Mark’s heart sunk a little at the possibility of never seeing his gun again. The man continued, choosing to ignore Mark’s reaction “Also, the hand to hand combat I saw isn’t just something a nobody picks up.” Standing up, the man came closer to Mark and leaning down he came face to face and said “I prefer that you don’t lie to me, are you military then? Maybe a deserter?”
The man took a step back and stared at Mark “I’m waiting for an answer.”
“I’m telling you the truth, I’m just a nobody. I know hand to hand because I took some courses because I like self-defense. The gun is just an item that I thought was worth the money so I bought it a couple years ago. I’m not military or a thief I’m just a guy that got screwed over.”
The man had stepped back and was pacing back and forth as Mark started talking but hearing Mark finished, he stopped and looked hard at him.
“Okay, say I believe you. I still-.” The man was interrupted as the door opened up and closed or what Mark assumed was the door since he couldn’t actually see it. The man stepped back from the lit area so that Mark couldn’t see him and then Mark heard whispering. The whispering finally stopped but the door didn’t open again suggesting that the other person stayed. Stepping forward again into the light enough so that Mark could see him the man finally said: “Okay Markus a different question for you.”
Mark’s eyes widened at the mention of his name and he cut the man off before he could ask his question “How do you know my name?”
The man smiled slyly “That doesn’t concern you but if you make you more comfortable I’ll introduce myself, my name is Logan Hayes.”
“Logan isn’t much of an interrogator name that strikes fear” Mark noted and the smile dropped from Logan's face. “We can change that,” he said in a neutral tone as he leaned forward towards Mark.
“No thanks,” Mark said quickly “not a suggestion just an observation.”
A smug look came back onto Hayes' face as he continued “Now Mark before I was interrupted by you, I was going to ask how come you’re in Vegas? My sources say you’re from California.”
Surprise again came across Mark’s face “Again how do you know this?” Logan eyed him and Mark thought to himself maybe this wasn’t the time to push for questions.
“Okay, yes I’m from California. I was with a girl and a kid we picked up, we were just driving through when we had to stop here to rescue her stupid boyfriend. After saving his sorry butt the only way we could escape was through the sewers. The zombies showed up as we were going back up to the surface when that dirtbag guy left me down here. You all showed up and knocked me out and here we are now.”
The man had been slowly pacing again but had stopped as Mark mentioned there were more people besides him. Mark saw him stop and he kicked himself mentally for letting Logan know there were more people out there. ‘You idiot Mark why couldn’t you have lied. If anything bad happens to Rachel or Fin that’s on you. Screw Trent.’
Logan’s question broke Mark out of his self-loathing thoughts, “What are the names of the people with you.”
Mark hesitated for too long as he tried to come up with fake names, he just wasn’t use to lying nor did he like lying. Logan smacked the chair he had been sitting on aside and closed the gap between him and Mark. “Don’t you lie, just give me the names.”
“The useless guy is Trent, the kid is Fin, and the girl’s name is Rachel,” Mark said.
A gasp came from the darkened part of the room when he said all three names and Mark was curious. ‘Nobody he knew, knew all three names, so why the gasp.’
A female voice spoke out to Mark “Is Rachel okay Mark?”
The voice was familiar to Mark and it caught him off guard “Ah, I believe so, at least the last time I saw her.” A puzzled look came across Mark’s face “Do I know you?” The women walked forward until she came to stand before Mark in the light. She smiled as she pushed her long brown hair to one side “I sure hope so” she said.
Mark leaned back in his chair and said her name “Sam.”
Mark sat in silence for a few minutes before Sam came back into the room alone. Sam cut the tape holding Mark’s ankles and hands in place and putting the pocketknife back in her pocket she said: “I’m sorry about this Mark.” A light groaned escaped Mark’s lips as he sat forward and tried to rub circulation back into his arms and legs. Slowly he got up before facing Sam “I’m guessing you both left so that you could tell him who I was?”
Sam nodded “Yep I vouched for you. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, I was helping someone in the medical center when I overheard some of the guys talk about a guy who took down six zombies with only a rusty wrench. I didn’t think much of it until they asked me to go through your backpack to see if they could find anything valuable. Good thing they asked me because I found your wallet and ID. I still couldn’t believe that it was you though, so I came to see for myself. Thankfully I came when I did, you look like crap.”
Mark looked at himself and couldn’t disagree with her, his face was messed up and puffy, his clothes were wet, dirty, and he noticed he had a rip in his pants. “I’ve seen better days,” he said with a half-smile. “But why are you here in Vegas Sam? Rachel said that you were working in a hospital in Arizona.”
Sam's eyes dropped as she responded “Oh yeah, they uh just transferred me here from Arizona since there was a bigger problem here. When everything went sideways I bumped into these guys as the uh hospital got overrun. Anyways I’ll tell you more after we get you showered, changed and fed.”
As Sam led Mark down multiple hallways, Mark continued to side glance at her. ‘Something is wrong’ Mark thought to himself as she led him down another hallway, ‘the way she kept pausing and the avoiding eye contact, she’s keeping something from me.’ Turning another corner Mark put his thoughts aside and asked “Where are we? Are we still in the sewers.”
Sam glanced at him but kept walking as she answered “Yes and no.” She hesitated before continuing, “This place has multiple access points to the sewers but with the recent earthquake there’s more now then Logan would like hence the extra patrols. Helps keep down the zombies that might find this place accidentally. Anyways we are underneath an abandoned small college. I guess they upgraded to a bigger place so this place kind of got forgotten. It has some huge basements that all connect so usually the group stays downstairs and barricades the upstairs so that the undead can’t wander in from there either. We brought down supplies from there like mattresses, tables, and whatever else we need.”
Coming to another turn Sam led Mark to the showers which turned out to be small little cubicles of curtains where you dumped buckets of lukewarm water over yourself. Quickly showering, Sam brought him clothes almost identical to the ones Logan had been wearing. Mark put them on before Sam led him to the mess hall. Looking at the clothes he was wearing Mark asked Sam “What’s with the cargo pants and camo shirt? I saw Logan wearing similar things. Is he military or something?”
“Actually, you’re lucky when you came Mark” Sam said as they continued to walk. Again, Sam hesitated but as she locked eyes briefly with Mark and he gestured for her to go on she nervously side glanced and said quietly “Yes, Logan’s military but that was years ago, those clothes and a lot of other supplies we were able to grab from a military base that was overrun two days ago. After the military left in a hurry for a tactical retreat, we rushed in. Better grab the good stuff before someone else does. But I shouldn’t say more, might get me in trouble. I’m still kind of new here as well and just because medical people are a scarce valuable, doesn’t mean I can get away with anything. My suggestion though Mark is to show that you have the skills they need to keep around, it’s not too bad here especially how the world is looking.”
They came into an open room that had a few metal tables that reminded Mark of his high school cafeteria. They grabbed metal trays that had pouches of food already on it that read MRE and found a spot to sit and eat.
Mark choked down another bite of the dry bread and shaking his MRE bag asked Sam “Another compliment of the military base?”
Nodding as she ate Sam replied “We really did get lucky. There were bigger things like military vehicles and tents we couldn’t take without drawing too much attention but we got a lot of food, weapons, and other essential items to make surviving this outbreak a little more bearable. I really think that--”
“Mind if I sit here,” Logan asked as he placed his tray down on the metal table causing a ding noise to ring out as metal clattered against metal.
Mark motioned with his hand for Logan to sit “not at all, it’s your place.” Logan smiled briefly at the comment as he sat down and then looking from Mark and Sam he asked: “So what are we talking about Sam?”
“Nothing much” She replied a little too hastily causing Logan to glance at her before opening his own MRE. “Aww Beef Ravioli,” he said and then he looked over at Mark’s own meal. “Chili with Beans, not to bad either. You know out in the field we use to joke and say the MRE stood for Meal Rarely Edible, but when you’re hungry and you have people shooting at you they’re not too bad.”
“Well thank you for your service,” Mark said cautiously.
Logan nodded his acknowledgment before looking at his food once and then said “Sam will you excuse us, I need to talk to Mark in private. You and I will talk later as well.”
Sam’s face turned slightly red and said quietly “yes sir.” She quickly gathered her tray and left the table leaving Mark with Logan. Logan sighed and put his fork into his ravioli, the fork standing straight up and looked at Mark. “She’s a good girl but she’s got a big mouth and you ask too many questions Mark.” His eyes drilled into Mark but Mark stared back not backing down. “I like that in you Mark, it shows ya have a brain and you use it, too many people follow orders blindly, and then they wonder how they got to that point in life. But I only want questions asked when I’m ready for them to ask. I know what I want and don’t want to be revealed.”
Mark pushed his tray away from him, his meal finished and said: “So will you answer the questions I have, or do I need to be interrogated again before I get answers?” Mark said, adding the last part quickly.
Logan chuckled a little and said “I do apologize for how my men have treated you. We just have to be very careful and protective of ourselves if we are going to survive this epidemic. No hard feelings I hope.”
Mark rubbed his cheek tenderly and tried to stay mad at the man that had interrogated him not an hour earlier but he did kind of see where he was coming from. People were hard to trust already and in a situation like this with zombies and everything, it didn’t help the trust factor right now.
“Well I can’t say we are friends after what happened but I can admit I see your reasons for it”, Mark said, “but Sam isn’t a problem so don’t punish her, I was just curious about this place.”
Logan had folded his hands while listening to Mark but at the mention of Sam and possible punishment, he spread his hands apart and said “I’m not going to hurt Sam, I’m going to have a talk with her about not giving out information so easily and how this place is a privilege. Nobody is unreplaceable Mark, I think you know that as well. I like you and I think there’s a spot here for you just like there is one for Sam but I also will not compromise my whole base because of one person, got it?”
Mark nodded in response to the question and Logan continued “Good, now what do you want to know Mark?”
The openness of Logan surprised Mark and his mouth gaped open in response as he didn’t know what to ask him. Logan chuckled a bit which caused Mark to close his mouth and say “I’m sorry you just caught me off guard.”
Logan nodded and said “How about you tell me a little about yourself and then I’ll tell you about myself and then maybe we can get some questions then, fair enough?
Mark nodded and replied, “That’s fair enough.”
Logan motioned for Mark to continue and so Mark thought of what to start with. ‘Nothing too personal or that can be used against me’ Mark told himself. “Well I’m a volunteer at the fire department, as you know I know some self-defense and I can shoot a gun, and I like gummy bears.”
Logan cocked his head slightly to the side at the gummy bear remark. “Interesting. Let me ask, do you always joke around or do you take anything seriously?
Mark smiled slightly at the question “I can be serious but after a while life gets boring, so might as well switch it up, right?”
“That personality of your is going to get you in trouble one day,” Logan said with a sigh “But I guess with your skills you can take care of yourself. Sam already told me about you so I’m not too worried about you saying more.”
Mark leaned forward towards Logan with interest at the mention of what Sam had said. “And what did Sam say about me?”
“That you’re too smart for your own good. That you joke too much but at the same time can solve most issues or give good advice. She thinks highly of you, said your loyal to a fault, but stubborn too.”
Mark sat back satisfied with the answer “I’ve known Sam and her family for a pretty long time so if anyone can vouch for me here it would be her. She said I was smart?”
“Probably misheard her on that part” Logan responded straight faced and then smiled slyly confirming to Mark it was a joke.
“Anyways,” Logan said clearing his throat, “my life story. My family is all dead except for me and my brother. Served in the military for 6 years and came back and had no money for college or living really. Couldn’t make a living so eventually my brother and I became homeless and started living under the streets in these sewers. Crap happens and eventually, I’m in charge of a small group of misfits. We survived by any means necessary. I wouldn’t say we are a gang but the term has been thrown at us before. Our group eventually found this school and thankfully we did because less than 4 months later this city went down the crap hole to where we are now. Maybe now you can see why we are so cautious when anything comes on our turf. Life has been rough already and we don’t need more threats then we already have. But I know when I see talent, so if you want, we would be happy to take you in, on some conditions of course.”
“I’m sorry about your family,” Mark said sympathetically.
“Life happens wither we like it or not,” Logan said shortly. “Any other questions?”
Mark felt like the offer was too good to be true so he asked the obvious question, “What are the conditions?”
“It mostly entails that you do all the grunt work for the first few weeks and at night you have to be locked up so that there’s no funny business. After we feel like we can trust you we move you to a bed and we start having you do things like patrols, raid runs, or other jobs as I see fit. That’s pretty much it.”
Mark licked his lips and swallowed before asking his next question. “And if I refuse? Will you let me go?”
Logan stared at him and then slowly started to shake his head no. “Sorry Mark, I can’t. I can’t endanger everyone here by the off chance you might come back and attack or try and take over with an outside force. Besides Mark this is the start of something new, we have weapons, food, shelter, and no zombies, what more can you ask for?”
‘Freedom’ Mark thought to himself ‘but if I refuse, they will most likely kill me because I would just be a prisoner that they would have to feed.’
“Can I think about it?” Mark asked.
Logan’s eyes harden as he stared at Mark but soften again as he spoke “Yes you can think about it, but don’t take to long and no problems got it?
Mark nodded in return, “Thanks.”
