Interrogation
November 17, 2023 at 4:09 PM
In the morning I was awakened by a knock on the door. I looked at my wristwatch: it was half past five in the morning. Troy’s harsh voice rang out:
“Hey doctor, wake up and sing, we’re leaving in half an hour.”
“Got it,” I shouted through the door.
I took a quick shower, cleaned myself up a bit, got dressed and left the room.
Walking down the narrow hallway, listening to the men’s voices, I found myself in a small room that turned out to be both a living room and an office. An older man was sitting at a desk, and Troy was across from him, discussing something heatedly, occasionally whispering in a way I couldn’t make out, and they’d stopped talking almost as soon as I’d arrived.
“Good morning, I’m Jeremiah Otto, the owner of this ranch. Yesterday you had the honor of meeting my youngest son,” the man remarked wryly, “I apologize for him, he’s impulsive.”
Troy rolled his eyes defiantly.
I replied to his father:
“Nice to meet you, I’m Della Diaz, thank you for letting me stop.”
“Oh, you have my scary son Jake to thank for that. Diaz… so you’re Mexican?”
“Well, not exactly. My husband was Spanish, we lived in Madrid.”
“So Spanish, not too much of a differen…”, Jeremiah started to speak, but I interrupted him:
“Again, no,” I smiled, “I’m actually from Russia. Adelina is my full name, Adelina Rachmaninova.”
“Wow, how did you end up here, little girl?”
“Dad!”, Troy interrupted him, “We should get going,” and turning to me, “Do you want coffee?”
“Honestly, a coffee would be nice.”
“Leave the room, walk a couple steps, there’s a door on the right, it’s the kitchen.”
“Oh, I know, Jake showed it to me yesterday.”
“I’ll be waiting outside, have a drink and come out.”
I poured coffee into a mug labeled “Galveston” and opened the refrigerator looking for milk. There was no milk, of course. Naive. People have an interesting nature: just yesterday I was sleeping on the ground hoping to find a can of canned goods, and today I’m upset that there’s no milk in the fridge to go with my coffee. Upon reflection, I took a couple sips of coffee, wrinkled my nose, poured the rest of the mug’s contents into the sink and rinsed it off. Then I stepped out of the house onto the small terrace. It was already light, and the sun was slowly rising. Troy was sitting on a rock outside the house drinking water. The morning was cool, and I was glad I was wearing a sweatshirt. As I walked down the wooden steps, I was about to say I was ready to hit the road, but Troy stopped me:
“Why so slow, I thought you were the one who needed an outing!”
“Sorry, but I didn’t hear Jake come out, so I figured there was still time. Where is he, by the way?”
“All right, let’s go!”
“Where’s Jake?”
“I spoke to him, he’s sure Clara’s dead, we don’t need to wait for him, he won’t help, but I’m willing to make amends for attacking you for, as it turns out, no reason.”
“You seem like a man when you’re sober, Troy.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re lucky.”
“You fell in love?”, I grinned.
“Naturally, you won my heart, the first girl who had the guts to take my rifle away from me, too bad you were already taken!”
I didn’t bother responding to his sarcasm. Jumping into the car, I pulled my hood up and stared out the window.
We drove in silence, Troy tense. An hour passed, but there was no sign of Clara. We passed several abandoned lots, and there were few options as to where she might be, according to my driver.
Troy stopped the car. I looked at him. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. I was afraid to disturb him. Or rather, I didn’t want to hear another barb, so I stayed silent. After a couple minutes, he broke the silence with a question:
“So who is he?”
“What?”, I was surprised by the question and didn’t really understand who he was talking about.
“Who is he, your husband? And where is he?”
“Why do you care, Troy?”
“I was just curious!”, Troy looked at me inquiringly.
“Look, Troy, I don’t know you well enough to talk about my personal life, and the more I get to know you, the less I want to talk about it!”
“Am I making a bad impression?”
“You pointed a rifle at me the first time you met me, do you still want an answer to your question?”
“I was defending my territory, there’s no need to exaggerate what happened.”
“Then why did you come with me without Jake?”, I asked ironically, knowing he wouldn’t answer.
“What do you mean?”
“To be blunt, Jake won’t let you leave with me without his permission.”
“Yeah I don’t actually need his permission, you know I’m of age, although I realize I look younger,” Troy muttered, trying to reduce it to a joke.
“I see, so you’re not going to tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell. I explained everything to you before I left.”
“If you want to know about my personal life, you can tell me about yours for starters!”
“That’s different!”
“Why? Because it’s yours?”
“So you’re turning on the psychiatrist? I don’t need one, okay?!”, Troy said through clenched teeth.
“No, you just don’t trust me the same way I don’t trust you, and you shouldn’t be surprised by that reciprocity.”
He got out of the car, slamming the door loudly. I looked in his direction. He pulled off the road and headed into the desert. I opened the window and shouted:
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t even turn around. I got out of the car and followed him. When I caught up with the fugitive, I stood right in front of him and put my hands on his chest.
“Stop… Please. Where are you going?”
“Are you afraid I might get lost?”
“Troy, come on, what’s the big deal? Who cares who my husband is?! Let’s find Clara and I’ll leave the ranch, I promise we won’t bother you again.”
“Look, I’m not afraid of being disturbed, you understand?”
He took my hands away, pushing me away.
“What happened?!”, I almost shouted.
“Don’t scream, the dead will come running!”
“Answer me!”
“Look, we’ve been looking for your sister for two hours now, she’s nowhere to be seen, you haven’t told me anything about yourself, maybe you made this whole thing up to take over the ranch and you’re distracting me!”
“Troy, come on, you made up your own mind to come with me. I didn’t make anything up. Let’s get back in the car and look for Clara again, please! "
“Yeah, we’ll go back, but first you’re going to tell me all about yourself, okay?”, Troy pulled out his gun and pointed it at me.
“Are you serious?”
“I’ll shoot you if you don’t answer my questions. No one from the ranch will be looking for you. I’ll tell them your sister was found and you’re out of here.”
I couldn’t tell from his eyes if he was serious or just being manipulative, but deciding not to take any chances, I held up my hands and said:
“Okay, okay, I’ll answer the questions! Just please put the gun away.”
“Who is your husband? Where is he? Why are you and your sister here alone?”
“My husband is dead.”
“What!”, for some reason Troy was surprised and even lowered his gun.
“There’s a zombie apocalypse going on, why are you surprised?”
“Okay, what about your sister?”
“She and I went to get supplies for the family and-”
“What family?”
“Don’t interrupt me! We have a shelter, our family is there, my sister and I left and should be back later this week with supplies!”
“Why are we looking for her then, she couldn’t have come back?”
“She couldn’t, this place, it’s far away, you can’t get there on foot, she realizes that, that’s why she’s here somewhere.”
“And how did you end up in the US in the first place? If you lived in Madrid, but you’re from Russia yourself?”
“We came for my sister’s wedding…”
“And then what?”
“Next was the zombie apocalypse and we just got lucky! If I may say so, of course.”
“Okay… That’s enough. For now. Let’s go to the car, I hope you didn’t lie.”
“The gallantry itself!”, I splashed my hands.
