Interpretation of Interrogation

   (When we last left Fred, he and Jonathan had tried to check into a hotel and found that the attendant was in league with the PEANUT terrorists, but he was killed before he could offer information)

   Fred blanched. “You’re kidding, right?  He didn’t even say anything.  They can’t have killed him right here in public.”
   Jonathan looked about carefully. “He’s dead, Fred.  Dead as a doornail.”
   Fred glanced about nervously. “Then what’s stopping them from killing us now?”
   As if the unseen assassins had heard him, a bullet slammed into the desk, just missing Fred’s head.  He gave a little yelp of surprise and bolted for the doors.  They opened while he was still a good twenty feet away so he poured on the speed.  Then they changed their mind and closed just as he reached them, causing him to bang his head and fall back to the floor, dazed.  But just for a moment.  He jumped to his feet and began banging on the doors.
   “Let me out!” he screamed.  “They’re coming to get us!  We’re all gonna die!”
   “Fred,” Jonathan attempted to say more, but Fred cut him off.
   “They’re gonna shoot us like pigs in a barrel!” He thought for a second. “Or something like that!”
   Jonathan tried again. “Fred—“
   Fred turned and placed his back against the door. “Why don’t they end it?  Why!?”
   “Fred!”  Jonathan jumped forward and grabbed Fred by the shoulders. “Pull yourself together.  We’re not going to die.”
   Fred glared at him. “Oh yeah?  How do you know?”
   “Because we’re not dead yet.  If they wanted us dead, I’m sure we would be corpses right now.”
   Fred snorted. “Corpses don’t talk.”
   Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Exactly.”
   “Oh…” Fred coughed. “I see.”
   Jonathan let him go.  “Now, will you please stop panicking?”
   “Yes, of course.”
   It was at that moment that the doors decided to open, and Fred stumbled out them backward.  Rough hands grabbed him, rougher hands pulled a black hood over his face, still rougher hands shoved him in a car, and the roughest hands yet wacked him over the head with a heavy, blunt instrument.  Actually, in the second before he lost consciousness Fred hoped it was blunt.
   To his relief, when he awoke, his arms and legs were bound and he had a throbbing headache.  Sure signs of being alive.  The instrument had been blunt. 
   The hood was still over his head, but upon his first movement it was yanked off, exposing him to a blinding  light right in his eyes.
   A nasty, evil sounding voice chuckled. “This is a very simple situation.  You answer our questions, you live.  You don’t, you die.”
   Fred sighed, his earlier feelings of panic mysteriously vanishing. “Yeah yeah, I got it.  But you know that’s incredibly cliché, right?”
   The voice chuckled again. “Of course.  Why else do you think we set it all up this way?  The people have expectations, why disappoint them?”
   “Because you’re evil.  It’s your job to disappoint people.  Not to mention kill, maim, and otherwise harm them.”
   The voice sighed. “Yes, of course, but you don’t get the same dramatic effect if you just run around killing people willy-nilly.  There has to be a method and style to it.  Like with that hotel attendant.  Otherwise people will get bored and then we lose media coverage, and if there is no media coverage then no will know of our evil deeds.”
   Fred thought for a second. “Good point.  But do you have to be so cliché with it?”
   “It’s this, or we feed you to the alligators for sport.”
   “That’s just as bad,” Fred protested.
   “All right then.”  The light was shut off and the bag put back over his head. “Take him to the alligators.”
   “No wait!  The light and interrogation has so much more dramatic appeal than alligators, don’t you think?”
   The voice laughed.  “Doesn’t it just?”  The bag was pulled off and the light shone again. “Now answer our questions or die.”

   To be continued…