Free The Hum by D.W. Brown

black darkness in the area, and Kevin imagined this place compared quite well. According to the reports, a few of the soldier’s had actually ran into the big twelve foot concrete barriers—Texas Barriers they called them—and had suffered broken noses or even lost a few teeth. He was thankful for the soft earthen walls, if nothing else. At least he wouldn’t lose any teeth during his wandering; now his mind, that was a different story.
    The quiet and the darkness were really wearing on Kevin as he pressed further down the tunnel. He was no longer gliding his hand along the wall as he continued on. After walking around in a daze for another thirty minutes, Kevin caught glimpse of a small flame of light up ahead. He quietly made his way to the source, and was surprised to find an old style lantern hanging
    from the tunnels wall.
    The light illuminated the tunnel about fifty to sixty feet to the front and rear of where he’d found it. Knowing that the light hanging on the wall didn’t just magically appear, Kevin decided to try a different tactic in order to get something from whoever was down in the tunnel with him.
    “Hello. Hello, my name is Sheriff Jent—he’d made it a point to look up the law in the area, when he first moved to town because he wanted to know what he might possibly come up against later on. “Who are you? Do you know a way out of this place?”
    It wasn’t what the voice responded back with that scared Kevin, it was the voice itself.
    Grabbing the light off the wall, Kevin took off at a full sprint back the direction he’d just come from. He didn’t stop to see if he was being followed, he just took off. When he made it to where the tunnel forked, he chose the opposite side and ran in that direction.
    His shoes quickly became too much for him to take, so Kevin tossed them to the side and ran in his socks. He noticed right away that the cold floor actually felt refreshing on his feet. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore, and then he collapsed on the earth’s floor. Struggling to regain his breathing, he prayed that the owner of that voice wouldn’t find him in his current state.

    *         *         *

    It was around 7:30 by the time Russell pulled into the parking lot of the service station where Deputy Ramos stood anxiously awaiting him.
    “Good morning, Ramos. How are you holding up?” Russell asked.
    “Been better. There’s a lot of blood in there, Sheriff.”
    “Any suspects? Any idea who killed them? Other drug dealers?”
    “That old Ford pickup over belongs to a man named Kevin Black. No priors—just moved here from West Virginia about four months ago. He’s our only lead thus far.”
    “Anything else? Did they have a surveillance camera? Video footage?”
    “Sure did. It shows a man—I’m thinking it’s our Mr. Black—walking into the station and waving money in front of the gentlemen running the joint. They all disappear into the back room for a few minutes, and then shotgun fire blasts throughout the tape. Even though it doesn’t show what went on behind that closed door, the sound of bodies slamming to the hard surface as a result of gunfire, make it pretty obvious that our perpetrator went on a killing spree.”
    “Did the video show which way he headed?”
    “Out the back door, into the woods. He was carrying what I assume to be some cocaine and a bag of money. He was pretty spooked when he headed out.”
    “Have the men combed the woods?”
    “Deputies Rosewood and Carlson went over every inch of those woods, and came back empty handed.”
    “Good job, Ramos. Give me a few minutes to walk through the scene, and the woods. In the meantime, get me that report on Mr. Black. If he is our man, I want to know everything about him.” Russell said.
    The day seemed to fly by, but the progress of the investigation didn’t follow suit. They had nothing but an abandoned truck and a video tape to go on. They were able to compare the picture in Kevin