Free The Hungry 5: All Hell Breaks Loose (The Sheriff Penny Miller Series) by Steven Booth, Harry Shannon Page B

it, and smiled wanly. After a moment, they each let go.
    “Let’s move out, Brandon,” Miller said. “When the Army gets here, I don’t want them to see anything but our asses going over the back fence.”

CHAPTER SIX

    Brandon walked them back about twenty yards down the rocky mine shaft, moving at a brisk clip. He then took a right fork and led them into an almost invisible side tunnel. At first Miller feared it was a dead end, but Brandon waved his free arm to call them forward. He showed them how to duck behind a large speckled wing of boulder and get down into a narrow crawl space. Miller hadn’t even noticed the entrance on the way in. It was well disguised by fallen rocks and deep shadows. They all had to bend low to enter, but then even Scratch could stand up inside. Though they had to turn sideways at times, they made good time. The tunnel had an odd smell to it and what sounded like bats squeaked in the darkness high above. Eventually, the tunnel widened and they began to jog forward.
    Brandon was on point with a torch, followed by Sheppard, Scratch, and Miller, with Rat bringing up the rear. Rat carried a torch and spent a lot of her time walking backwards to keep an eye out for zombies or pursuing cult members.
    The way became narrow again. Their shoulders brushed the walls at times, and once again Scratch had to turn sideways to keep going. Those parts of the passage left them all feeling like they were in the jaws of an enormous beast. It was also very damp and dank below, often to the point that they were walking ankle deep in puddles of black water.
    “We’re going to run into a guy soon, he lives down here,” said Brandon. He spoke quietly. “He calls himself Rolf, like the piano player on the Muppet Show.”
    “Who is he?” Miller asked.
    “No one knows, but we think a former military guy. Just be careful.”
    “Why?”
    “The man is a little whacky, but we’re going to need him and his cadaver dog Dudley. Trust me on that.”
    “A cadaver dog? Like for finding dead bodies?” Sheppard asked in a whisper. The torch made his face look streaked with war paint.
    A cadaver dog? Miller thought, Fuck, that ought to come in useful now and again…
    “Yes,” Brandon said, “and the dog Dudley is smarter than most humans, especially his owner.”
    “That’s great,” said Scratch. “Just what we needed, a lunatic savior and his pet zombie-sniffing dog.”
    “It’s… hard to explain,” Brandon said. He ducked down and waved his torch to clear a spider web. He led them deeper into the ground. For a moment, Miller thought he’d forgotten the conversation, but then he continued. “They’ve both seen too much, even more than the rest of us. So Rolf talks to himself a lot, and to the dog, too. Gary thinks he has multiple personality disorder, but then Gary doesn’t know shit about psychology. The last DSM said that MPD may not even exist. Me, I think it’s schizophrenia for sure. Of course, there is only a hair of difference between that and severe bipolar sometimes, but I’ve noticed that his thoughts take flight, and that’s always a solid indicator. The guy could really use meds, but probably wouldn’t stay on them.”
    “How do you happen to know all this?” asked Miller, genuinely interested. Someone who actually understood human psychology might prove useful down the line. Hell, almost as useful as a cadaver dog, in fact.
    “I graduated with a degree in clinical psychology from UCLA.”
    Sheppard nodded. “Nice.”
    Brandon shrugged. “Yeah, a lot of good it did me.” He turned and began walking down the corridor, pointing out low-hanging rocks and loose beams as they walked. “Anyway, this guy Rolf has conversations with someone he calls Walter—that’s the name on his own dog tags, but don’t ever call him that. It will just confuse him. He really believes there is some invisible man following him around.”
    They reached another entrance of sorts, a wider one, and