The Hum by D.W. Brown

together at the same restaurant where we’d shared out first meal. I was hiding in the bushes out in front of the joint when I saw them inside. At first, I assumed it was just some friend or co-worker from her job, but it didn’t take long to see they were much more than that. They could barely keep their hands off each other, so I followed them back to her place. Needless to say, the guy spent the night and I camped outside in my car. You’d be amazed at the thoughts that go through ones head during a time like that.”
    Russell watched as Kevin drifted off again, lost in his own thoughts. Then he continued, “I didn’t want to waste time by going back to my place and dealing with the whole break up and all that came with it, so I waited for the guy to leave, and then I headed up to her jezebel pad.”
    The perpetrator took another short pause, and then said, “As I slipped into the apartment with the key she’d given me when we first got together, I remember thinking that what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t make my legs stop. The humming droned on, in rhythm with each step forward. I felt like a soldier, marching in beat with a Drill Sergeant’s cadence. I quietly made my way back to her bedroom and stood over her with a pillow in hand. I’d actually gotten that idea from my brother Wayne, because he’d tried to use it on me once.
    I tapped her lightly on the shoulder just to make sure she knew that it was me, and then I smothered her to death. After that I stuck the pillow under my shirt and left the apartment without being seen.”
    “Didn’t the police bring you in for questioning?” “They did, but I talked my neighbor into giving me
    an alibi; it’s amazing what a little money will buy you nowadays. She was the last one, until last night. The humming started again, so I walked into the Shell Station back there, killed those drug dealers and took their drugs for myself. Now that I’ve confessed everything, can we get out of this place? My mind can only take so much before it snaps.”
    “I have one more question. What scared you so much back there?” Russell asked.
    “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve told you everything you need to know. Please, just put me away for life, and hopefully make it all stop.”
    It was obvious that Mr. Black was more than ready to get out of the woods from the way he continually looked back over his shoulder. It was almost as if he expected something to pull him back in at any minute. “Mr. Black, when we turn you over to the Feds,
    they’ll want to know what you’re so afraid of.” “No one would believe me if I told them.” “Why don’t you start by telling me?”
    “I heard my wife’s dead voice back there in those caverns, and I saw all of the dead bodies of the people that I’d killed down there. Someone dug up my wife and kids, my old boss’s son, my old girlfriend, and the four drug dealers, and placed them at different points inside that cavern. They were all down there, and they kept demanding I go back to Taos.”
    The rise in Mr. Black’s voice wasn’t lost on Russell as he weaved his little tale. Russell wondered if it was the drugs talking, because the man appeared to be losing it. All the talk about Taos and this humming that Mr. Black thought he was hearing, made Russell wonder if killing all of these people had finally driven the man insane. Russell feared all the humming and seeing dead people nonsense would get Mr. Black sent to an asylum somewhere, instead of a prison where he belonged.
    “What about those men back at the service station?
    What happened back there?” Russell finally asked.
    “I killed them, too. I needed the money, so I robbed the place. If that stupid back door alarm hadn’t sounded, I might not be here today. If only I would’ve ran to my truck instead of this crazy place. I say that, but now I know something was leading me here; maybe even that tunnel back there. From the minute I exited out that back