Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,108
forward slow, and she tells him to keep his hands up and when he does she sees his wrist is wet with blood. A real sword might’ve done a lot worse, but blood is blood and right now that blood makes her happy.
He gets to the edge of the corn and she sees movement off to the right—one of the cat lady’s cats out hunting for mice or chipmunks. The cat mrows and darts between the stalks.
“Your turn to kneel,” she says. “But you gotta face me, first.”
Shane catches up, her gun with the busted stock in one hand, a pair of green .410 shells in the palm of his other.
Petry turns and kneels. He stares up at her with eyes that might as well be carpenter nails. Cold and dark and sharp.
Atlanta points the gun at his head.
“Whoa,” Shane says, the word as much a gasp as it is any other utterance. “Atlanta, what are you doing?”
“Finishing what he started.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
She swallows a hard knot. “I reckon I do.”
“Atlanta—“
“The recording is gone. He broke the iPod. We don’t have a dang thing.”
“The cloud,” Shane says. And she’s not sure what he means so she darts her gaze up—no clouds tonight, the sky is dappled with stars. But then he says it again: “The cloud! It’s saved on the cloud. I set that app to back up all recordings—off the device.”
Petry’s eyes narrow.
“So we have it?” she asks. A flutter of something eager and insane inside her gut.
Shane nods. “Yeah.”
“Oh. Good.” She eyes up Petry. Small dark man in dark clothes. A human stain. A hunk of coal ruining a puddle of ink. “You. Lay down. Chin against the dirt.”
The wind kicks up. The corn hisses and murmurs.
“Atlanta,” Shane says. Not understanding. That’s okay. He will.
She tells Shane, “The shotgun. Load it.”
“It’s broken.”
“Just the stock. The important part still works.”
He fumbles with the action—eventually breaking the barrel and clumsily thumbing a shell into the chamber.
“Close it,” she says.
“Atlanta—“
“I said, close it.” She hears her own voice and it’s too dark, too ragged. She adds: “Please.”
The click of the gun snapping shut.
“Let’s trade.” She hands Shane the cop’s pistol and gingerly he hands her the Winchester.
The wind dies down. The humid air comes back—hot, damp, choking. The gun is lighter in her hands—the stock now broken off a couple inches past the trigger guard at its narrowest point. Now just the jagged teeth of splintered wood. She thumbs the hammer back. It makes a satisfying click.
“This is how it’s going to work,” she tells Petry. “We’ve got you on record saying some very bad things. Things that would get you into some deep and awful shit. Maybe the way we did it wasn’t legal but you and I both know that doesn’t matter one whit. It’ll still put eyes on you. Eyes you don’t want. And when those eyes look at you they’ll start to look at Orly Erickson and then Hitler himself couldn’t save you from what’s coming.” She draws a deep breath, blows it out through flared nostrils. “So you’re going to leave. You’re going to pack up your stuff and disappear from this town, this world, this life. I don’t care where you go. I don’t care what you do. Long as you’re nowhere near here. Because that recording? It’s gonna get out. And you don’t want to be here when it does.”
Petry lays there, face down against the dirt.
“I’m gonna need you to acknowledge what I just told you,” she says.
“Fine,” he mutters.
“Come again?”
“I said fuckin’ fine. Whatever you want.”
“I want something else.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Don’t push yours. You ever read the Bible, Officer Petry?”
“I go to church.”
“Ain’t the same thing. Most folks to go to service but never crack the Good Book. Devil can quote scripture and all that. Well, think of me as being the Devil on your shoulder, and let me quote a bit of scripture to you, something someone said to me recently. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s from one of the gospels though I’ll be honest, my memory is lapsing as to which one. Guess I’m not a very good Devil. Or angel. But I am a spectacular human being, and we human beings love our punishments.”
Shane steps back. Watches, rapt, scared, arms folded over like he’s suddenly cold.
“Get on with it,” Petry says, voice muffled by the earth.