Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,17
her arm, extends into a three-foot-long polycarbonate beat-down stick.
Manboob has fetched the symbol—the golden metal is now pock-marked with bird-shot. He holds it and looks sad. Like he just lost a friend.
John Elvis is nowhere near that fast. He’s still throttling the neck of that Steve Vai special like it’s a chicken, or his dick. His jaw is tightening and relaxing, teeth grinding: tell-tale signs of an addict. Meth, probably. Not odd for this area. Not anymore.
“What the fuck is this?” he asks.
“A friendly visit,” she says. Atlanta cocks her head toward Chris. “Remember him?”
“Yeah,” Chris says, voice shaking like he’s going to lose it. “Remember me?”
Skinny Skank hisses at them, further completing the visual of the viper.
“I remember you,” John Elvis says. “The Jew. And now, apparently, his Jew-loving bitch.”
Atlanta scrunches up her face, looks at Chris. “You a Jew?”
He shakes his head and gives an uncertain shrug as if to say, no?
“Uh, yeah, he’s not a Jew,” she calls. “Not that it’d be a problem if he was, but we just figure, if you’re going to hate on somebody, then hate them for the right reasons.”
“Not a Jew?” John Elvis says, confused.
Skinny Skank fills in the blank: “That’s the faggot.”
She’s guessing now that Skinny Skank was one of the four that did a number on Chris. Certainly the way he’s staring at her—as if he’s burning her up with his own mental cigarettes—tells that tale.
“The faggot,” John Elvis says, nodding, nodding, chewing on that information. “Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. Fuck you doing, coming up into my barn with that shotgun—”
Manboob suddenly clutches the damaged cymbal to his chest. “I’m not with them!” he yelps, then barrels across the wooden floorboards—shaking the whole barn—and bolts out a side door.
“Pussy!” Skinny Skank shrieks after him. Voice like a fork scraping across teeth, that one.
“So whaddya you want?” John Elvis asks. “Bitch wanna get burned like homo boy?”
Chris recoils a little, takes a hesitant step back, but Atlanta hooks his elbow and pulls him back forward.
“No, thanks,” Atlanta says. “I’m trying to cut down. I’m just here to get a little payback for my friend. And also to deliver a warning that this shit won’t fly. You leave him and everybody else around here alone or—“
“You gonna shoot us?” Skinny Skank asks with a laugh. “That’s a one-shot shooter, you little dyke. Take your shot, one of us will be on you like white on rice. And if it’s me, I’ll take this baton and stick it so far up your coochie you’ll gag on the end of it.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris calls out. “Who’s the dyke here?” It’s like he can’t contain his sass, but once it’s out, he pulls back, turtles in once more.
Atlanta ignores that. Decides to clarify. “I’m pretty fast putting another shell in the breach, if that’s what you’re asking.” She really is; she practiced in the mirror. “Maybe I get off a second shot fast, maybe I don’t. So, in the words of my favorite fictional cop-on-the-edge, what y’all gotta ask yourself is, do you feel lucky, punks?”
The looks on both their faces says, yes, they do in fact feel lucky.
Seems high time for a demonstration, then.
John Elvis has both hands off his guitar—it hangs by a black leather strap, the neck exposed.
She aims fast, pulls the trigger. The birdshot takes off the neck of the guitar right at the fingerboard. John Elvis about looks like he’s going to piss his pants. He howls a withering lamentation.
Skinny Skank doesn’t flinch, though. Baton raised like a Valkyrie sword, she comes bolting forward.
Atlanta, though, already has the barrel spitting out its empty shell and is tucking another into the chamber—the barrel closes, her thumb pulls back the hammer, and she thrusts the gun up right in Skinny Skank’s face. The Nazi twat skids to a halt.
“You wanna eat birdshot?” Atlanta asks. “Because I’m talented with this shotgun. I’m the surgeon, and this here is my motherfucking scalpel.” It’s a lie, really. It’s mostly because she’s in pretty close quarters and a shotgun is called a scatter-gun for a reason: you don’t have to make one bullet count because you have a whole swarm of little lead bees that dance when you pull the trigger. That’s what’s great about a shotgun: no need to be surgical. “Unless you want your face erased, drop the baton, step back into the gosh-darn barn. Go on!”
Another hiss from the Skank, but she does as told. The baton drops. She slinks backward.