Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,18

Chris to pick up the weapon. He does.

“Now,” Atlanta says, “we’re gonna leave now. Like I said, this friend of mine is under my protection. Whole fuckin’ school is under my protection. You come at us, I’ll make shotgun gravy out of your tender vittles. Tell your friends, too. Mitchell Erickson and whoever else. This ends here.” Skank and John Elvis don’t say squat, but when she says Mitchell’s name they share a panicked look.

Atlanta can’t help getting in one more barb: “And by the way, your music’s like someone set fire to my ears then pissed on ‘em to put ‘em out. Talentless assholes.”

Then she and Chris back away from the barn.

They go back the way they came. All the while Atlanta keeps her gun up and out. She sees John Elvis and the Skank standing there, watching them leave.

They don’t look happy, understandably.

Oh fucking well.

* * *

In the van ride back, it’s like someone uncorked a bottle of high tension and happy gas. Everybody’s laughing. Giggling. The rush of courting danger. The uncertainty in the thick of it. The release of triumph, of pitching a stone into the eye of giants, of still being alive to tell the tale. It’s all, did you see his face? and I know, right, what a skank, did you see that butt-crack? and Shane’s leaning forward from the backseat over the center console, the eager beaver looking to hear the tale and live it vicariously.

“Guess I owe you five hundred smackaroos,” Chris says, cheeks pink, face giddy. “I like that word. Smackaroos. Sounds like… underwear filled with heroin. ‘Hey, Mom, can I wear my smackeroos today? Can I can I can I can I?’”

“Call it a hundred,” Atlanta says, laughing. “Dang, I enjoyed that too much to take any more than that.” And it occurs to her then that she did enjoy it. She feels higher than the Adderall made her, and like she accomplished something, like she really truly accomplished something.

* * *

That night her mother says, “Atlanta, you want for me to go out and get some dinner? I’m fixin’ to eat, darling, and we still haven’t tried any of those… whatever those sausages are.”

She means kielbasa. Polish sausage. Lots of spice. Thing is, this area is a big Polish area. Not just Polish, either. Lithuanian. Hungarian. Ukranian. That means at all the diners you can get blinis and koshe and pierogies and pickled pig’s feet and all that good stuff. But the king is kielbasa. You go into town, you’ll find three kielbasa shops within walking distance of one another. All run by old families, each with their own recipe, each with their own little old babushka-wearing ladies in the kitchen. It’s not a competition. They encourage you go try each one. The area doesn’t have much by ways of tourism, but foodies come up now and again from Wilkes-Barre or Scranton or even Philly just for the kielbasa.

Sausage tourism.

Being up north is weird, Atlanta thinks. Still, she’s feeling—what’s the word? Magnanimous. She tells her mother, sure. Go for it. Bring back some kielbasa. Which she does. They both eat the sausages—bright red from the paprika within—in silence, and when they’re done, they go their separate ways. It’s their first mealtime together in a long time. For better or for worse.

* * *

It’s 9PM when her head hits the pillow. No Adderall. She thinks, don’t need it, feel pretty good, fuck it. Sleep comes fast. Rushes up on her like a train. She goes down, it’s like she’s been shot in the head.

It’s 3AM when she wakes up to find Skinny Skank standing next to her bed.

Baton in hand.

Oh, shit.

She scrabbles to stand but Skank has a hand over her mouth, and she shushes her. “Shhh, girl. Shhh. Don’t cry out. Don’t call for your mother. Don’t wanna have to hurt her.”

Skinny Skank runs the tip of the baton up Atlanta’s naked calf, up the inside of her thigh, and teases along the hem of her cut off sweat pants—everywhere the baton touches it feels like fire ants biting, and suddenly Atlanta feels dizzy and sick and afraid in the way you get at the top of a too-tall roller coaster peak, the fear of falling fast, the fear of what’s coming.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” Skank says, smiling like she’s doing Atlanta some kind of damn favor. “I think you’ve wanted it too.”

She thrusts the baton up Atlanta’s pant leg and she gasps, her