Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,4
this world no matter what their color or creed. But she also figured that, you give a Latino a chance to cook they’re going to make a chalupa. Or an enchilada or burrito or whatever. Now she feels like an asshole because of Mexican food. Or the assumption of Mexican food. Dangit.
“Thanks again for earlier,” he says.
“Yeah. Well. They were looking to hurt you.” She points to his head. “Guess they already did. How’s the head?”
“Hurts but okay.”
“How’d you get cut?”
It’s like he doesn’t want to tell her and she gets that, she really does. “The one, the muscle guy, he had a ring. A skull ring. He turned it to the inside of his hand and then he slapped me.”
“Slapped you. Kind of a bitch move.”
“I guess.” He watches her, then. He’s on the edge of something, like he wants to say something, and finally she just turned her index finger in a barrel roll—a gesticulation meant to say, get on with it. So he does. “The story. About you. It’s true?”
“I do not have a dick.”
“Not that story.”
“I did not bite the head off a bat on stage at a Black Sabbath show.”
“What? No. Is that even a…? Not that one.”
She rolls her eyes. “I know not that one, dumbass. Yeah. The story’s true.”
“Do you still—“ But he stops, then leans in. Voice low. As if nobody should hear. “Do you still have the shotgun?”
“I do. Told the cops it was my mother’s.”
“And you didn’t have to do time?”
She shrugs. “Felt like I did. Six months of therapy. Not here at home, either. But… away. At least I didn’t have to go to school.”
His mouth forms a reverent “o.”
“You should go,” she says abruptly around a huge mouthful of grilled cheese—it comes out, ooo shoul guh, but then she swallows the big hunk of greasy goodness and says it again. “You should go. You need to go. We’re good here.”
“Okay.” He looks confused, stung, but he gathers his bag. She plants a hand in the middle of his back and pushes him toward the door. “What do I do?”
“What do you do what? When?”
“If they come back. The three of them. They’ll come back. I’m sure of it.”
“What’s your name?” she asks, changing gears. “I didn’t get your name.”
“Shane.”
“Shane is not a Mexican name.”
“That’s because I’m Venezuelan. Like I said.”
“Shane is not a Venezuelan name, either.”
He shrugs. “My Mom’s Hawaiian. My Dad’s Venezuelan.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Lafluco.”
“Okay. Fine. Listen, Shane Lafluco, here’s what you do. Go to Cabela’s. Online or take an hour drive south, they have a store there. Buy a big ol’ frosty can of bear mace. They come at you again, hose ‘em down like a rampaging grizzly. That’s what you do.”
“Wait—“ he says, but she’s already pushing him out the door.
She closes it, locks it. Click.
* * *
In the hallway upstairs, she sees the shotgun. Leaning against a door frame where last she left it. It’s a lean little bugger. A single-shot .410 bore scatter gun. Winchester Model 20. Break the barrel open, pop in the shell, that’s it. Pull back the hammer when you’re ready to go. A chicken gun. Or a squirrel gun. That’s what Guillermo—or Guy, Guy-as-in-Guillotine—told her when she bought it.
It’s been sitting here in the hallway since that night. She runs a finger along the mouth of the barrel. Pulls it away thick with greasy dust.
She lifts her finger to her nose.
Smells like smoke and powder.
She feels like throwing up, so that’s what she does. She goes to the bathroom and throws up, then takes a shower in her clothes because that’s what they do on TV and in movies. Atlanta suspects she’ll enjoy the liberation, the anarchy of the act, but it just isn’t there. She removes her sopping wet clothes and sits on her bed and stares at the wall for hours until sleep finds her.
* * *
Anymore, the way she sleeps is like she’s been shot in the head. A deep fast sleep like she’s falling off an oceanic shelf and sinking fast into darkness. The dream that finds her there is squid-like, a kraken with many tentacles and mean suckers that pulls her toward its biting beak. It’s always hard to pull away—the dream feels so real, so alive, that while in it, she rarely realizes that it’s even a dream at all.
Every time it’s the same but different. Same feel. Same story. Different presentation. Like a morality tale with the same puppets but a different