Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,49

bastard rolls over, face mask half pulled up from when he fell against the grass.

And Atlanta catches a glimpse of dark red lipstick. The whimpering dog-napper can no longer see and paws at his face and pulls the mask up to his forehead and, sure enough, it’s not a “his” anything but a “her.”

Atlanta recognizes the girl from high school. Same year as her. Tattooed chick. Kinda Gothy, but kinda rednecky, too. Husky. Like a linebacker. Vanessa. Tessa. Something-essa.

“You,” the girl squeaks.

“Me,” Atlanta says, standing over her.

The girl kicks Atlanta in the crotch with a boot.

Anatomy lesson: girls don’t have the low-hanging fruit of testicles, but getting kicked in the crotch is no picnic. Pain still shoots up into Atlanta’s gut and she staggers left, doubling over.

Something-essa gets on her hands and knees, scrabbling to find purchase on the wet lawn, and manages to move her dumptruck body up and forward—she runs the way a drunken moose runs, one leg almost caught by the other, boots clompily stomping, braying as she goes.

Floodlights suddenly bathe the lawn in lights.

Inside the house, lights flick on.

Go go go go.

Atlanta pushes past the pain, raises her baton high like an angry monkey, and chases after.

She catches sight of Something-essa darting between a pair of boxy McMansions, heading east out of Clover Knoll, running like an out of control boulder as it chases Indiana Jones—way the girl moves isn’t about grace or skill so much as it is about gathering momentum and then wildly tumbling forward until something stands in your way. Atlanta intends to be the thing that stands in her way.

Clover Knoll’s streets are a bunch of horseshoes smashed together with a main avenue connecting them all at the far side—and that’s where Something-essa’s going to have to come out. Atlanta bolts right, heads that direction. Knuckles white around the baton’s nylon grip. Glimpses of white fur and red meat. The imagined sound of that baying beagle amplified times ten as someone cuts off its ears, pops out its teeth.

I’m going to fuck you up, girl.

Atlanta, ribs stitched with pain, lungs burning, heads past countless pre-fab mini-mansions all smashed together on half-acre lots, finally comes out on the main road—California Street—and feels less like a gazelle and more like the rampaging elephant of Something-essa. She hits the sidewalk, is barely able to stop herself. Almost skids on some stone scree and slips, but catches her balance.

Just in time to see Something-essa stumble forth from someone’s lawn about fifty feet away.

Between them, at a t-bone intersection, is the way out—the development entrance that leads to Gallows Hill road. Atlanta grins. Because Something-essa will have to come this way to get out, because the only other option is to run to the hill and dart through the trees and that’s one steep-ass hill that really will turn her into the boulder chasing after Indiana Jones.

Atlanta’s about to yell something to her, some kind of cocky bullshit taunt. But then—sirens. Lights. Red and blue chase each other like Tom the cat chases Jerry the mouse. A cop cruiser—not just a sedan but a goddamn Dodge Charger because apparently the cops here have anxiety over their tiny units—comes whipping up the drive into Clover Knoll. Headed straight for the both of them.

Atlanta and Something-essa share a look.

Something-essa gives Atlanta the finger.

Then she heads toward the hill.

Atlanta thinks to go after her but that’ll force her to cross the path of the cops. No time for that. No time to think at all—her only mode is escape because getting busted by the cops right now is not going to be good for her or for Sailor or for her mother. She already went away once; she doesn’t want to do it again.

She turns and runs the opposite way. Back toward the McMansions.

* * *

Atlanta hides.

Again behind a blue mailbox.

Palms sweaty, mouth dry.

Making herself as small as she can. Appropriate, given how small she feels. Small and angry. Like a gallstone.

The cops sweep back and forth. Time and again. Spotlight sliding over houses and lawns and sidewalks. Part of her thinks, just go out there. Tell them what happened. Say, I’m trying to find out who’s taking these dogs and hurting them, and then give them the details about the truck and Something-essa and then be done with it. But then the money’s not hers anymore, is it? The cops will be in her way.

And she can’t trust the cops. If one cop is sitting on Orly Erickson’s shoulder