Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,68
shut. “Hey, is anybody coming over here?”
“Huh?”
“Behind me. From the Morton building. Anybody heading this direction?”
Maisey peeks her head out. “Don’t think so. Ooh. Someone you’re hiding from?”
“Old boyfriend,” she lies. “Don’t want him to see me here. Doin’… my thing.”
Another donkey laugh. “Yeah, I hear that. Some of these guys get jealous! I think you’re good. I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. Or were into stuff like this. Lemme ask you something—“ And Atlanta knows the question is coming because anytime she gets into close contact with someone from school and they have just enough rope with which to hang the conversation, they always ask. “Did you really… you know?”
“Shoot my mother’s boyfriend.”
“In the—“ And suddenly Maisey lowers her voice and squats down next to Atlanta. “In the balls?”
“Yeah.”
“Was he… touching you?”
“He wasn’t a good person.”
She neglects to say:
He came to my room three times. He told me to do things for him or he’d tell my mother that I was hitting on him. Or he’d leave her. Or he’d hit her. He made me do things for him, all kinds of things that left bruises and made my jaw hurt real bad and then the next time he came to me I didn’t want to do it anymore or ever again and so I was ready and waiting and I shot him and the birdshot tore his scrotum clean off. Or maybe not so clean.
She just says: “So I did what I had to do.”
“Cool.”
Atlanta has to clench her whole body not to give Maisey Bott a hard flick to the eye. Instead she just nods. “Yeah. Real cool.”
“Hey, why you heading toward the murder building?”
“It’s a Morton building. It’s like a type of farm building.”
“No, I mean, that’s where they Vick the—“
Just then, a gun goes off inside the building. Bang.
“The dogs,” Maisey finishes, wincing. “I hate that part.”
Vicking a dog.
“Vicking a dog.”
Maisey nods. “You know. Killin’ it? Like the, uhh, football player.”
Killing it. Out of mercy? Or as punishment? Was it Orion that went? She pictures it: Karl, angry that his prize dog had failed him this one time, decides to kill the dog who has served his master over and over again. She wants to kill Karl. She wants to find the Mountain Man and break him down into pieces. Wants to backhand Maisey. Wants to shove her collapsible baton down Skinny Skank’s throat and up John Elvis’ ass and just break bad on everyone.
Atlanta has to get out of here before she finds a way to set fire to the whole place.
But she has something to do, first.
To Maisey, she says, “You know a Bird or a Bodie? Hitchcock. Er, Haycock.”
“I know those two. Couple-a dumb-fucks. They’re over at the barn.”
“The barn.”
“That’s where they keep the dogs before the fight.”
Her hand dips into her pocket. Feels the baton there again—a small source of comfort, that baton, like a match-flame on a cold day. But it’s better than nothing.
She doesn’t know what she’s going to do. No plan is forthcoming. But her anger doesn’t need a plan—and it probably wouldn’t care if it had one.
* * *
She leaves Maisey in the dust and now heads toward the imposing structure, a massive peaked building with windows like eyes and a big broad door like a hungry sideways mouth. Barn’s got a fresh coat of paint that marks it with the color of a slaughterhouse floor but Atlanta tries not to think about it that way.
Inside, the floor is hay-strewn. Big spears of sunlight beam in through windows and skylights, motes of swirling dust and pollen suspended in those illuminated channels. She’s surprised at how calm it is, given the dozen or so dogs stuck in wire cages—cages that are piled one on top of the other. Whatever fighting instinct these dogs have is neatly contained, bottled up and somehow saved for the fights. What she sees are mostly pit bulls of various sizes and colors—black and brindle and fawn, big and small. At the far corner is a boxer, gooey drool hanging from its flappy jowls, and Atlanta thinks, one of these things is not like the other.
Handlers mill about. Some of them tending to their dogs. Others talking. Others still staring each other down from across the barn. It’s quiet, yes; but behind the apparent serenity lurks a thread pulled taut.
Atlanta wants to kill all these people.
Not just hurt. But kill. She tells herself that’s just the anger talking. That she doesn’t really want