Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,72
into hers. He tells the dog: “Maybe you just need better bait. Since this bitch lost us our last bait dog, seems like she wants to volunteer. Ain’t that right?”
The dog sniffs her. Stares. Lip curls up showing one pink canine fang.
He’s going to tear her apart.
Omar and Orion all over again, except she can’t run, can’t move her hands, can’t protect her face. Dog’s got a set of jaws that could peel back a crumpled car roof. And he’s staring at her like she’s a plate of steak left on the patio.
She knows she’s crying. But she can’t feel her tears.
What she does feel is the knife.
Bodie’s there with the blade and he sticks it in the meat just below her collarbone. She doesn’t know how deep but it feels deep—at first it doesn’t hurt at all like her flesh is just an old car seat and he’s sticking his finger through a rip in the leather. But then the pain shows up—late to the party but there just the same, a bright flash of hot agony with long tentacles that wakes her up full tilt. The pain is a hard wind that blows away some of the clouds of the tranquilizers but she knows it doesn’t matter now.
She’s able to wriggle her hands free from the chains but then they just lay there like dead fish—free from the net but useless just the same.
The dog growls. But still doesn’t move.
“There you go,” Bodie says. “Get that blood stink up in your nose.” She sees him sticking the knife under the dog’s flaring nostrils. “No? Not yet. Fuckin’ retard. Let’s stick her again and see.”
Flash of the knife. Wrist back. Blade pointed forward.
He moves to stick her again.
White flash. Avalanche. The dog growls and moves fast and suddenly Bodie’s screaming, a blood-curdling banshee wail as the dog’s mouth clamps down hard on his hand and wrist. The knife drops. The dog’s head shakes like he’s got a whistle pig in his mouth whose neck he wants to break—with every shake, Bodie screams louder, beating at the dog with one open hand at the same time he’s trying to crab-walk away.
Then Tressa starts to scream. And Bird makes a scared noise and runs off into the woods.
The Cooch grabs the knife. Goes at the big white hell-hound ripping up Bodie’s hand, ready to stab the dog in the neck. Atlanta focuses everything she has just to move her arms and she’s able to kick a hole in the tranquilizer haze and crawl through—her hands lift from the chains and give a clumsy shove, pushing Tressa Kucharski to the ground. Again the knife falls. And this time, Atlanta grabs it.
Knife-blade under the collar. Bites into her neck—she feels a nip of pain, but then she saws back and forth and the collar pops off. When she stands, the dog lets go of Bodie’s hand—and all she sees is a red mess at the end of his arm. He’s still got fingers and a thumb, but everything south of them looks like roadkill.
Tressa’s getting to her feet.
Atlanta doesn’t know what to do.
So she runs. She runs hard and she runs fast, passing Bird in the woods—he’s just sitting there against a tree, crying into his hands like his mother just died.
* * *
The dog is chasing her.
She thinks, He’s coming for me, now, and any second he’ll bite into her Achilles heel and rip the back right off her foot and when she goes down it’ll be face-first. The dog will rip her to ribbons.
Atlanta doesn’t know what to do, so she stops. Wheels on the dog. Better to face the hellhound then give the beast her back.
But when she pivots, the dog skids to a stop. And sits down.
Panting. He even gives his head a little dip—an acquiescence to what, she doesn’t know.
It’s surreal. He’s got a head like a cement block. And his jaw is stained pink and red. Teeth, too. But he looks docile as a sleepy lamb.
“Go away,” she mumbles, mush-mouthed. Lips barely able to form those words.
The dog continues sitting.
“Stop following me.”
Pant, pant, pant, pant.
“Seriously, quit it.”
The beast licks his lips. Blinks. Then burps a little.
“Whatever,” she says, exasperated. No time for this. She still feels groggy, like her parts are disconnected from the whole. All she knows is, her job here is done. Revenge has been achieved. Bodie’s hand looked like a grenade went off in the palm. That’s good enough for her.