Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,87
in the air again and again.
Her hand presses on the ground. Atlanta steadies herself. Nudges an empty schnapps bottle out of the way.
Guy helps her up. Whitey sits back and watches.
“You look like a hairball that dog coughed up, yo,” he says as she gets her balance under her feet.
“I figure you’re bein’ generous,” she gurgles.
“Let’s go with dogshit, then.”
“That’s more like it.” Her lips smack together. The corners of her mouths feel dry and crusty. “It’s time?”
“It’s time.”
“I probably shouldn’t have had all that vodka. Or the schnapps. Or the Ritalin.”
Guy laughs. “I been there, girl, I been there.”
“I gotta go pee,” she says.
“Thanks for sharing.”
* * *
Her bladder is like a water balloon about to pop. She tries to make a beeline for the bathroom but suddenly there’s Shane jumping up like a gopher at his hole. Big grin on his face. Mouth smeared with old lipstick. Damita’s. His eyes might as well be goggly and on springs.
“Damita’s great,” he says, his voice dreamy and lost.
“Uh-huh,” she says, skirting past him. He trails after her.
“I got to touch her boobs,” he says.
“I’m real excited for you.”
“It’s all thanks to you.”
“You and her boobs are very welcome. I gotta pee. And maybe throw up again.”
His face scrunches up. “Oh, yeah, you don’t look so hot.”
“Please move.”
“Sorry.”
Inside the bathroom, she pees like she’s trying to put out a house-fire.
At least she doesn’t puke again.
* * *
She pukes again on the way. Guy yells at her not to get any on the car, and so she hangs out the open window—a window that no longer exists thanks to Winky with his John Deere hat and his pistol—and somehow manages to miss the side of the prodigiously banged up Scion.
For a few minutes, she feels better again. Barfing is funny that way, she thinks. You never want to do it, and you try so hard not to do it, doing whatever you can to keep it from happening, all the while feeling like a stack of dishes ready to topple. But then you do it and it’s horrible for those 30 seconds, and afterwards you feel cleaned out, freshened up, like all you need to conquer the day is a splash of water and a capful of mouthwash.
Whitey sits in the back, panting. After she hauls her head back inside, he licks her ear. She reaches back with a clumsy hand and scratches behind his ear.
“You really taken to that dog,” Guy says.
“He saved my life. Or something close to it. I figure I owe him some ear-scratchin’s now and again.”
“It’s more than that. You two are bonded.”
“He’s all right and I’m all right and we’re even more all right together. But he’s just a dog.”
“You say that, but you don’t act like that.”
To that, she can only shrug.
“You sure about today?” he asks.
“I’m good,” she says. “My guts no longer feel home to a pissed-off family of raccoons.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know. I’ll be fine. The plan is about as easy and as dumb as they come.”
“You’ll be in there alone. No gun. Nobody with you.”
Again she scratches Whitey. “I got him.”
* * *
He drops her off at the base of the driveway like she asks. Atlanta doesn’t need Guy getting any more wrapped up in this than he already is, way they wrecked his trailer and his car (oh, and his face). She hoofs it with Whitey in tow.
The day, like all the days lately, is hot and dry and it isn’t long before she starts to feel like a piece of meat left too long on the grill. The trees and the grass all feel a little less green, like the sun has decided to stop feeding the plants and start feeding from them, instead. It’s doing the same to her—sapping her strength, robbing her of her confidence and stripping her bare like pulling all the insulation off a wire. Fear sparks hot and electric.
The hangover isn’t helping, either. Her whole body pulses.
Sick, slick, sweaty, and weak. Say that a hundred times fast.
Her boots crunch on gravel. Not far off now she sees the fence and the gate.
Sure enough, Winky stands there. Green and yellow John Deere hat easy to spot.
This is it. Beginning of the end, she thinks. This is where she finds out if they’re going to let her back in or just shoot her at the gate and steal the dog. As she gets closer, Winky sits forward in his chair and eventually stands, radioing