Bait Dog: An Atlanta Burns Novel

by Wendig, Chuck

  “That’s a cop,” she says, quiet as she can manage over the whoops and boos of the crowd.

  “What? You kidding me?” He suddenly gets it. “We gotta go.”

  “This way,” she says, taking the long route through the parking lot, ducking behind as many cars as she can. Gravel crunches under feet.

  As they duck behind a powder-blue Chevy pickup, Guy says, “There’s a dog following us.”

  “I know, shut up.”

  “Where’d he come from?”

  “I said shut up, dang.”

  Ahead sits the boxy Scion.

  And Shane’s not in it.

  Atlanta stands, slaps her hands against the back window and peers in, thinking that maybe he’s laying down or hiding in the backseat somewhere like a scared mouse. But he’s nowhere to be found.

  “Bitch!” comes a voice across the parking lot.

  Tressa Kucharski. Bodie next to her, his forearm dripping. The two of them start winding their way through the lot. Atlanta looks the other way and, sure enough, there’s John Elvis Baumgartner, squinting in her direction, the flat of his hand forming a visor to block out the sun.

  “Let’s go!” Guy barks, skidding around the front of the car while hitting the keychain button to unlock the doors.

  Atlanta yells, “We can’t leave without Shane!”

  “Maybe you can’t,” he says, then hops in the car.

  Now, John Elvis is really leaning in—“Hey!” he yells, like he’s still not sure it’s her. Of course, he’s dumber than a stack of firewood. But the cop sees her.

  He stares right at her.

  From the other direction, Tressa and Bodie are hurrying around cars—fifty yards and closing.

  Tressa raises the pistol again.

  Where the hell is Shane? Atlanta calls out: “Shane! Shaaaaane!”

  And then, as if she possesses some kind of person-summoning magic, boom. There he is. Walking up from behind the car, hands in his pockets like it’s no big thing. “What? I had to take a leak.”

  She grabs him. Pulls him close.

  Just as a little tranquilizer dart thwips into the fat of Shane’s bicep.

  “Ow!” he says, and swats at it like it’s a bee.

  Atlanta shoves him in the car. Before she can close the door, the big white hell-beast hops in after him—which causes Shane to scream like a Tasered girl scout. She slides in through the passenger side door just as the tires bite into limestone scree and spin stones.

  The car jolts forward.

  * * *

  Shane’s screams last for about thirty seconds. Then they wind down like a child’s toy with dying batteries—he slumps against the seat, the tranq taking hold. The dog sits next to him, panting, oblivious. Occasionally rebalancing his big white body as Guy takes the turns and skids across gravel toward the exit.

  Ahead is the gate. Closed.

  Winky in the John Deere hat is already up, barking into a walkie-talkie. He flings down the radio and goes dipping a hand into a rusted red toolbox under his metal folding chair.

  Next thing they know, he’s standing straight again.

  This time, with a pistol pointed at them.

  This one doesn’t look like a pellet gun. Or a tranquilizer gun. It’s the real deal.

  Guy doesn’t say anything—he just makes a sound that’s halfway between a scream of anger and a yelp of fear, then he steps on the accelerator. Winky doesn’t have time do anything but jump out of the way as the car crashes into the gate, flinging it open.

  The Scion’s tires skate across gravel, the ass-end of the car going left while the rest of the vehicle tries to go straight. They fishtail, ending up perpendicular to the road. Leaving Atlanta facing the ruined gate.

  Winky’s back on his feet. Gun up and out.

  Guy hits the pedal—tires spin uselessly on stone.

  Atlanta ducks, fumbles for the shotgun in the backseat.

  Hands on cold metal.

  Brings the gun up.

  Realizes the window isn’t down.

  Winky fixes that. One shot through the glass—passes through, hits the driver side window, breaking both. Glass everywhere. Guy screams. The dog howls. Atlanta uses the butt of the squirrel gun to punch out the rest of the passenger side window then leans out. Thumb pulling back the hammer on the single-barrel .410.

  The pistol’s up again and about to fire. But Winky’s either smart, a coward, or both—because he throws his body into the ditch next to the gravel drive. Atlanta doesn’t even have to pull the trigger. She just keeps the barrel aimed out the window, staring down the sight.

  Guy reverses the Scion—

  Again the tires spin. But this time, they catch. The car whips backward into a laser-fast k-turn.

  Two minutes later, they hit the road. Literally—the Scion slams up onto the asphalt with a bang and a rattle.

  * * *

  For the first five minutes of the drive, nobody says anything. All the hear is the car’s engine, the wheels on the road, and the dog’s breathy panting. Occasionally Atlanta shakes herself loose from the mire of her own shock and glances into the backseat to make sure the dog hasn’t chosen Shane as a meal.

  Shane lays slumped. Flycatcher mouth lolling. The dog sits, staring ahead. When Atlanta grabs her own seat to turn around and see, the beast takes his dry-blood muzzle and licks her hand.

  She turns back around.

  Eventually, Guy speaks.

  When he does, it’s under his breath. “Shit.” Then louder. “Shit.” And finally: “Shit!”

  He bashes the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

  “Yeah,” Atlanta says, because she’s not sure what else to say.

  “Yeah? Yeah doesn’t cover it. So I’m sitting here thinking, right? I’m thinking, that’s a dog back there. From a dog fight. Except, that ain’t no normal dog. That’s no pit bull. That’s a rare breed. You know that?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Kinda? It’s an Argentine Mastiff. A Dogo Argentino.” On these last two words he throws a little spicy accent powder, rolling that ‘r’ like a ball bearing rolling across a snare drum. He says it again: “Dogo. Argentino.”

  “Sure. Okay. So what?”

  “I heard something there today. I was sellin’ some vikes to some hillbilly cracker with a bum leg and you know what he said? He said that someone had bought and was training just such a dog. You know who that someone is? Do you?”

  “No. No! I don’t—“

  But she realizes it seconds before he says it.

  …they went and are staying with their uncle or something up on his farm in Little Ash…

  …This here is my farm, so I’m glad you found our humble operation…

  …Just trying to train this dumb piece of shit dog of our uncle’s to take the fuckin’ bait…

  “It’s Ellis Wayman’s dog,” he says. He says it again: “Ellis Fucking Wayman.”

  “Oh, that’s not good.” Panic claws its way through her.

  He hits the steering wheel again.

  “Pull over,” she says. “Hurry.”

  Guy steps on the brakes. Shane’s drug-slumbering form slumps forward, his head thunking against the window. Atlanta hurries outside, opens the back door.

  The dog—the very special dog breed, the Dogo Argentino—stares at her.

  “Go!” she says. “You’re free. Look. Out there it’s… trees and farmhouses and a bunch of walking hamburgers.” The dog just stares. “Liberty! Freedom! This here is your Emancipation Proclamation. Go!”

  The dog’s massive body fails to move.

  She reaches in with ginger hands, grabs the dog in a tricky stealth hug, uses the fake affection to try to drag his white ass off the seat. But he’s heavy. Like he’s a statue fixed to a concrete slab. There’s that age-old question, could God create an object that He Himself could not move? The answer: yes. This dog.

  The dog licks her ear. The tongue is wet and dry at the same time. Like drooly sandpaper.


  “C’mon,” Guy says, snapping his fingers. “They could be on us soon. We gotta roll, Atlanta.”

  “Dangit,” she says, getting back in the car.

  * * *

  They manage to get Shane out of the car, carrying him over to one of the white plastic patio chairs in front of her house before dumping his butt into it.

  The dog hops out of the car and plods after.

  Guy doesn’t say much. She’s not sure if he’s mad or scared or something else, but he’s stewing and simmering and she knows to leave well enough alone. He doesn’t even say goodbye—she thinks he’s just going over to turn off the car engine, but instead he gets in and peels out. The Scion rockets down her driveway toward the road.

  The dog sits in front of her, panting and licking his chops. Creepy, because he is in effect licking the blood that stains his muzzle. Bodie’s blood. From Bodie’s ruined hand.

  “I have got to wipe you off,” she tells the dog.

  She heads inside, hoping that while she’s in there he decides to wander off into the corn or the weeds. Instead, he follows her inside. Her own white shadow. At the sink she runs the faucet over a wad of paper towels. When she’s got them good and wet she squats next to him, hesitant.

  “You’re not gonna bite my hand off, are you?”

  He thumps his nose into her forehead.

  “I hope that isn’t secret dog language for ‘yes.’” She sighs. “Let’s get you cleaned off.”

  She wipes his muzzle, the paper towels turning pink her hands. A shudder grapples up her arms, to her spine, and then to the rest of her body. Don’t think about that. Soon she has the creature’s face clean.

  Back outside. The dog at her six every step.

  Shane is awake. Wide-eyed and staring down the driveway, hands gripping the sides of the patio chair in a mortified grip. He hears her coming, starts to say, “I remember a dog. Like, this monster from Hell. Cerberus, the three-headed hound that guards—“

  Then he tilts his head and finally sees that the dog is hot on her heels and he squeal-yelps and pulls his arms and legs up tight like he’s floating on a buoy in shark-infested waters.

  “Yeah, the dog is real,” she says. “Sorry about that.”

  “What happened?”

  And she tells him. About the fight, about seeing John Elvis and the Skank and the cop, about Bodie and Bird and how the Cooch tranquilized her, and then him. About the dog crunching the bones in Bodie’s hand. Rending the flesh. Turning it to a glove filled with ground meat.

  “That dog’s evil,” Shane says.

  The dog pants and whines in response.

  “He seems all right,” she says. “I think he saved my life, actually.”

  She clumsily pets him. Meaning, she taps him on the head with her open palm. Clumsy or no, the dog seems to like it, and leans into her ministration, eyes closed, a sincere moment of canine bliss.

  “So he belongs to who now?”

  “Ellis Wayman,” she says. “Big sumbitch. They call him the Mountain Man, though whether that’s because he’s from the mountains or big like one, I dunno. Maybe both.”

  “You have to give the dog back.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “This dog saved my life, Shane. What, I’m supposed to repay that by sending him back to that place? I saw just one fight and it was the most miserable thing I ever did see. All the blood in the dirt. Both animals in pain. I can’t do it. Won’t do it. He’s not my dog but he’s not gonna be theirs, either.”

  “He’s gonna want that dog back.”

  “I know.” Worry fills her up—gallons of spoiled milk in all her empty spaces. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you think he’ll come for you?”

  She shrugs and takes a seat. “Maybe him. Maybe Bodie.” A sudden realization strikes her: “Aw, damn, and those other Nazi assholes saw me, too. That’s not good, Shane.”

  They sit quiet for a while. The afternoon sun sinks, sliding like a plump egg yolk toward the edge of a tilted pan.

  The dog leans his head on her knee. She scratches his ear. He whines a happy whine.

  “You’re not my dog,” she tells him. “So don’t get used to this.”

  He pokes her with his nose. A curious affectation, but whatever.

  Soon Shane says: “Those Nazis. They were the same ones who messed with Chris.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think they did it?”

  She knows what he means.

  And she offers a game nod.

  Shane sits up straight. “That means this whole thing with the dogs is starting to meet up with Chris’ murder.”

  “Yeah. I guess it is.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No. It ain’t.”

  Takes a while, but Shane finally asks: “Are you going to make them pay, too? Way you made those guys, Birdie and Bodie, pay?”

  She exhales hoping the breath will make this feeling go away but it doesn’t.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not real good at that part. I mostly just make things worse. I feel like I’m sinking in a bed of lake mud and every time I struggle I sink that much deeper.”

  “I think they’ve hurt a lot of people.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” She narrows her eyes. “Why you think so?”

  “I did some research. Newspaper archives and whatever. Local county business? Chris isn’t the only gay kid who killed himself. There’s three more in the area—and one who was beaten to death underneath the watertower just outside Danville.” He pauses. “That one had cigarette burns on him.”

  Cigarette burns. Just like Chris had when the Neo-Nazis first attacked him. That attack at the behest of Chris’ own awful father. Shane continues:

  “And there’s been a rash of Hispanic kids killed, too. All of them beaten to death.”

  “We don’t know that it’s connected.”

  He shrugs. “No. But it makes sense.”

  It did. It does. The sour milk inside her curdles.

  * * *

  Eventually Shane goes home. Atlanta heads inside—the dog again trotting after—and eventually she calls Jenny. She tells Jenny only the vaguest of details, explaining that the boys who hurt her dog have been hurt in turn.

  “I don’t know how to get you proof of it, though,” Atlanta says.

  Jenny breathes loudly into the phone. “I need proof. I gave you a lot of money.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She pauses. “I don’t know how to do that, though.”

  “What happened to them? You said the one’s hand was… hurt.”

  “A dog chewed it up, actually. Yeah.”

  “’And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.’” Jenny pauses. “That’s from the Bible. From the Book of Matthew. One of the gospels.”

  “I’ve heard it before.”

  “This place you went to. It was a… “

  “A farm. They had dog fights there.”

  “That means they’re going to keep hurting dogs.”

  “Well, these two knuckleheads won’t.”

  “I can’t…” Here Jenny’s voice breaks down a little. Just a hiccup. A croaky stutter where the voice goes high-pitched like a ricocheting bullet and the threat of tears looms large. “I can’t think of other dogs getting hurt.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Jenny.”

  “Fix it.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Shut it down. I’ll pay you the rest of your money and then some.”

  “I can’t. I can’t go back there. It’s dangerous.”

  “Imagine what it’s like for the dogs.”

  Atlanta tries not to yell but she does it anyway: “I saw what it was like for the dogs. Okay? I saw. I saw the fight. I saw the barn where they, they… Vick the dogs. I saw blood and heard dogs in pain and there was this raccoon…” Her voice trails off. Softens again. “I can’t go back. I don’t have goo
d reason to.”