Bait Dog: An Atlanta Burns Novel Read online

  Praise For Blackbirds

  “Visceral and often brutal, this tale vibrates with emotional rawness that helps to paint a bleak, unrelenting picture of life on the edge.” – Publishers Weekly

  “Think Six Feet Under co-written by Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk.” – SFX Magazine

  “Wendig has taken the American roadside story and turned it into a tale supernatural terror. Fans of movies such as True Romance and Final Destination will find a lot to like here, and this is a treat for those of us who like their horror vampire-free and swear-word heavy.” – Starburst Magazine

  “In terms of style, Wendig reminds me most of Stephen King. There's a way of using somewhat fevered, rugose prose to describe both the beauty and horror of the mundane, then switching to a plainer mode when describing the outer limits stuff, that brings to mind King's 80s and 90s work." – io9.com

  “It’s a short, sharp tale that’s consistently captivating and a pure, dark delight from start to finish.” – Tor.com

  “In addition to a cast of well developed yet mentally unstable characters that enhance a fantastically horrifying plot, Blackbirds possesses a natural progression that doesn’t rely on convenience or contrived circumstances to move the story forward. Wendig’s distinctive, straightforward style is accessible and insistent; and the generous helpings of violence are strangely invigorating. Chuck Wendig has raised the bar of the urban fantasy genre . . .” -- Renee C. Fountain, New York Journal of Books

  “A gleefully dark, twisted road trip for everyone who thought Fight Club was too warm and fuzzy. If you enjoy this book, you’re probably deeply wrong in the head. I loved it, and will be seeking professional help as soon as Chuck lets me out of his basement.” -- James Moran, Severance, Doctor Who and Torchwood screenwriter

  "Trailer-park tension, horrified hilarity, and sheer terror mixed with deft characterization and razor plotting. I literally could not put it down." -- Lilith Saintcrow, author of Night Shift and Working for the Devil

  "Mean, moody and mysterious, Blackbirds is a noir joyride peppered with black humour, wry observation, and visceral action." -- Adam Christopher, author of Empire State

  Praise For Shotgun Gravy

  “Shotgun Gravy is like Veronica Mars on Adderall. Atlanta Burns is a troubled teenage girl who’s scared, angry, and not taking shit from anybody. Chuck Wendig knocks this one out of the park as he so often does.” – Stephen Blackmoore, author of City of the Lost and Dead Things

  “Give Nancy Drew a shotgun and a kick-ass attitude and you get Atlanta Burns. Packed with action and fascinating characters, Shotgun Gravy is a story that will captivate both teens and adults and have them clamoring for the next installment.” – Joelle Charbonneau, author of Skating Over the Line

  Praise For Double Dead

  “A bloodthirsty ride through zombie-infested Route 66. Chuck Wendig gives horror fans exactly what they need in this slick cross-genre romp.” – Wayne Simmons, author of the bestselling Flu and Drop Dead Gorgeous

  Praise For Irregular Creatures

  “You’ll be amazed, amused, entertained, and even potentially horrified, but you won’t be disappointed.” — Elizabeth White (Musings of an All-Purpose Monkey)

  “I recommend Irregular Creatures if you’re a lover of tales–ghost stories, campfire tales, things whispered under the covers by flashlight at a grown-up slumber party, if you will–or have a fondness for Neil Gaiman’s short stories. You’ll be grossed out; you’ll be horrified; you’ll roll your eyes at the bad jokes; you’ll find hope.” — Dee Knippling, author of Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse.

  Other Work by Chuck Wendig

  Fiction

  Blackbirds (Miriam Black #1, Angry Robot, 2012)

  Mockingbird (Miriam Black #2, Angry Robot, 2012)

  The Cormorant (Miriam Black #3, Angry Robot, 2013)

  Double Dead (Abaddon, November 2011)

  Bad Blood (Double Dead #2, Abaddon, May 2012)

  The Heartland Trilogy (Amazon, 2013/2014)

  Dinocalypse Now (Evil Hat Productions, 2012)

  Beyond Dinocalypse (Evil Hat Productions, 2013)

  Dinocalypse Forever (Evil Hat Productions, 2014)

  The Blue Blazes (Angry Robot, 2013)

  Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits (Abaddon, 2013)

  Irregular Creatures: Nine Short Stories

  Writing Advice

  Confessions Of A Freelance Penmonkey

  250 Things You Should Know About Writing

  500 Ways To Be A Better Writer

  500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer

  Revenge Of The Penmonkey

  Film / Digital

  Collapsus

  Pandemic

  Bait Dog, an Atlanta Burns novel

  All material contained within copyright © Chuck Wendig, 2012. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Chuck Wendig.

  Interior art by Amy Houser.

  Visit terribleminds, the website and blog of Chuck Wendig.

  This book is for the animals.

  The human animals, and the animals that make us human.

  A Note

  This e-book contains both the original novella (Shotgun Gravy) and its sequel, Bait Dog, as I see the second being a direct continuation of the first in terms of plotlines and characters.

  This ideally helps those who have not read the former (or who wish to re-read it in order to reacquaint themselves with characters) to dive right in and do so without opening an entirely different file.

  This convenience is because I love you. Please don’t call the police like last time. I promise not to trample your flower beds again. CALL ME.

  Ahem.

  * * *

  You can go to Shotgun Gravy by clicking here.

  You can head right to Bait Dog by clicking here.

  My Author Notes are here.

  And my thanks to the very lovely Kickstarter backers goes here.

  Novella: Shotgun Gravy

  Sometimes she wakes up at night, smelling that gunpowder smell. Ears ringing. A whimpering there in the darkness. Doesn’t always hit her at night, either. Might be in the middle of the day. She should be smelling pizza, or garbage, or cat shit wafting from the house next door, but instead what she smells is that acrid tang of gunsmoke. All up in her nose. Clinging there like a tick.

  * * *

  She hears the clanging, the echoing reverb of an open slap palm on the side of a dumpster. Voices carry across the empty parking lot across from Bogner’s Produce: a mean cackle, a goofy guffaw, the murmur of threats culminating in some pleading bleat. Atlanta Burns is on the way home from school, walking the five-mile stretch from town to country, for the burg of Maker’s Bell lives on that line between rural and suburban, between farmland and white picket fences (with a crooked zig-zag of trailer parks smack in the middle). She thinks, fuck it, fuck this, no, no, just keep walking, do not pass GO, do not collect $200, do not go kicking over logs to see what squirms beneath.

  A few folks mill around town. They ignore the sound in favor of watching her. Ever since she got back, the eyes are always on her. Like she makes people uncomfortable, somehow.

  Whatever. They don’t care about the noise. Neither does she.

  But then she hears the laughs again. Crass and cruel. And the sound that follows: the sound of someone scared shitless, maybe in pain.

  Atlanta sighs. She pulls her tie-dyed bag—bought at a flea market some years ago when she was 13 or 14 and she didn’t know just how bad things could be—and crosses the street.

  The sound’s coming from behind the old garage. An abandoned husk of gray concrete.

  Her mouth’s dry. All the moisture gone to her hands: palms slick
and sweaty.

  Atlanta sees an old can of motor oil. Before she rounds the corner and heads behind the garage, she kicks that can—it clangs and skips across the blistery cracked asphalt—just to let them know that someone’s coming.

  Not that they give much of a shit. She heads out back, finds three boys from her school standing around the far end of a big green dumpster, its sides pocked with cankers of rust.

  She knows them. Rather, she knows of them.

  The tall one with the smashed-flat nose, that’s Jonesy—a.k.a. Gordon Jones. The prick next to him is a Virgil. Virgil’s a juicer, the muscles of his upper torso looking like several packets of hot dogs lashed together with ropy tendons. She’s not real sure of his last name. Erlenmeyer. Orlenbacher. Something. The one hanging back behind the other two is Chomp-Chomp, both first name and last name lost to her. He’s average in every way. Even his hair is so sandy brown it blends in with the dirt-lot behind the garage. One exception is his teeth: kid’s got a seawall of horse-teeth shoved unceremoniously in his mouth. Big flat biters in an otherwise average jaw.

  They’re not alone.

  They’ve got a fat Latino kid held in the dumpster. Dressed well, this kid. Blue shirt buttoned tight to the neck. Hair slicked back like, what, like he’s a gangster or a crooner or a Jehovah’s Witness. Jonesy’s hemming him in with a flat-bladed shovel like Atlanta’s mother uses to edge out her flower-beds. Atlanta can see something sitting at the edge of the shovel.

  A turd-curl of dog shit, by the looks of it.

  The three boys—not boys, not really, given that they’re all 17 or 18 years old, but boys because they’re acting like mean little shits just the same—stand and give her a real what-the-fuck look.

  “Hey,” Jonesy says. He nods. Grins. Shrugs as if to say, yeah, what of it?

  The Latino kid, she thinks she’s seen him at school. She figures him to be a sophomore, maybe a year below her. He gives her a look like he’s not sure if she’s friend or foe. He’s got a cut across his brow, a line of blood running down the margins of his round, Mexican Charlie Brown head.

  Virgil Erlen-orlen-whatever gives Jonesy a sharp elbow in the ribs. Jonesy waves him off and instead says, “Like they say, nothing to see here. Move along.”

  “Is that kid okay?” she asks, cocking an eyebrow.

  Jonesy nods a vigorous, almost comical nod. “He’s great. We’re just playing a game.”

  She looks to the kid in the dumpster. “Are you okay?”

  The gentlest shake of a head. No.

  Again Virgil elbows Jonesy, but Jonesy retorts: “Fuckin’ quit it.”

  “Looks to me like you’re trying to make that kid eat a shovel of crap,” she says.

  “It’s chocolate,” Jonesy says, stifling a laugh. “It’s, ahhh, you know. Wetback chocolate. Made special.”

  The third miscreant in the trio, the one she thinks of as Chomp-Chomp, is watching everything with a deliberate stare. Arms folded, hands tucked tight into his armpits. He’s mule-kicked, she thinks. Or a sociopath. Or just scared and stupid.

  She slides her hand into her tie-dye bag. Leaves it there.

  Virgil finally breaks through. No more elbows. He blurts in what he thinks is a whisper but what is instead just a really loud hiss: “Dude. Don’t you know who that is?”

  “What?” Jonesy asks. Then he takes a long look at her.

  She knows what they see. On the surface, at least. Tangled red hair, a little too long, too frizzy, hasn’t been cut. A patch of freckles across the bridge of her nose in the shape of a small Band-Aid. Old ratty bomber jacket.

  But they don’t all recognize her. Not yet. Virgil does. He’s got a wary look like he’s watching a rattlesnake at a distance. And the kid in the dumpster looks like someone’s been beating him up and trying to force-feed him a pile of dogshit. No telling if he’s figured her out, yet..

  But then she sees the light come on behind Jonesy’s eyes.

  Now he gets it.

  “Right,” Jonesy finally says. “Riiiiight. Burns, yeah. Atlanta Burns. That’s a name.”

  “Sure is,” she says. “So, listen. Why don’t you boys go home?”

  “She got a Southern accent?” Jonesy asks Virgil. Virgil nods, but it’s not like anybody couldn’t know the answer. Up here, middle of Pennsylvania, her accent sticks out like a bent and broken toe. “I like that. My Dad’s got a rebel flag on his pick-up.”

  “Then your Daddy’s a jackass.” She says it before she means to say it, but that’s how she is: it’s like the bouncers that are supposed to be guarding the door to her mouth are on a perpetual smoke break. Even still, she continues: “That flag’s not just the emblem of being a racist asshole, a club to which your Daddy probably belongs happily. But it’s also the Confederate flag. The one carried by Southerners to say to the Yankees—that’s your Daddy, a Yankee—don’t tread on me or I’ll pop a musket ball up your ass. Northerners driving around with the Dixie flag is like a Jew wearing a ‘Go Hitler!’ baseball cap.”

  Jonesy’s smile has fallen off his face. He spits a slim squirt of saliva between the middle of his two front teeth, hands over the shovel to Chomp-Chomp, who takes it, shell-shocked. The ringleader then gives a look to Virgil, and nods toward her. It isn’t subtle.

  They both take a step toward her.

  “You sure you wanna do this?” she asks.

  Virgil doesn’t retreat, but she sees him recoil. His body language is clear. He’s not sure. Jonesy, though, he doesn’t give a shit. He licks his lips, comes another step closer.

  There it is again: the smell of gunsmoke. Damn near makes her sick. It’s not real, she thinks.

  “Last chance,” she says. Her heartbeat is drumming in her neck. Every part of her brain is screaming for her to take those getaway-sticks she calls legs and run as far and fast as she can. But her body stays rooted. Her hand tightens in her bag. It’s got other plans. “We can all just play nice. Go our separate ways. You can leave that nice Mexican boy alone—“

  “Venezuelan,” he peeps up from inside the dumpster.

  “Sorry. You can leave that nice Venezuelan boy alone, and he won’t tell anybody and nobody will get hurt worse than he already has. Square?”

  “I like her,” Jonesy says to Virgil. “She’s feisty. I bet the three of us could have a nice time together. Virgil at the front. Me at the back. Shaking hands in the middle.”

  Her stomach roils. She goes elbow deep in her bag.

  “I see you reaching in that hippie purse,” Jonesy says, pulling Virgil along next to him. “What’s in there? I don’t think you can fit a shotgun in there.”

  Way he says ‘shotgun,’ he knows. And it doesn’t scare him. Which scares her. You’re going to get hurt, she thinks. Maybe there’s truth to what the worst of men say. Maybe you do this to yourself. Maybe you really are asking for it. You go fucking around with rattlesnakes, maybe you get bit.

  But she bears down. Doesn’t move.

  “Nope, no shotgun,” she says. “Hey, you ever been attacked by a bear?”

  Jonesy pauses. “What?”

  “A bear. Like, a grizzly. Thing is, you get attacked by a bear, not much you can do. They run faster than you. They got teeth and claws like knives, or so the TV tells me. You play dead, that might work, but not before the bear bats your body around like a cat with a dead mouse. You’d think a gun would do it but that ain’t necessarily true, either. A bear will take a round to the head and keep coming. And a scatter gun mostly just pisses them off. What you need is a can of bear mace.”

  “Bear what?”

  “Bear mace.” She shows him. From her purse she pulls a tall, lean canister with a pull-tab and a black nozzle. Atlanta points the pull-tab at the three assholes and rips that tab off.

  Bear mace isn’t like other pepper spray. A can of dog deterrent maybe sprays five, ten feet. More a cloud than anything. But bear mace is a concerted blast—a geyser of pepper spray that shoots forth in a 30-foot jet. Powerful enough so that it doesn�
��t blow-back unless the wind’s bad, and today, the air is still as a chair in an empty room.

  The can empties in about five seconds.

  For those five seconds, Atlanta can’t see much. She knows that the Mexic--er, Venezuelan kid hit the deck inside the dumpster. Heard the thump of his body. The other three, well, she can see their shapes thrashing around—first standing up, then down on the ground—but that’s all they are. Shapes.