Atlanta Burns by Wendig Chuck

Author:Wendig, Chuck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyscape
Published: 2015-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

Guillermo Lopez is nowhere to be found. Over the grass and the crooked post-and-rail fence surrounding his double-wide trailer, the thumping beat of Jay-Z rapping is causing the windows in the trailer to vibrate and hum—bvvt bvvt bvvt bvvt. She orbits the trailer a few times. Puffs her cheeks and lets out a breath.

Should’ve called first.

Maybe he’s inside. She goes for the door—it’s open, not locked—and pops her head inside. Same as it’s always been: Amish hexes and cornflower-blue curtains and on the breakfast-nook table a little porcelain cow creamer.

“Guy?” she asks. “Guy-Lo?” Nothing. Just the muted bass of the music. Doom. Doom. Doom. The little cow creamer trembles with each deep beat.

She pulls her head back out—then hears something above her.

A shadow out of the sun—a hand appears, and in it the silhouette of a blocky pistol. Atlanta gasps, staggers backward, almost loses her shit and goes bristles-over-broom-handle.

It’s Guy. He’s up on the roof of the trailer, eyes hidden behind wraparound mirrored shades.

“Yo! Atlanta.” He waves at her with the gun, like it’s no big thing. “Ladder’s on the far side. Come on up, girl.”

She has to check herself, make sure she didn’t accidentally pee. Shaking her head, she goes around the long side of the trailer and, by the little window that must overlook the kitchen sink, she sees a steel ladder leading up.

On the roof, Guy’s got a boom box. He shuffle-dances over, turns it down. Atlanta spies a beach chair and smells coconut suntan lotion. Weirder still, she sees a small stack of paperbacks sitting next to the chair. Authors she’s never heard of. Meg Gardiner. Patricia Cornwell. Margaret Atwood.

“What?” he asks, catching the look on her face. “I fuckin’ like to read, you know?”

“Look like chick books.”

“And you’re a chick, so what’s the problem?”

She laughs. “Well, you’ve got beans and franks, or so I assume.”

“Hey,” he says, suddenly all serious. “Reading books by female authors does not limit my macho vibe. Plus, bitches write the best characters, man. It’s like they get people, you know?”

“I’m just saying, this goes against my image of you as a displaced, drug-peddling thug. Though that pistol you keep waving around is starting to move the needle back the other way.” She cocks an eyebrow. “What is that, anyway? Looks like a .45. M1911?”

Guy sits on the edge of his beach chair. Kicks over an old plastic roof-tar bucket and flips it so she can have a seat. “This? Nah. It’s a fucking Daisy. Pellet gun. I just keep it up here in case I want to try to shoot squirrels or groundhogs or some shit.” His voice gets all faux-tough. “Or if some nosy bee-yotch comes poking her better-dead-than-red head in my damn trailer.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just messin’ with you. So whassup? Been a while, girly. Heard you got into some shit.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“Word gets around when you tangle with the town Nazis.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Guy’s face suddenly falls. “Oh, shit, you know, I didn’t say to you—I didn’t say sorry.

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