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Back Atlanta Burns Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PART ONE: SHOTGUN GRAVY
  6. Sometimes she wakes…
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. PART TWO: BAIT DOG
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. PART THREE: THE FARM
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. PART FOUR: KISSING FIRE
  38. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  43. PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  48. EPILOGUE: THE MESSAGE
  49. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  50. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Atlanta’s whole body feels like it’s falling through itself.

Upstairs, she didn’t see Petry.

Where had he gone?

This is a warning. It may not be my last . . .

She breaks into a run, Holger after her.

The downstairs is all cement blocks and concrete floors. Functional. A hall with many doors, one of them open.

Atlanta calls to her dog, starts yelling out for Whitey to come to her.

No dog answers.

She hauls ass to the break-room door.

It’s there she finds him.

On his side. Pool of blood under his head. A red hole in the ridge above his eye.

Petry leans against the back corner of the break room. Gun set on the counter. His hand is bleeding, and he’s swaddling it in napkins. “Don’t know what happened. Dog came at me. Bit my hand—”

But then Atlanta is screaming. The sound that comes out of her is like a banshee, a wail like a storm wind through a broken shutter—it drowns out his voice.

She clambers up over the break-room table like a rabid animal. Claws for him. Shoves him against the counter. Thinks to grab the gun. Grab it, stick it under his chin, pull the trigger—

Hands find her. Holger. Pulling her back. Her hip bangs into a chair. She screams. Weeps. Yells again and again how he killed her dog, he killed her dog, he killed her dog . . .

Other cops come into the room. Alert. All hands on deck. Full-tilt boogie. But Atlanta doesn’t care. She can’t get to Petry, but she can get to her dog. She drops next to Whitey and feels him and holds him and kneels in his blood. She cradles his limp head to her own. The dog made a promise to her—he had her back, and she thought she had his, but soon as she turned her eyes away . . .

Atlanta lies upon the dog, wetting his side with her tears.

Whitey is dead.

PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL

PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Atlanta was there when her father died. He had an aneurysm out in his workshop. Blood balloon swelled at the base of his brain, and just as he was about to hammer another nail—he was out there in the dust and the cobwebs, fixing one of their dining-room chairs—the balloon went pop and Daddy dropped.

Atlanta was the one who found him. Lying on the stone floor. Bits of sawdust in his hair like the snow they never saw much of down South. And the thing she remembers most about that moment is how she knew he was dead. Was like something had left him—and now what remained was just a department-store mannequin of meat and bones but no soul, pale and tight and missing that essential human spark that makes us who we are.