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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

MEET OUR BOYS AT THE ST AGNES CEMETERY 4:15 P.M. BECAUSE IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO GET FUCKED UP BOOM.

It’s Jonesy who speaks first. She can’t make out the words, but the volume of his voice goes up, like he’s mouthing off. Virgil is the prudent one, pulling Jonesy back, shaking his head. He doesn’t want trouble, that Virgil. Which is too bad, because Jonesy’s got trouble in his eyes and self-destruction in his heart.

She thinks: Where the hell is Shane? He’d like to see this.

It happens fast. John Elvis jabs Jonesy in the bread basket with the tip of a Louisville Slugger. Mitchell steps up, too, flanked by the Skank. Just the three of them. No fourth, which means the last member of Chris’s bully crew remains AWOL.

Virgil moves into the breach, says something just before shoving John Elvis.

Here it is, Atlanta thinks. The title card. The sweet science. The big-ass beatdown.

Way she imagines in her head, it’s a cartoony cloud of fists and feet and headbutts, everybody taking a licking and ending up in an exhausted, bloody pile in the middle of the cemetery.

Way she imagines it is wrong.

It’s not a contest. No competition here. That requires two sides, each with a fighting chance.

This is a massacre.

Virgil takes a bat to the chops. The hit spins his head around. She already sees his mouth, rimmed with red.

Jonesy cries out, tries to turn and run the other way, but Mitchell pretends he’s on the pitcher’s mound and scoops up a hunk of broken headstone and pitches it smack into the center of Jonesy’s back.

Jonesy falls face forward.

John Elvis laughs wild and loud, a braying donkey, and he kneels down on Virgil’s back and with the bat-as-rolling-pin presses Virgil’s face into the dirt and weeds. Atlanta thinks, Get up, get up, you big ugly ape, because Virgil’s built like an upside-down triangle, what with those steroids he’s obviously gobbling, and yet here he is getting thrown around like a slab of beef.

Mitchell starts kicking Jonesy. In the side. Boot. Boot. Boot. Each time, Jonesy cries out, makes a sound like something inside of him is coming apart.

John Elvis stands, begins twirling the bat.

“They’re going to kill them,” Chris says, horrified, face white like a bloodless knuckle. “Atlanta, seriously. C’mon.”

“They hurt Shane,” she says, jaw set. “They deserve what’s coming.”