"Last Call for Redemption"

Michael Madsen stepped out of the heat and into the bar like a man walking through time — part ghost, part storm. The floorboards groaned under his boots, dusty and deliberate, as if even the wood knew the weight of who he was.

They called it The Blackbird Tavern, a half-rotted dive two hours east of the Mojave, where the jukebox only played broken songs and the ceiling fans spun like slow, tired lies.

He took a seat at the far end of the bar. No one said a word. Not the kid in the jean jacket playing pool, not the old man slumped over his whiskey. The bartender, a woman with silver hair and tattooed knuckles, poured him a shot of something brown and unlabeled. She didn’t ask what he wanted. She knew.

Madsen tilted the glass toward the light, watched it catch fire, then threw it back like it owed him something.

"You're early," the bartender said, her voice low and careful.

“I’m always early for bad news,” he said.

Thirty years ago, they used to call him Johnny Ash. Not because he smoked, but because wherever he went, he left things burning. A professional cleaner. The kind who never missed, never talked, and always disappeared.

But that was a long time ago.

He'd tried the whole redemption gig. Rehab, therapy, even wrote a few poems once. But blood has a longer memory than paper. And tonight, the past had sent him a message — scratched into the hood of his ‘78 Nova in red paint:

"You Owe Us One."

The door swung open behind him.

He didn’t turn around.

He knew that scent — motor oil, gunpowder, and menthols. A ghost in heels.

"Didn’t think you'd show, Ash," she said. Her voice was smoother than whiskey, deadlier than steel.

He turned. There she was — Mara Voss. The best driver the West ever spat out. She once walked out of a flipped Camaro with a cigarette still lit and three cop cars on her tail.

“You’ve aged,” he said, sipping another shot.

She smirked. “You haven’t. You’ve just fermented.”

She sat next to him, close enough to smell the sweat from her leather jacket, close enough for old memories to flicker like busted neon.

"Who else is coming?" he asked.

“No one," she said. "This is just us. One last job.”

He let that sit. A job meant someone needed dying, someone needed taking, or something needed stealing. Either way, it meant trouble. Trouble wrapped in a promise wrapped in a coffin.

“I’m out,” he said. “You know that.”

Mara leaned in. “They took my sister, Johnny. The ones we used to work for. Black Echo.”

He blinked. That name — Black Echo — was a bullet through the past.

“They’re ghosus,” he muttered. “Government burned them to the ground.”

“Not all of them,” she said. “And the ones who survived? They remember you. They want you back. Or they want you dead.”

The kid in the jean jacket missed a shot and cursed.

Johnny didn’t flinch.

“Why me?” he asked.

“Because you’re the last one who made them bleed.”

They sat in silence for a while. Outside, the desert howled against the walls. Inside, the jukebox coughed to life, spitting out an old track: "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak.

Fitting.

He finally stood, bones aching like cracked pavement.

“You got wheels?”

She tossed him a key. “Charger. Black. Tuned. Like old times.”

He caught it.

“What’s the plan?”

Mara lit a cigarette. “We go to Redwater at midnight. That’s where they’ve got her. Bunker under the old power station. Two guards, maybe more. We’ll go in quiet.”

Johnny nodded. “It’s never quiet.”

10:52 PM.

They were halfway to Redwater, the Charger flying down the highway like it had a grudge against the night. Mara drove like she was making love to the apocalypse — one hand on the wheel, the other near her thigh holster. Johnny checked his old .45. It still felt like home.

“Remember New Mexico?” she asked suddenly.

“Yeah,” he said. “You stole a police car. I stole a priest’s identity.”

She laughed. “We made a good team.”

“We made a dangerous one.”

11:59 PM.

They parked a mile out. Walked in through the shadows. Johnny could hear his heartbeat louder than the wind. The bunker was just like Mara said — two men, bored and sloppy. He took one with a knife, Mara silenced the other with a clean shot to the throat.

Down the stairs. Metal doors. Cold air.

The past stank like bleach and regret.

She was there. Tied to a chair, bruised but breathing. Mara rushed in. Johnny covered her six.

Then —

click.

A voice from behind.

“Well, well, Johnny Ash. Thought you were ashes by now.”

A man stepped from the shadows. Victor Sloane — former Black Echo commander, presumed dead, now very much alive. Scarred, suited, smiling like cance.

“You came for her. How sweet,” he said. “Too bad you brought hell with you.”

Johnny turned slowly. Gun still at his side.

“You want a war, Sloane?” he growled.

“No,” Sloane said, raising a detonator. “I want an ending.”

Bang.

Johnny shot first.

Sloane dropped the device, blood blooming from his chest.

The past died on the floor.

12:16 AM.

They were back in the Charger, Mara’s sister asleep in the back. The stars above looked less cruel. Johnny lit a cigarette with shaking hands.

"You okay?" Mara asked.

“No,” he said. “But I will be.”

Epilogue:

Johnny disappeared again after that night. Some say he went north, started over. Others say he died in the fire he left behind.

But if you ever find yourself in a roadside bar, somewhere between nowhere and the end of the world, and you see a man drinking alone, staring down ghosts in a glass…

Buy him a drink.

And don’t ask about the scars.