The Last Days of Ray Cobb

Reggie lifted the trapdoor beneath his desk once the sound of gunfire and the chainsaw had ceased. Purple powder spilled out of his backpack, but he was leaving the rest of his life behind. Just as he had done dozens of times before. He glanced out the window of his cabin, searching for movement. After a moment of nothing stirring in the snow, he emerged from the doorway of his cabin. “Figured you would hide until the fighting was over.” Reggie spun on his heels to see The Queen step out from the tree line with a limp. He let out a sighing laugh and glanced down at his feet. It took him a moment to speak. “Looks like you’ve got a little hitch in your giddy-up,” Reggie finally said. She did her best to stabilize her stance and act through the pain. “You can drop the character. Everyone who bought it is dead.” The corner of Reggie’s mouth went up in a slight snarl as the hump in his posture disappeared. When he spoke, his voice shed the Ratso Rizzo rhythm, and he reverted to a smooth playfulness in his tone. “Who’re you with? Not these?” Reggie said, pointing at the sprawl of corpses. “No. Has to be Cobb. He around here somewhere? Bleeding out?” “No hello? No apology?” she asked. “Should I be glad you’re alive or sad that you survived with the trauma all these years?” he smirked. “I’ve always wondered if you knew what was about to happen when you sold me to those men,” she said. “There was a small part of me that hoped you didn’t know. Hoped you were ignorant of the inevitable outcome. I should have known better.” “I never heard from law enforcement about those jobs we’d pulled together, so assumed you were dead,” he said. “Thanks for not snitching.” “I had other things on my mind,” she said. “Are you going to shoot me or do you want to get a coffee and catch up?” Reggie asked. The Queen pulled the strap on the automatic rifle she’d scavenged from one of the fallen and swung it around to her hands. “I take it you’re more of a tea drinker now?” he smiled. “You don’t care at all, do you? About anything?” she snarled at him. “When I found you and taught you, you had this grand illusion that I was going to replace your father. You had no idea you were merely replacing the last assistant I had to throw to the wolves. But you aren’t stupid. I never gave you any impression that our relationship was more than business.” “I was fourteen! I loved you,” The Queen said. “And I loved you. In a way. You were the best I’d ever seen. But we both know it would’ve only been a matter of time before you realized you were better than me. And you would’ve betrayed me when you realized you didn’t need me anymore.” “That’s what you thought of me?” “That’s what you were,” he said. He had his hands up, but he was moving toward her slowly. “That girl would have shot me in the back when she first saw me up here. But whatever you’ve survived through all this time… it changed you. Maybe you should thank me.” She pulled the trigger and let loose a spray of gunfire at his feet. He stopped moving. “See? You do love me. I’m ten feet away,” he shrugged. “A bullet is too good for you.” He burst out laughing, “Oh my God! Really? That’s… wow… have you spent the passing years writing revenge movies? Jesus, if you’re going to throw cheese ball lines like that at me, you might as well shoot me. Put me out of my misery.” “This isn’t a joke!” she lifted the rifle to her shoulder. “Of course it is. All of this. Life. It’s all a joke. I would’ve already walked away from this prayer circle if it weren’t for Cobb throwing a wrench in the works. I had the recipe for that magic drug all figured out. Even leaked it to Low Seward through a mutual friend, so Malkin thought that his competition was coming from another source. I’ve been micro-dosing this entire camp for months, waiting for my out. But, you, my dear, presented me with the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Saved me so much trouble. Don’t you see? It’s all a game and if you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.” “You wanted him to get caught,” The Queen shook her head. “You knew there was an outstanding warrant on the Xavier Malkin alias somewhere.” “Had to ditch the comic book guises a long time ago because of the heat. Well, that, and all the goddamn superhero movies. Switched to classic rock. I’m thinking books are next. Care to join me again? You could be… ah… Daisy… Carraway. Gatz is a bit too on the nose.” The Queen stared through him. “You’re a psychopath.” “More of a narcissist, but I wear both badges with honor,” Reggie held his hands out, giving her a free target. “Go ahead, then. Kill your father.” “You are not my father!” she screamed. He could feel that he’d broken her calm. After all these years still so easy to manipulate. “Might as well have been,” he shrugged. She choked back the tears. “I want you to suffer like I suffered. Understand what I went through.” “That doesn’t sound like fun at all.” Reggie pulled the 9mm Winchester Magnum from the back of his waistband and fired. When the bullet clipped her shoulder, the spray from the end of her rifle splintered wood from the tree he’d jumped behind to take cover. Bleeding from the knick and limping, The Queen propped herself back up and switched the rifle to her other arm. “I’d thought you’d learned more from me?” The Queen grunted, “Should’ve known you were going for cover instead of trying to disarm me.” “I can stand back here all day,” he called out to her. “Any chance you’ll bleed out before I have to take a leak?” “My friends will be along shortly,” she said, steadying her breath. “Friends? You learned nothing from me, did you?” He stepped out from behind the tree and fired into the ground in front of her. Dirt and rock sprayed up, blinding her. It was enough of a distraction for him to step on the barrel of her rifle and smack the 9mm across her face. She dropped to her knees, grunting in pain from her torn patella. “Like if you’re going to waste a bullet, make sure it’s for a reason,” he said. He pressed the hot tip of the 9mm to the spot between her eyes. She gritted her teeth at the pain of the hot metal searing a circle into her forehead. “Going to finish what you started?” He pulled the gun back and swung his heavy metal toed boot across her temple. She went limp in the snow. “Good luck explaining why you were up here and the only one to survive all of th—” When Ray’s body weight hit Reggie, the 9mm flew off into the woods. “Ready to end this?” Ray asked. He sunk a fist into Reggie’s kidney. “Ever since I met you,” Reggie bit hard into Ray’s ear and took the top chunk off. Ray shrieked and backed off, holding the side of his head as blood ran through his fingers. Reggie spit the flesh out into the snow and scrambled to his feet. “You taste like homeless s**t. That was cooler in my mind.” Ray tackled Reggie through the door of his cabin and they landed hard on the wood floor. A few bees buzzed around them that had escaped through the bullet holes on the other side of the greenhouse. Reggie punched at the torn skin on Ray’s leg where the chainsaw had nearly taken the leg off at the knee. At that exact moment, one of the stray bees stung Ray on the back of the neck. Unable to process which pain to deal with first, Ray was slow to respond as Reggie kicked him off. Reggie pounced and grabbed Ray by the scruff of his coat. He rammed the top of Ray’s head into the hard mahogany of the desk. The blow was so jarring, the glass top slid off the other side and broke into several pieces on the floor. Ray’s vision doubled, his ears rang, and his focus disappeared. “I promised I’d get that tattoo removed for you. I like keeping my promises.” Reggie gripped Ray by the scruff of his coat and dragged him over to the potbelly stove. He unhooked the handle of the door with his foot and kicked it open. He yanked Ray’s coat off over his head. “Time to finish what Deuce started in the trailer.” Reggie shoved Ray’s arm in the stove and Ray immediately regained consciousness as the flames enveloped his arm. He could smell the burnt hair and sizzle of flesh as he screamed. His flight response took over. He knocked Reggie backwards. As he pulled away, he scraped his arm against the side of the stove, sloughing off a sleeve of black skin, leaving a raw, bloody mess underneath. He raced out into the open air, plunging it into the snowdrift. For a split second, his logical mind took over, telling himself it was the stupidest thing he could have done, knowing he’d immediately get frostbite on the dead flesh if he didn’t lose consciousness from the shock. A kick to the center of his back made his next choice for him. The momentum of the blow pulled his arm from the snow and he rolled onto the hard ground, unconsciously using it to break his fall. Both of his arms were now essentially useless. Reggie stood over Ray. A shard of glass from the broken desk sliced into his palm where he clutched it, but he didn’t appear to care about what was happening. “You cost me a lot of money, you son of a b***h,” Reggie spit down at him. “I was a pubic hair’s breadth away from getting out. I’d convinced Malkin we’d need that purple wonder in the ‘dark days.’ Keep people who didn’t agree with us docile. We controlled the water and food. Played right into his f*****g superiority complex. He didn’t know he was my first test subject.” Ray’s eyes darted toward where The Queen lay unconscious. This man had destroyed her. Led her toward her entire life on the streets. Ray needed some poetic justice. He needed her to play her role in the story and exact her vengeance on the man who’d done so many horrible things to her. She didn’t need a man to save her. She was The Queen, for f**k’s sake. He willed her to awaken and complete her story. It is what was supposed to happen. She didn’t move. Shooting pain yanked Ray out of his reverie as Reggie shoved the pane of broken glass through his shoulder, pinning him to the frozen ground. A low howl escaped from a primal place inside him. The only thing keeping him from giving in, from letting the world become black and enveloping him was that he wouldn’t give the piece of s**t standing over him the satisfaction. Reggie staggered back and laughed. “You stuck? You f*****g bug. Jesus Christ, you are a f*****g cockroach. You should thank me, you know? I could’ve killed you a long time ago. As soon as you drove that Audi into town. But I couldn’t do it without pissing him off. He thought you’d make a good little generalissimo as soon as you saw the light. And I still needed him in my good graces for a little while longer. But then I saw it. What a f*****g cockroach you were! Crawling out of the f*****g rubble of every nuclear blast in your life.” Ray wanted to say something. Wanted so badly to mount a clever retort. But he devoted every ounce of energy to continue breathing. “The enemy of my enemy is my f*****g pawn,” Reggie pointed to The Queen. “You’d think she’d have learned better. All these years. Everything I taught her and she still didn’t see the big picture.” Blood was flowing down Reggie’s palm, spattering across the snow as he gestured. “Why the f**k would I want to bring down the grid? How f*****g stupid? I’m pretty sure life in the Stone Age was f*****g hard. But all these assholes believed it. He said it himself. Faith is the most powerful thing there is.” Reggie gestured to the scattered bodies surrounding them. A c*****e Ray promised, but hoped to prevent. “Everyone is SO. f*****g. Predictable. She could have pulled the trigger and been done with this, but there was still some sentimental bullshit buried in her psyche for me.” He smiled at The Queen, then turned on Ray again. “And how many times could you have walked away? So scared of not being ‘free’. Well, guess what, asshole? You always were. The tattoo doesn’t mean s**t. If you’d let yourself get arrested, there was probably enough circumstantial garbage you’d have gotten off. But you had to be a goddamn cowboy. Thought you were Wyatt f*****g Earp.” Ray wondered which one of them was going to run out of blood first. From the way his vision was blurring, all odds were on him. “But old Wyatt was a murderer and a con-man and was real f*****g good at manipulating a narrative. 30-seconds in Tombstone and he was an American hero. And from then on, it didn’t matter what else he did. But here’s where I differ from you, Mr. Earp. Unlike you, who keeps telling himself he wants to disappear, but can’t seem to get out of his own f*****g way, I’m going to disappear. For real. Done it before. Will do it again. So, f**k Y—” Reggie disappeared out of Ray’s eye line. Once he heard the wet sound, he could get a good look at what was happening. Boom. Left. Boom. Right. Boom. Left. Boom. Right. Boom-Boom’s eyes had fused into slits from the bee stings and most of his face had lost its shape. His tongue had swollen in his mouth and the words he was trying to scream at Reggie came out in the mumbled grunts of a madman mongoloid. Boom. Left. Boom. Right. It was sick. Horrific. Worse than what had happened to D’Arby. Ray’s stomach turned at the sight, but he couldn’t look away. It wasn’t a death he would wish on anyone, but it seemed a fitting end for someone who lived with no identity. Each time Boom-Boom’s fist landed, it took another piece of Reggie’s head away with it. Boom. Skin torn. Boom. Muscle ripped. Boom. Bone shattered. Boom-Boom’s grunts were becoming more labored with each punch. Ray could hear the air struggling to move in and out of his closing throat. By the time Reggie’s head was a wet pile of mush steaming in the snow, Boom-Boom was just punching through to the frozen ground. The fists stopped their movement and Boom-Boom’s arms hung limp at his sides. If his eyes could open, he’d have seen he’d finished the job. If his face still had shape, a slight smile would have formed at the edges of his mouth. And if his words still had meaning, Ray would have heard him whisper, “Sweets,” before the bee sting’s poison won the battle and Boom-Boom died in the snow.