Deadpool

TIJUANA ROADTRIP

By Nik Wimer

“Hi there! Lil’ Wade here, taking time out of my busy schedule to welcome you back–”

We’re really stealing this from Posehn?

“First of all, it’s called an homage.”

“Second, a recap might be necessary for your readers, since you know, you haven’t released an issue in over a year and all.”

“And lastly, well, I’m just a voice in Wade’s head – one of many, true, and not even the main one, you know, the one you should have put in italics from the beginning, but it’s a little too late to put that genie back in the bottle . . . Damn it, no I’ve lost my train of thought!”

You were just saying how you were ‘one of many voices in Deadpool’s head’ or something to that effect.

“Oh, right. Thank you.”

“As I was saying, I am but a mere player in this drama, whereas you, my friend, wield the keyboard.”

Meaning?

“Meaning, everything I do, I do because of you.”

What?

“Look, you’re the writer (and for a writer who said he didn’t like metafiction very much, you’ve certainly been liberal about inserting yourself into this book) we can only do or say what you make us do or say. So if we’re cribbing Posehn’s recaps, it’s your idea, since, let’s face it, this whole thing is your idea.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish this recap before the recap needs a recap.”

“Anyway, all you need to know is this: Deadpool has been framed for a crime he didn’t actually commit and now there’s a price on his head. Someone who knows about the situation has, for reasons unknown, hired the former-NFL SuperPro as a bodyguard for Deadpool and the two of them are making their way to a safehouse – and I swear to God, if someone says ‘Donkey show’, I am going to walk out – in Tijuana to plan their next move. And that’s pretty much it.”

“Now, if there are no further interruptions, sit back and enjoy this little tale I like to call: Peter David Did It Better!”

The Bar with No Name
Yuma, AZ

“I guess it’s a chain, like a Hooters or something.” With his fork, Deadpool stabbed listlessly at the pile of chicken wings on the plate in front of him. “Though I doubt anyone comes here for the wings.”

Phillip Grayfield eyed his own plate thoughtfully; only scraps and bones remained from his meal. “Then what do people come here for?”

Deadpool glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the bartender, busy wiping down glasses behind the bar, and trying hard to look like he wasn’t watching them. Even though a “Bar with No Name” didn’t post hours of operation on its front door, Deadpool had the feeling that this particular bartender had consider this particular bar closed when he and Grayfield had come calling. But the man had made no comment as he led the two of them inside. He still had nothing to say when he set up a table for them and gave only curt replies as he took their orders. Still, Deadpool couldn’t completely trust the man.

Deadpool shrugged. “Usually they come to get shot by the bartenders.” He looked around the bar, empty except for the two of them and the bartender – in fact, he hadn’t seen anyone else working there; where had those chicken wings come from? – and sighed. “Why are we here, Phil?”

“Lunch. You kept complaining that you were hungry, so we stopped here to eat.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Deadpool sighed again. “But why are we here? We’re going to Mexico, right?”

“Yeah.”

“OK, good. And we started out where?”

“San Francisco.”

“Right. San Francisco, good, Phil. And since San Francisco is in southern California –”

“It’s actually more towards the middle of the state.”

“–southern California. So, naturally it makes sense to drive ten hours east to get to Tijuana!”

Donkey Show!

“Well, when you put it that way, no, it doesn’t.” Grayfield shook his head; this wasn’t winning his argument. “Look, I tried to explain it to you while you were folding the map. My friend who owns the safehouse has an operative here in Arizona who will sneak us across the border into Mexico. It’s a little out of the way, sure, but it’s the easiest way we’re going to find to cross the border, especially since you decided to stockpile the van with an arsenal more suitable for a small country then for two buddies on a fishing trip to Tijuana. Besides, we had time to bond on the way.”

Deadpool wasn’t convinced. “Fifteen hours in a van that smells like wet p . . .”

“Hey, this isn’t that kind of book!”

“What? I was going to say ‘wet pet grooming tools’.”

“Oh.”

“So, yeah, anyway, not my idea of male bonding. Which isn’t really my thing anyway, despite that one time in college, but it was Rush Week and everyone was doing it . . .” When Grayfield offered no reply, Deadpool looked up from his plate to see the other man staring intently over his shoulder.

“Is that your chick?” Grayfield asked, pointing towards the bar’s entrance.

“What, Vince? Where?” Deadpool replied, scanning the room. And then he caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a white cowboy hat heading their way.

“Crazy Inez!” Deadpool called out, dumbfounded. He was out of his chair and headed across the bar before Grayfield could stop him. “What are you . . .” he began, but never got to finish the question. Before Deadpool could react, the blonde woman drew a pistol from her hip and fired three times, hitting the mercenary squarely in the chest.

He probed his chest to examine the wounds. Three tiny, metal stars were embedded deep in his flesh. “Wait. What’s going . . .” Deadpool stumbled forward a step, but then found that the floor was rushing up to meet him.

He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

The Hotel Coral Essex
Miami, Florida

The concierge cleared his throat for the third time, hoping to catch Blind Al’s attention.

Al had actually heard him approach – she was, after all, blind, not deaf – but she chose to ignore him anyway. It wasn’t that she had anything personal against the man. In fact, she didn’t even know him, though she had a pretty good mental picture of his “type”: a self-important little man in a thousand dollar suit who lorded his exiguous authority over the staff while sycophantically pandering to the whims of the hotel patrons in the hopes of bettering his own position. She would have no truck with people like that, so it did her heart some small good to imagine him waiting in the blazing Florida sun.

Still, whatever he had to say could be important. Maybe – ♫ hosanna ♫ – something terrible had happened to Wade? Al sighed. She probably should find out.

Sensing the concierge was about to clear his throat for a fourth time, Al spoke up. “Yes?”

“Ah, yes, Miss . . . Alfred?” Just as Al imagined, the man had a high, nasally voice. If he introduced himself as ‘Jeeves’, Al was afraid she’d fall out of her deckchair laughing. “You have a phone call, ma’am. A ‘Mister Weasel’ is on the line for you.” Al nodded and the concierge placed the telephone handset into her outstretched hand. He hesitated a moment before continuing. “Ah, yes, it seems that you’ve been invited to a party this evening. The brothers of Lambda Lambda Lambda are here celebrating their twenty-fifth reunion and have requested the pleasure of your company. They have also sent over a drink, which I have taken the liberty of placing on the table beside you.

“When you have finished with your phone call, you may leave the phone on the table and one of the staff will retrieve it. If you intend to join the Tri Lambs this evening, please inform the staff so the proper arrangements can be made.” With that, he turned sharply on his heel and marched away.

“If that stick was jammed any further up his . . .” Al muttered to herself, then turned her attention to the telephone. “Weasel?”

“Al, is that you?”

“Weasel. It’s good to hear your voice.”

“Is everything OK, Al?” Weasel asked, concerned. “I can’t raise Wade on the comm and when I called the house, some strange man answered and said you were in Florida?”

“It’s nothing, Weasel, really. Most likely Wade never fixed his comm after he broke it fighting Phil and whoever answered my phone was probably one of the contractors there doing renovations.”

“But, Florida?”

Al laughed. “Yes, Florida. I didn’t want to be in the contractors’ way and Wade owes me at least one vacation, so it was the perfect storm of opportunity — and first class accommodations – so I decided to get away from it all for a couple weeks.”

“Is Wade with you?”

“As far as I know, he’s on his way to Tijuana.”

“Donkey show?”

“I’m sure that’s on his agenda.” Al thought for a minute. “Weasel, do you have anything on your plate at the moment?”

“Not really. I just finished some research for Wade; that’s why I was calling.”

“Come down to Miami, then. I’m sure you could use a vacation, and it’s all on Wade’s dime.”

“It’s tempting, Al, really, but I think I’d better tell Wade what I found out about Phillip Grayfield first.”

“Anything juicy?”

“Not really, no.”

“Sinister?”

“Nope.”

“Then get down to Miami, Weasel. Whatever you need to tell Wade can wait. In fact, he’ll probably find out most of it firsthand. Wade went to Tijuana with Phil.”

“Wait. What?”

Al laughed once more. “You heard me. Wade and Phil are on a road trip to Mexico. And it gets even better: Phil is Wade’s bodyguard!”

“Wait. What?”

“I know, I know. It’s so good it should be fattening. Look, Weasel, just get a flight down here and we can talk about it poolside over a Mai Tai.” Al paused again. “On second thought, maybe take a little time getting here. I got a date tonight with some hot college studs, so this might not be something you want to see.”

Outside The Bar with No Name
Yuma, AZ

“Green Arrow.”

“Wrong universe.”

“What?”

“Wait, what?” Hector Lennox blinked away the daydream he’d been having and turned his attention to the man next to him in the car. “Jerry, what are you going on about?”

Jerome Johnson, who had been watching the nearly empty parking lot through the passenger side window, pointed to the bar’s front entrance. “Just now, going into the bar, there was a guy with a bow and a quiver full of green arrows.”

Lennox glanced at the parking lot – empty, save for the Cadillac they had followed from Texas and a red minivan with the words KITTY WAGON stenciled on the side that had already been parked there when he and Jerry pulled up – and shrugged his shoulders. “This is a ‘Bar with No Name’, you know. I imagine they have stranger clientele than that. You didn’t see the girl though, did you?”

Still watching the front of the bar, Jerry shook his head. “Not since she went inside, what, thirty minutes ago.”

She followed pretty much the same routine, driving until nature called or she needed to stop for gas. He had been keeping meticulous notes, which he paused to skim through before tossing the notebook back onto the dashboard, but he could find nothing noteworthy about the journey. Whoever had hired them to follow the girl – and Lennox was now convinced it wasn’t her family or friends – was paying them to do little more than follow her from bathroom break to bathroom break.

Not that Lennox was complaining. Since their ‘resurrection’, he and Jerry had taken whatever jobs came their way. Bodyguarding, smuggling, mercenary work, whatever. The actual work didn’t matter. The clients didn’t matter. And, to be honest, the money didn’t even matter to them. One of the perks of being undead – or zombies or whatever it was that they actually were – was that they didn’t have much need for money any more. Once things like food and clothing were taken out of the equation, there were fewer reasons to maintain a huge bank balance. So he and Jerry did what they did for the simple reason that they had nothing better to do.

“What do you think is going on in there?”

“I doubt anything sinister.” Lennox shrugged. “She probably just stopped in to have lunch.”

Jerry looked skeptically at his friend before turning his attention back to the sentinel duty of watching the front door. “Maybe. But I doubt anybody comes here for the wings.”

The Bar With No Name
Yuma, AZ

“So the guy says: ‘Ghosts? I thought you said goats‘!”

“. . . really need some new material,” Deadpool said, pushing himself off the floor. He got to his knees and stopped to pluck the stars from his chest. Using the edge of the table for support, he pulled himself unsteadily to his feet then flopped into his empty chair.

“Think these belong to you,” he growled, the three tiny metal stars clattering onto the table in front of the blonde woman. She had pulled an empty chair up to their table and now sat near Grayfield.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Grayfield intoned.

“You!” Deadpool spat, the anger in his voice threatening to boil over into open violence. “You don’t get to speak!”

Turning his attention to the woman, Deadpool prepared to assault her ears, if not her sensibilities, with a venomous tirade.

And then she smiled, and the rancor died on his tongue.

“This is Victoria, Victoria Starr.” Grayfield risked Deadpool’s ire to make the introduction. “Victoria Starr, this is Deadpool, world famous Merc-With-A-Mouth.”

“Sorry for shooting you,” Victoria said. “But a girl can’t be too careful these days, especially in a place like this.”

“Think nothing of it, ma’am.” Deadpool replied with uncharacteristic sweetness. “A girl can’t be too careful these days, especially in a place like this.”

“Excellent point,” Victoria said. And then she smiled again.

♫ Show me that smile again.
Show me that smile . . .
Don’t waste another minute on your cryin’. We’re nowhere near the end.
Nowhere near . . .
The best is ready to begin.
As long as we’ve got each other, we’ve got the world spinnin’ right in our hand . . .  ♫

“Deadpool?” Even though Grayfield had gone to great lengths to convince her that Deadpool’s healing factor could handle it, there was genuine concern in Victoria’s voice. The toxin contained within each of her stars was strong enough to paralyze a full grown man for over thirty minutes, and she had shot Deadpool with three of them! Healing factor aside, she never expected Deadpool to recover so quickly and she was afraid his non-responsiveness was a sign of some permanent damage.

“He fades in-and-out all the time,” Grayfield said, unconcerned. “He tried to explain it to me in the van, but all I got out of it was something about ‘inner dialogue’ and ‘yellow fonts’. Don’t worry; he’s fine.”

“I’m fine. It’s not like I have a couple arrows sticking out of my chest or anything,” Deadpool said with a laugh. Then he looked up and saw that Grayfield and the woman’s (Victoria?) eyes were wide with terror, the color drained from their faces.

“Wade!” Grayfield’s voice was an urgent whisper. “There ARE two arrows sticking out of your chest!”

Deadpool looked down and, sure enough, two green-tinted arrows were buried in his chest up to their fletching’s. “Oh,” he said, surprised. And then the floor was rushing up to meet him again.

The Bar with No Name
Yuma, AZ

The assassin known as Killshot said nothing as he entered the bar, merely slipped silently through the door, nocked an arrow to the string, and fired. A second arrow was in flight before the first had even hit its mark and he had a third arrow ready and was diving for cover by the time Deadpool and his companions began to react.

A wry smile crossed his lips; Deadpool was already dead, his companions just didn’t know it. The necrotoxin that coated each arrow was enough to cause an agonizingly painful death in a dozen men and Killshot was confident that even Deadpool’s healing factor would have a hard time handling two of them.

The man and woman accompanying Deadpool were another matter entirely.

He knew very little about the man, only that he may or may not be a Marvel and that he had been accompanying Deadpool since the mercenary left San Francisco. He had no information on any strengths, weaknesses, powers, or abilities. And the woman, the woman was a complete unknown. And Killshot didn’t like unknowns. Unknowns could get you killed, especially when it came to dealing with Marvels.

More to the point, there was no more profit to be made. Even though he had been hired to kill Deadpool, he was a businessman, not a killer, and with Deadpool’s death assured, there was little point in risking his life further. He hunkered down behind a booth, content to bide his time until he could make good his escape.

Grayfield watched Deadpool slump to the floor.

A heartbeat passed, and then another, before Grayfield launched into action. “Down!” he yelled, tipping their table over for some makeshift cover before diving to the floor.

Crouched next to Deadpool’s prone body, Grayfield searched frantically for a pulse. Relief washed over him when he felt a faint beat at the mercenary’s throat. “Thank God; he’s still alive,” Grayfield said, pleased to see that Victoria had followed his lead and also sheltered behind the impromptu barricade.

“We’ve got to get him out of here,” Victoria said. “Do you think you can move him?”

“I think so, but I want to get those arrows out of him first.”

“Are you sure?” There was gentle concern in her voice. “I don’t know what’s staining those arrows green, but it can’t be healthy and I’d rather not see you get hurt too.”

Grayfield smiled and held up his gauntleted hands. “I should be OK.”

He sighed, reached over, and grabbed both shafts with one hand. In one fluid motion, he pulled them free, then tossed both arrows aside, where they clattered harmlessly against the far wall. Blood welled up briefly inside the wounds, but was quickly staunched. Otherwise Deadpool didn’t move.

“Nothing to it.” He took a moment to flex the fingers inside the gauntlet that had touched the arrows. Whatever coated those shafts was nasty stuff; his fingers tingled despite the brief contact. “We need to find a back way out of here or something. I don’t think Deadpool could survive getting hit again and I sure don’t want to get shot with those.”

As he scanned the bar for another exit, Grayfield locked eyes with the bartender. The man remained behind the counter, albeit at the end furthest from their standoff, still busy wiping down glasses.

“Is there another way out?” Grayfield asked in a whisper he hoped would carry to the bar. Apparently it was enough. The bartender nodded toward the rear of bar, where a hallway branched off from the main room.

“We got our way out.” Grayfield rolled Deadpool carefully onto his side and slid his shoulder beneath the mercenary’s limp body. With his free arm, he pointed toward the back of the bar. “On my mark, give us some cover fire and then run like Hell for that hallway.”

Grayfield slipped Deadpool the rest of the way onto his shoulders in a Fireman’s Carry, then levered himself up onto one knee. “Now!”

He was on his feet and racing toward the hallway almost before he got the word out of his mouth. Behind him, he heard Victoria fire three times, but, head down and legs pumping, he didn’t dare look back. He had to trust that she had made it safely away from their shelter and was following him.

Not wanting to overshoot the hallway, Grayfield skidded to a halt, then ducked to safety inside the doorway. Leaning over, careful to balance Deadpool’s body across his shoulders, he was drawing in deep gulps of air when he heard footsteps approaching. Moments later, much to his relief, Victoria appeared in the doorway.

“I think we’re safe for now.” She slid into the hallway and took up a position on the wall opposite Grayfield. “He’s hunkered down pretty good, didn’t even return fire when I shot at him, but I don’t think we should stick around any longer.” Victoria gestured toward a set of two-way traffic doors at the end of the short hallway. “Where do you think that leads?”

Grayfield rearranged Deadpool’s body on his shoulders. “I don’t know, but I hope it leads out of here.”

From his hiding place, Killshot watched as the man broke from cover, Deadpool’s limp body draped across his shoulders, and raced to a doorway at the back of the bar. Fortunately, Killshot had managed to keep his head down, because the blonde woman popped up from behind their overturned table and fired several wild shots in his direction before running off herself. He watched them both disappear from view, counted to fifty, and then slowly crept from his hiding place.

Killshot approached the bartender slowly, arms extended, palms forward to show that he was unarmed. “You sent them out the backdoor.” It wasn’t phrased as a question since he knew the answer already, but the bartender nodded his head in assent anyway.

The assassin set his hands down on the bar’s cool, polished counter top. “I assume they went out through the kitchen?”

The bartender eyed him warily, but nodded again.

“What’s back there?”

“There’s a small storeroom off the kitchen with a door that we use as an employee entrance and also to take deliveries.”

Killshot nodded, having pictured a similar setup. “And outside that door?”

The bartender shrugged. “Not much. A small, gravel parking lot where the employees park. Beyond that, close to a hundred yards of chaparral, and then the border.”

“Not the best escape route. Good as dead anyway.” Killshot said, more to himself than the bartender. Then he smiled. “Ciroc and soda! Set us up and keep them coming! I got a reason to celebrate and I don’t like drinking alone.”

“Deadpool would’ve loved that.”

Victoria looked up, confused. They stood on opposite sides of the exit, leaning back against the cool brick of the building – or, more accurately, Victoria was leaning against the building while Grayfield leaned back against the limp body of Deadpool, the unconscious mercenary still slung across his shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

Grayfield shifted Deadpool’s weight into a more comfortable position, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the wall beside her. “That sign says that they take deliveries in the backdoor for two hours each day.

It was a silly thing to say, but Victoria couldn’t help but laugh. More than likely, he was right too; Deadpool probably would have seen the humor in it. “Maybe we can leave the juvenile jokes for later and try and come up with an escape plan?”

“Our van is around the front of the building.”

Victoria shook her head. “No good. We don’t know if the guy who shot Deadpool is working alone or not. We could be walking into a trap if we go for the cars.”

“But all the equipment and weapons are in the van.”

She shook her head again. “It’s not worth the risk. We need to get Deadpool someplace safe and we need to do it fast.” Victoria paused a moment to survey their surroundings. A gravel parking lot, surprisingly free of cars, stretched out from the back of the building before suddenly giving way to an arid swath of Arizona desert. The barren landscape stretched east and west as far as she could see but, to the south, it ended abruptly at the twenty-one foot high fence that marked the border between Mexico and the United States. “But I don’t see a lot of options.”

“It’s not as bad as you think.”

Victoria blinked, confused.

“Before our lunch came, I was able to get in touch with my friend and let him know where we were,” Grayfield explained. “Luckily, he has an operative in the area and we were going to try and cross the border here.”

“That’s convenient.”

Now it was Grayfield’s turn to study their surroundings. Scrub brush, cacti, and stunted trees dotted the landscape, while the border fence dominated the view. At this time of day, with the sun directly overhead and heat radiating off the ground in waves, nothing in the desert seemed to move. It was peaceful, almost quiescent, and Grayfield found himself silently wishing to revisit the setting sometime when hired assassins weren’t chasing him. “Maybe, but we’ve got to move the story along somehow,” he said.

Movement from the brush at the far end of the parking lot drew his eye, and he and Victoria looked up in time to see a large reptilian head emerge from between a pair of scrawny bushes growing near the edge of the blacktop. It’s large, dark eyes regarded them briefly before it spoke. “Thisssssss way! Follow me if you want to live!”

Definitely NOT The Arizona Desert

Things had been dark and – mercifully – silent for far too long now; Deadpool knew it wasn’t going to last.

How could it? The universe was always conspiring against him, getting his hopes up before pulling the rug out from underneath him. No, this, this was merely the calm before the storm.

And Deadpool knew it.

“Deadpool, tovarisch, hurry, we don’t have much time!”

Deadpool sighed. He really hated being right. “I thought you were dead.”

“Depends on the continuity. Now come on, we’re already late.”

Deadpool shook his head in wonder. “Wouldn’t that make your sacrifice just another cheap gimmick?”

His companion smiled knowingly. “Da, comrade, it does. Now, please, let’s go. We can talk while we walk, but we really need to hurry. She’s waiting for you.”

Without saying another word, his companion turned and walked off, leaving Deadpool to hurry after him.

Somewhere Beneath the US/Mexico Border

Getting into Mexico was easier than Grayfield had anticipated.

Actually, they were underneath Mexico – having followed their guide to a secret entryway hidden at the base of the fence that separated the two countries – but it was pretty much the same thing.

That hidden doorway had then led them to a tunnel running beneath the border, and they had quickly scrambled underground and out of sight. Now, in a passageway lit with strings of Christmas lights, Grayfield and Victoria found themselves struggling to keep their guide in sight.

“Thisssss way, thisssss way. Quickly!”

“You know this tunnel is probably used by drug smugglers,” Victoria said as she watched their guide’s tail disappear around a corner.

The tunnel was tall enough for them to stand comfortably upright and more than wide enough for Grayfield to pass, even with Deadpool draped across his shoulders. The walls and floor were poured concrete, the earthen roof reinforced with crisscrossed wooden beams. Time and money had obviously been spent constructing the tunnel and, this close to the border, the Cartels were the only ones with the means and the motivation for something so sophisticated.

“Probably.” Grayfield had been leaning back against the side of the tunnel, taking a moment to catch his breath, but now he was up and moving again. “But I think we can count on Gila to steer us clear of any trouble.”

“You trust him?” Victoria still found it hard to refer to their guide as “he”, despite Grayfield’s insistence and the fact that the giant lizard spoke English. Even though she had spent years adventuring alongside both Texas Twister and the Rangers, the sudden appearance of a man-sized, talking lizard outside of The Bar with No Name had somewhat unnerved her.

Grayfield watched carefully as their guide waited several paces ahead, cautiously testing the air with his forked tongue. The creature was as tall as Grayfield, with easily another hundred pounds of dense muscle packed onto his frame. Sharp teeth, sharp claws, and a thick tail that Grayfield had seen shatter brick, Gila would be a formidable opponent for anyone they might encounter. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“I do,” Grayfield answered, “but mostly because I don’t have a reason not to trust him. I don’t see what he’d have to gain by betraying us.

“The way I understand it, Gila was just a normal lizard until this wannabe world conqueror named Dominus mutated him into what you see here. Then Dominus cloned him, along with a couple of other creatures from the surrounding desert that he had also mutated, and made his own army.

“The West Coast Avengers managed to defeat Dominus and destroyed most of the clones, but this one obviously got away. My friend eventually found him and took him in and he’s been a loyal companion ever since. So I don’t see how Gila would benefit from doing anything to harm us.”

“We’re almosssssst there. Pleassssssse hurry!” Gila started off down the tunnel, once again leaving Grayfield and Victoria to rush to catch up.

Once Again, Not Someplace Found On a Map

How long they’d been walking, Deadpool couldn’t guess. With no sun overhead, only an indistinct and pervasive light that came from everywhere and nowhere, and nothing in the way of landmarks, only hastily glimpsed shadows that were little more than dim outlines in the distance, he had no way of judging either how much time had passed or how far they had gone. Worse still, his guide had said nothing since they’d met, had barely even glanced his way the whole time they were walking.

Luckily, that was a situation the Merc-With-A-Mouth could remedy.

“You’ve been in this country a while now, right?”

“Da.” The guide slowed to allow Deadpool to catch up. “It’s been decades.”

“Then what’s with all the Russian affectations and the accent?”

As Deadpool finally drew abreast of him, the guide clasped him on the shoulder. “This is your delusion, comrade,” he said with a sad smile. “You merely see and hear what you want. Now, come along, we’re almost there.”

Somewhere In the Mexican Desert

They had emerged from the tunnel through a concealed door at the base of the fence on the Mexican side of the border. Now, Grayfield and Victoria waited as Gila’s forked tongue flicked like serpentine lightning from between his jaws, testing the air, trying to get his bearings.

“No, thissss issssss wrong,” Gila hissed, glancing around uneasily. “We sssssshouldn’t be here.”

“What’s going on?” Grayfield squinted in the fading light as he took in their surroundings. This side of the border looked much the same as the American side, with endless chaparral and stunted brush stretching to the horizon. Here and there larger groups of trees clumped together, but, at least this close to the border, Grayfield could find little else to distinguish one country from the other.

“There is a presssssssence here,” Gila said, eyes wide with fright. “We musssssst leave. Now!”

“I don’t see any . . .” Before Grayfield could finish the thought, Gila dropped to all fours and skittered off toward a large thicket of desert vegetation in the distance.

“Come on, Phil! Let’s go!” Victoria called over her shoulder as she hurried after their departing guide.

Grayfield arranged Deadpool’s body into a more comfortable position on his shoulders and then raced off after the others.

Behind them, unseen within a copse of stunted trees, a pair of red glowing eyes watched with great interest as the three crossed the open desert.

Elsewhere

“Are we there yet?” Deadpool asked in a voice normally reserved for children forced to endure long car rides.

“She was right; you really are incorrigible.”

“That means, ‘handsome’, right?”

His companion chuckled, a heavy bass rumble from deep within his chest. “Hardly. She’s politely calling you a ‘pain in the ass’.”

“Oh.”

“Relax, tovarisch, she says it with love. Now, I hope you’re ready, because we’re here.”

“We’re ‘here’?” Deadpool asked, looking around. “How can you tell where ‘here’ is? Everything looks the same!”

“Maybe you should look again.”

Deadpool looked around once more and was surprised to notice a pleasant change in the scenery — inasmuch as there now was scenery to notice.

They stood on a well-worn path running down the center of a thickly wooded forest, the indistinct shadows of earlier having coalesced into ethereal trees surrounding them. Ahead, the woods began to thin, and Deadpool could see that the road they were on ended in a small glade. Movement in front of them caught his eye.

Near the entrance to the clearing, a pallid horse grazed happily by the side of the road.

“That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?”

His companion shrugged. “As I said, comrade, this is your delusion. Now, go on. She is waiting for you in the clearing.”

“You’re not coming?”

He shook his head. “This is as far as I go. We’ve already met and besides, she’s here to see you, not me.”

“Then, I guess I’ll see you around, Petey.”

“You might just,” he said before turning away and walking off towards the treeline.

Deadpool watched him disappear into the trees, then turned and headed off for his own rendezvous.

Lost in the Mexican Desert

“I wasssss once-sssss a man . . .” Deadpool muttered groggily, then promptly slipped back into unconsciousness.

“Can you keep him quiet?” Victoria asked in a hushed whisper. “I’m can’t hear anything if he’s talking.”

She and Grayfield, with the insensible Deadpool in tow, had followed Gila on his mad dash across the desert, chasing after him until they crashed into a stand of stunted trees. The vegetation grew thicker the further in they ran and Gila quickly disappear from view. As luck would have, several hundred pounds of mutated lizard-man makes quite a lot of noise when crashing through the underbrush, and they were able to follow Gila’s flight rather easily.

Now, however, the vegetation was growing thinner, the trees stood further apart, and the sounds of Gila’s retreat had all but disappeared. “Do you hear anything now?” Victoria asked in desperation.

Grayfield strained to hear, but the night had gone unnaturally still, as though the desert itself held its breath. “No,” he admitted, “I don’t hear anything at all.”

Victoria nodded. “I was afraid of that. He could be anywhere and I’m not much of a tracker, especially in the dark.”

A high-pitched canine howl – coyotes? wolves? dingoes?; Grayfield had no idea what animals were native to the area – cut through the silence and quickly echoed through the night. “I think we better find out how good a tracker you are, because I don’t want to stick around here any longer.”

Yep, Still Not Someplace You’d Find With GPS Coordinates

The horse looked up from its grazing and nickered quietly as Deadpool walked into the clearing.

“Something on your mind?” Deadpool asked the horse, feeling foolish as soon as the words left his mouth. Horses, even this particular horse, couldn’t talk, and he knew it. Its master, however, could be very chatty if the mood struck her.

HELLO, WADE.

And there she was, perched on a fallen tree in the center of the clearing, the familiar black cloak drawn close around her body, its hood pulled tight against her head. A small box covered in black paper and tied with a red ribbon sat near her feet.

“Hello to you too, babe. It’s been way too long.”

SOME WOULD CONSIDER THAT A BOON.

“I’m not one of them.” Deadpool made his way to the middle of the clearing and helped himself to a seat on the dead tree. “You know, if someone was reading this on the internet, they’d think that you were yelling.”

THEN IT’S FORTUNATE NO ONE ON THE INTERNET IS READING THIS.

“Ouch.”

IT SEEMS WHOEVER CHRONICLES YOUR ADVENTURES IS A FAN OF THE WAY THE ENGLISHMAN PERSONIFIES ME.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, babe, but I’m just glad I get to see you. Should I assume this is only a social call, and not my ticket-to-ride?”

YOU WOULD BE CORRECT. BUT DO NOT BE SO QUICK TO SEEK MY EMBRACE, WADE.

“I can’t help it, beautiful; you’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

ONE DAY YOU WILL HAVE YOUR WISH, WADE, BUT FOR NOW I CAN ONLY OFFER A DIFFERENT GIFT.

She reached down, picked up the wrapped package sitting by her feet, and settled the little box between them on the tree.

FOR YOU.

Deadpool untied the red ribbon slowly, wanting to savor the moment – and her presence – as long as he could. He set the ribbon carefully aside, then pried up the tape holding the paper together and unwrapped the box. The box itself was small, perhaps four inches long by two inches wide, made from a single piece of unadorned wood. A hinge ran along one side of the box and, looking closer, Deadpool could see that half of the box served as a lid for the other half. Certain that nothing inside could hurt him, Deadpool lifted the lid.

“You know,” he said with a smile. “Peter David did it better.”

CERTAINLY. BUT WE TAKE WHAT WE CAN GET.

Deadpool ran a thumb across the soft bristles of the hairbrush. “I appreciate the gift but I don’t have much use for this.”

IT’S MORE FOR THE SYMBOLISM, WADE.

“The joke’s probably less funny when you have to explain it.”

THEY ALL ARE. BUT NOW I’M AFRAID WE’RE BOTH NEEDED ELSEWHERE.

She stood and stepped away from the fallen tree.

THERE WILL COME A TIME WHEN WE NO LONGER HAVE TO PART WAYS. UNTIL THEN, FAIR WELL, WADE.

Deadpool watched her walk to the edge of the clearing. “One day soon,” he said, but it was too late. She had already reached the edge of the clearing, mounted her horse, and was fading from view as she rode off down the path. In fact, if Deadpool was being honest with himself, the path also looked to be fading, the trees were fading, even the clearing was beginning to fade.

“What now?” he asked, but no answer came, only the return of the darkness.

Back in the Mexican Desert

“What does that say?”

Victoria looked at the sign again and shook her head. “I don’t know. I already told you I couldn’t read Spanish.”

Grayfield shrugged. “I know. I was just hoping something might have come to you.”

They had chased Gila late into the night, losing his trail before suddenly finding it again more times than Grayfield cared to remember. Then, about two hours ago, it had disappeared completely. With no clear path to follow, he and Victoria had stumbled blindly through the woods until they came across a dirt road that had led them to the crossroads where they now stood.

“Daddy said that Spanish was only for the servants and there was no point in me learning it.”

“You had servants?”

Now it was Victoria’s turn to shrug. “We just had a housekeeper, a couple gardeners, and some maintenance men. It was a big ranch.”

“You can put me down now,” Deadpool said in a hoarse whisper that caught them by surprise.

“Wade!”

Grayfield let the mercenary slide to the ground, where he stood on unsteady legs until Victoria rushed forward and caught him in a hug that nearly took him off his feet. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said. “How you been?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Deadpool looked around. “Where exactly are we?”

“We think somewhere in Mexico.” Grayfield gestured towards the sign. “But neither of us can read Spanish.”

“’Bragas Rosadas’?” Deadpool said, reading the words carved into the face of the sign. “What does that mean?”

Deadpool never saw the man who cracked him in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle, never saw the other well-armed soldiers who emerged from the surrounding blackness. His last memory before darkness swallowed him again was a voice saying: “’Bragas Rosadas’ is the name of the village, gringos. The name of the last place on earth you will ever see!”

 

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