Chapter Text
Percy, Percy listen…
Promise me okay?
No matter what Percy, please promise me-
Startling awake, Percy gripped the sides of the car he was in having woken up by the sound of a gun shot, but ten times louder and right in his ear.
Disoriented, he looked over and saw Grover hunched over the wheel white knuckles gripping them, and a foot stuck to the gas pedal. Grover was sitting stiffly in his seat.
Percy blinked at the weird scene. Then jumped again when another encompassing crack sounded. He looked out the car window, taking in the thick forest whizzing by. His eyes followed the quick drops of rainwater streaming down the glass. The cracking sound was lightning, he realized when it illuminated the sky.
It was raining hard—a blizzard.
Grover glanced at him for a split second again, eyes jumping back to the road, though there wasn’t a lot to see. The sun had set a while ago by the looks of it, and combined with the harsh rain and wind visibility was close to zero.
Grover kept glancing over at Percy, a tense silence laying over them like a heavy blanket, Percy could tell his friend was agitated.
Then he spoke up, “Oh no, get back to your beauty sleep, I’ll just deal with the enormous bull-man in our hides on my own!” He bleated.
Bull-man?
Percy shivered and leaned back and looked out the back window. The boy was startled by the earth quaking beneath them, it reverberated in a rhythm similar to footsteps. As if a giant was walking amongst them. He squinted through the haze of rain and wind trying to catch sight of what it was exactly. It was hard to see, but Percy could make out a huge guy who had to be holding something up above his head, chasing them down on foot.
He squinted, it looked like a giant football player holding up some sort of fur rug, and- horns? The guy was taller than what Percy would’ve thought possible, 9? Maybe 10 feet tall? He was gaining on them…
Percy was in a car.
He took a glance at the mph monitor, they were definitely breaking speed limit laws and then looked back at the thing behind them.
Percy was in a car.
Percy took one last look at the huge man-thing on steroids chasing behind them, turned back to the front, watching Grover hunched over the wheel, and decided he was hallucinating.
This must be some weird sort of fever dream.
Turning over he tried to go back to sleep but doubled down in a wince. There was a stabbing pain in his back.
You’re not supposed to feel pain in dreams.
Percy lifted the back of his shirt in confusion. He tried to see what was causing the sharp stinging sensation but it was in the lower mid-section of his back, before he gave up he caught a glimpse of red staining the back of his shirt.
Percy frowned, he couldn’t remember how that happened.
Ok, Percy started to realize he wasn’t dreaming, and that thing behind them: Percy looked behind them through the passenger rear-view mirror, yeah it was actually chasing them down.
Percy leaned towards the car window, the guy-no now that Percy got a second look at him that thing was not human. Percy glanced over at Grover.
Grover was giving Percy these discreet side-eyed looks and sat stiffly in the driver's seat.
Percy opened his mouth, wanting to urge Grover to go faster, but nothing came out. He brought up a hand to his throat and swallowed hard, it was sore.
Just as he was going to try again, all the hairs on his arm stood straight up.
Percy rasped, speaking up for the first time, “Grover-”
SWERVE
Grover flinched so hard that he aggressively veered the car left and caused Percy to body slam into the passenger door next to him.
BAM
A second later a blinding light flashed through the car glass, lightning.
The world tilted on its axis and Percy felt weightless for a moment. His ears were ringing, and everything was in slow motion for a few seconds. Outside the windshield, the floor was the sky and the sky was the floor.
Then came the thunder.
Percy came to, ears splitting, dazed, and hurting everywhere. He peeled his head from the leather seat of the car when everything settled. He groaned from the pain as the rain-soaked his jacket, it was drenching him from the opening from where the windshield should have been. From what he could tell the car miraculously landed on its tires.
Thunder rumbled and after Percy assessed his situation he concluded that out of the one and a trillion chances, they had just been struck by lightning. He would make a sarcastic quip about having the darn best luck but Percy was not feeling it at the moment.
Being flipped around in a blender and shaken like a fucking maraca is not fun, Percy can tell you from experience.
Taking another look around he realized three things.
One, lightning had just struck down exactly where the Camaro had been just seconds before. Two, Gover’s knee-jerk reaction, swerved the car to the right, which had probably just saved their lives. And three, because the lightning had still grazed the car, it had sent the car sailing in the air with Grover and Percy inside, flipped like a coin, and marvelously landed the right side up.
Percy’s head hurt like a bitch. His ragged breath and the still pouring rain were the only things he could hear, he was currently draped across the gear stick that was burrowing uncomfortably in his stomach. Groaning, Percy’s arms supported him as he slowly sat up in his seat, and looked over at Grover.
“Grover…?”
No response.
Percy looked up and found Grover looking quite dead and dangling from his seat in his seatbelt.
“Grover” Percy called out again, a lot more concerned. And then-
“Mm… enchiladas”
Oh, good. Always wear your seatbelt, kids.
Percy took stock of their situation, currently the Cameero’s windows were all blown out and would have caused major injury if the glass hadn’t shattered into a million pieces. The car's headlights were still shining onto the road.
THUD
THUD
THUD
The boy was startled at what sounded like a mountain stalking over toward them. He squinted through the haze of rain and wind in front of the car.
Percy stared at the gigantic bull-thing running at them head-on, sighed to himself, and decided that some being out there really had it out for him.
Because it had been so far away, Percy hadn’t realized how huge this thing was. It was so big he could feel every step the beast took. And it only got faster.
“Shit”
Percy cursed with feeling. If his mom was here she would have probably sent him a stern glance. Come to think of it, where was she?
The thing was now two-thirds a block away. Shaking out of his thoughts and fumbling with his seat belt, Percy considered running. And then instantly felt terrible for it, he wasn’t going to leave Grover here defenseless. Besides, it would be a terrible idea to get out of the car, he would only be an easier target in the open. Percy took a deep breath and took off his seat belt, there was only one other option.
Grunting with effort, Percy slowly dragged Grover out of his seat. “Come on Grover, wake up” Percy whined in a panic. This would be a lot easier if he was at least a little conscious.
The Bull-thing was only getting closer.
Finally succeeding in moving Grover out of the way, Percy awkwardly clambered over him and landed in the driver's seat.
Percy never really drove a car before, but it couldn’t be that hard, right? He was always good at racing games. Sitting at the very edge of his seat, Percy tried to reach the gas pedal, pushing so hard he accidentally revved it.
VROOM
Percy caught sight of the beast ahead, it had slowed down to a stop right where the headlights hit it. His mouth suddenly felt incredibly dry.
From the shoulders down it was the body of an abnormally large man. And from the shoulders up…
Percy quickly glanced at Grover's unconscious form. What had he said again? Bull-man? Yeah, it was the head of a fucking bull.
What the devil-
The Bull-man huffed and got down on all fours. Its eyes laser-focused on Percy.
Okay, okay. He can do this. Percy wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and tried to get a good grip on the wet wheel. Percy then had to readjust his seating position, he was really not tall enough to drive.
When Percy made eye contact with the Bull-thing, the world around them kind of just went away, everything went quiet. The sound of harsh rain and biting wind was muted, and the sound of the car’s engine lowered to a quiet hum, it was like somebody turned the volume down to 10.
In contrast, Percy’s senses heightened considerably. Usually, he had a hard time with focus, but right now Percy was hyper-fixating so intensely that he caught sight of the minotaur's muscles rippling meters away.
Slowly Percy put a hand on the driver's shaft, he let out a breath and then shifted it to driver mode.
The Bull-man shifted a foot back, its tree trunk arms tensing up.
Percy carefully brought back his shaking hands to the slippery steering wheel. Deeply inhaling some courage, he slammed his foot onto the gas pedal.
Percy had deeply miscalculated how fast a car can be. Pushed back into the seat, Percy had to hold on to the wheel. Wind and water slashed at his face through the nonexistent windshield.
Suddenly he wasn’t all that worried about the eight-foot-something beast ahead. Especially when he quite literally ran him over. The card bumped so hard Grover blurted out, “Food!” He was still unconscious.
It was too soon to celebrate though. Percy felt a noticeable drag hindering the car’s speed, and quickly took a glance at the rearview mirror. And then sighed. Yeah, okay he was going to have to try a bit harder.
Percy grabbed the left side of the wheel and yanked.
Oof. Ouch, that hurt. Looking behind him this time, Percy could make out a dark figure blocking the rear window. Stupid thing was stubbornly holding on.
Alright, one more time.
You know, thinking back on it, the monster seemed really familiar. He didn’t know what it was but something about it…
BAM BAM BAM
Percy screeched, jumping in his seat at the banging, and then started to scream when he noticed what was up ahead, leaning forward again, Percy readjusted his grip on the wheel. By that time he was soaked to the bone, and the wheel was getting harder to keep a hold on.
The dull crunch of metal sounded repeatedly above Percy’s head, he could even make out the outline of humongous fists being imprinted on the roof of the Camero. Percy looked back over to the road ahead and cursed, in all his inattention and constant violent turns Percy accidentally veered off course, and down the hill towards the trees.
BAM BAM BAM
They had entered the hedge of trees.
“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK FUUCKKK”
This was a great time to again mention that Percy didn’t really know how to drive? Sure he could turn just fine, but Percy couldn’t really do anything at this moment but dodge the incoming trees. And he was already in the thick of it.
Leaning in, Percy jerkily dodged one by the skin of his teeth, before having to swerve yet again out of the way of another tree. He was sort of surprised Grover hadn’t woken up yet, if not because of the very girly screams emanating out of him.
BAM
Percy felt fat rain droplets run down his neck, and then something graze the top of his hair. A chill unrelated to the cold ran down his spine. Percy needed to get out. Now. An arm that could have belonged to Bigfoot, had managed to punch a hole on the roof of the car right above where Percy was sitting. It was waving around blindly trying to get a hold of Percy.
Crack. There went one of the rearview mirrors. Percy ducked under the arm and somehow passed between two uncomfortably close trees only losing the other rearview mirror in the process. And that's when he got smacked in the temple by Bigfoot.
So yeah. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t see the cabin. Who would have been able to make out the clearing ahead amid everything that he was dealing with?
CRASH
Two times in a day was too much, let alone crashing twice in the span of a few minutes. The consequence of the Camero’s sudden death is that Bigfoot had been on the roof catapulted forward into the rubble of the half-smashed cabin.
Good news. Percy wasn’t in danger of crashing anymore. Bad news is that it has a direct line of sight to him and Grover.