The Unknown (A Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

15. "Keep Driving and Hope for the Best?"

Hello everyone! I'm so sorry for the late update-damn you, illness! Wattpad also decided it would be fun to screw me over by not letting me add a new part. But I fixed it with my amazing tech skills *cough cough* and here is the chapter!

It was around 15 pages on word so I hope that makes up for the wait haha. Oops.

Enjoy!

Chapter Fifteen (unedited-expect lots of typos)

We sprinted to the cars, the zombies right at our heels.

I opened the back seat door so that Grover and Annabeth could easily slip inside, slamming it shut as the man attacked me.

I slashed with Riptide and opened a cut on his torso. But little to no blood oozed out of the wound and it didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. He lunged at me again and I hit him with the flat of my blade, sending him stumbling back. I used this time to open the car door and dive into the driver's seat.

The man recovered and attempted to claw at me as I closed the door. I kicked him away and closed it completely, gasping for breath.

Annabeth glanced back at the blue Prius. "There all in and none of them seem hurt. Let's go."

I stepped on the gas and the car shot forward, Thalia following my lead with no hesitation.

As we drove away, I glanced in the wing mirror at the two corpses pitifully stumbling towards us. Now that we were at a distance, I felt more sorry for them than anything else.

The gas station became a small speck in the distance as we drove further up the highway, until we turned off at a junction, where it disappeared behind the canopies of evergreens.

Grover was still clutching his panpipes tightly but his eyes had returned to normal. "What now?"

I glanced at the dashboard and winced. It wouldn't be long before the gas ran out, and I half-wished that we had filled up before we left. "Keep driving and hope for the best?" I asked.

Annabeth remained silent with thought.

The roads narrowed as we crawled into towns, leaving the city behind. Tall evergreens replaced the skyscrapers and apartments. The tarmac was littered with potholes and a thin layer of moss that made the car stall in several places. Shadows from the trees-glaring down at us from either side-darkened the road despite the dapples of winter sunlight weaving through the breaks in the canopy.

We started to pass rows of houses, windows smashed and door broken in. Several cars lay at the sides of the road with the shapes of people sprawled inside, crimson smudged across the inside of the windscreen and windows. There were more signs of death and destruction than there were in the actual city, despite there being significantly less people here.

Annabeth looked ill. "This doesn't make sense." She was obviously thinking the same thing as me.

"Let's get out of here." Grover said. "This place is giving me the creeps."

I silently agreed and stepped on the gas again, passing more houses and few humble-looking churches, looking surprisingly unscathed.

Thalia sped up a little to keep up with me as we left the town behind, heading further down the deserted roads.

We turned a sharp corner only to hear a cough and a rattle from the Prius as it unexpectantly sputtered to a stop, wisps of smoke uncurling from the exhaust pipe. I saw Thalia slam her fist on the dashboard as she kicked open the door.