How Percy Jackson Should Have Transpired: Part 2

Ride to Camp Half-Blood

Variation ONE:

Realistic:

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

We crashed into a tree, each of us suffering fatal trauma to the organs, resulting in our deaths later that night.

Seems like the Minotaur was the least of our worries that night.

Variation TWO:

Realistic, With Some Luck:

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I asked. "We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where there was, but I found myself lean-ing forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings.

My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me. Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me.

Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded into a ball of fire.

That was all I remember, before being sucked into The Underworld.

Variation THREE:

Un-Realistic, With a Lot of Luck:

Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Percy!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay... ." I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch.

Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns. I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking. "Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too." Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

Cut – To

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the win-dows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

He Immediately charged us, and having no experience in fighting, we didn't know what to do but jump out of the way.

We were too late though. The minotaur gored my legs, rendering me helpless, as he bared his jaws over my face.

THE END.