Chapter Five: The Wonder Twins

"DUCK!"

My instincts kicked in and I hit the ground, so did everyone else. A garbage can flew over my head and into giant's stunned face. I looked up. A tall well-built and really hot guy was standing several feet behind me. He had raven black hair, electric blue eyes and a wide confident smile with pearly white teeth. He placed his hands on his hips. He had a huge silver belt buckle, like the ones you would expect to see on a cowboy. All was missing was the hat.

"Now that's what I call taking out the trash." He grinned, and then pushed himself into a sprint.

It was like watching a car crash. I just couldn't look away.

The cowboy put the giant into a sleeper hold. They wrestled until he broke off one of the giant's tattooed arms. It groaned displaying a mouth razor sharp yellow choppers. Within seconds the rest of his body burned into a green flame.

"Show off." A petite towheaded girl in khaki shorts and a tank top moved up the path from the castle. She smirked, "Please forgive my brother's dramatics. We saw the army of monsters heading in this direction and thought that we could make a break for the Lincoln Tunnel before things got ugly." At closer inspection the girl had several cuts and bruises on her arms and legs. She looked like she had been in just as many fights as us.

"Instead we found ourselves in the middle of a monster verses Greek Super Soldiers, Clash of the Titans type of deal." The cowboy said as he dusted the grass and gravel from his button down shirt and jean shorts. "Our position is compromised, Lyra. We need to keep moving."

"We're heading for the Lincoln Tunnel too!" My brother exclaimed. He turned toward my mother, "Let's join forces with these two, please Mom!"

Lyra and her brother gave my mother surprised looks. She had been so quite that perhaps they didn't notice her. Or maybe because she normally looked like she had just walked off the set of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition that they didn't believe that she had a ten and twelve year old. Whatever the case was mother nodded. "Six is better than four." She took a bronze knife out of her purse and handed it to the girl. "I'm guessing you two are both good at throwing?"

"Thanks Ma...Miss!" The girl tossed her white blond hair over her shoulder and examined the blade. "Yes we are, and this will defiantly do."

I gave her my extra knife as well. I'm umm… not good at throwing. Trent and Zillah gave the cowboy their extra knives they had in their packs. Perhaps he could throw them at the monsters and disintegrated them before they got close to us. That would be pretty sweet.

The cowboy looked Zillah over from head to toe. "My name's Skylar. Nice move back there when you saved the boy."

Zillah's face turned the same color as her hair. "T..thanks." From what I could tell he was genuinely impressed with her.

We finished introducing ourselves and decided to move on. We had lingered in one spot for too long and were quickly noticed by a pack of the scariest dogs I had ever seen.

Zillah stepped in front of us and gave the dogs a nasty look. "STAY!" She held up her hand. Maybe she was full of confidence since Skylar just gave her that compliment, but for whatever the reason they listened.

Imagine a pack of dogs sitting and standing in various positions. Some are tilting their heads others are chasing their tails or licking themselves. Now, imagine them the size of tanks. That would sum up what this pack of blood red eyed dogs. It was like the meanness had left them. One whimpered as it tried to come forward to lick Zillah's hand.

"I said, stay." She spoke firmly but with more affection in her voice.

The dog laid down and placed his head on the path.

Zillah called each of the dogs by name and told them to go home. They each stopped what they were doing and melted into the shadows. The last dog, Grunt, quickly licked Zillah before turning and disappearing into the shadows.

"I don't know how I did that or how I knew their names." Zillah's knees gave out as she whipped the saliva onto her shorts. With a deep breath she sat back on her heals and addressed us. "I just need a minute to catch my breath." Her pale face looked drained of energy.

Behind us the sound of a thousand panes of glass shattering and a roar came from the direction of the Met.

"I don't think we have a minute." Skylar bent down and scooped Zillah up in his arms. "Let's move." He started to jog westward up the path. He moved so gracefully it was like watching an Olympic runner caring a bag of feathers.

The rest of us couldn't argue, so we followed him down the path. "Meredith, flank his right, Trent his left..."

My mom took the rear position. She practically ran backwards as she kept an eye on the path behind us.

"I got point!" Lyra sprinted past her brother and gave him a wink. Zillah had fallen asleep in his arms.

In the distance we could hear the clanging of swords and the roars of monsters. However, in the immediate vicinity, there was a deafening silence. It was summer, so I would expect to hear either the buzzing of insects, or the hum of grass hoppers. Well... that is unless they don't have that in Central Park, but I couldn't be certain.

Our footsteps fell heavy as we jogged up the path.

Ten feet, no monsters, that was good.

Twenty feet, still no monsters, that was awesome.

Up ahead I saw a crossroads of sorts. This is where 79th Street Transverse and West Drive meet. I believed we were going to go left on West Drive and head out of the park by following that path.

For the first time I noticed all the damaged vegetation. Bushes were ripped out of the ground, trees were split in two, and there were limbs all over the place. I could swear a tornado must have touched down, that's how bad things looked. In the distance I could see an eerie green fire burning along one of the jogging paths. I wondered what could have possibly caused fire to burn green.

Lyra double timed her steps to scout ahead. We would be vulnerable from every direction for several minutes since we would be clearly visible to anything lurking on a path or in the darkness. Several street lamps had been destroyed, but there were still enough to give us a pretty decent amount of light.

Suddenly, Lyra collided with an invisible wall. The impact sight shimmered an iridescent neon blue for several seconds before disappearing again. Rubbing the spot on her forehead where she hit the wall, Lyra turned towards us. "Something's blocking the way."

"Let's head back down the path, we'll find a way around it." My mother quickly ordered. She took several steps back toward the opposite direction and also ran into an invisible wall. "Spread out as far as you can! I think we're being boxed in!"

I turned towards the right. I held my sword in one hand and extended the other one in front of me. After several steps, I also made contact with the invisible wall.

"We're trapped!" Trent cried out.