Grover was right.

Grover WAS right.

Grover was RIGHT.

The litany repeats itself in my head. One syllable for each footstep.

I hope he's safe. I hope he and Juniper are holed up somewhere far away from the madness that is overtaking NYC.

I am yelling Percy's name as I run. I try to figure out which metro station he would take to get to his mom's apartment. Percy's parents never married and most of the time he lives with his mom, Sally.

Two blocks from the school, the people start to thin out. I don't know where they are going, just away from here. I keep straight on. Sure that Percy is this way.

At last, I see him in front of me.

"Percy," I yell.

He doesn't hear me. His shaggy, dark head is bent down. He has his skateboard under one arm, but it's too crowded for him to use it.

"Percy," I yell again. Doubling my pace I catch up to him. I grab his arm as screams erupt from behind me. Percy yanks his arm away before he can see that it's me. He has earbuds in. I grab him again and push him into an alley. The earbuds come out of his ears.

"What the-," he starts, but I cut him off by pressing a hand to his mouth. I shove him down behind a dumpster. He looks at me. "Gee, Chase, if you wanted to get me alone…"

"Shut it, Jackson." I peer around the dumpster corner.

There are zombies in the street. Zombies. One grabs a woman who runs past the alley and bites her. Blood covers them both. Percy leans around behind me.

"Holy Hera," he says. And then he says a few other things that would probably get him in just as much trouble if his mom heard them. I push him back against the wall.

"Stay out of sight," I say. Can the zombies smell? Will they track our scents into the alley? As if in answer to my question, a zombie stops at the entrance to our alleyway. I watch as it sniffs the air for a minute then moves on. I know that is only the first. "C'mon," I say. Up goes the lid of the dumpster. And in I go. Hopefully, the smell will cover us.

"You cannot be serious." Percy is eyeing me and the dumpster like he's trying to decide which part of this whole scenario is crazier.

"Do you want to live, Jackson?"

More screams from out on the street.

Percy takes the best option available. He jumps in the dumpster with me. We let the lid fall.

It stinks.

I want to throw up, but I don't want it to stink worse. So I don't. It's almost black inside the dumpster, only a little light comes in from a spot in one corner where rust has eaten through the metal.

"So how long do we have to stay in here?" Percy asks.

"I don't know."

"What's going on?"

"I don't know."

"Does this mean that I don't have to study for our algebra exam?"

I almost laugh. But I don't, because I hear scuffling in the alley. A finger on my lips, I lean forward slowly so that I can see out of the hole. A hand passes my peephole. It's pale as a sheet, except for where it's covered in thick, black blood. The hand disappears. Moments later, another figure stumbles past.

It's a long time before Percy and I move again.

We wait for the screams to stop. I count off the minutes in my head. Restarting every time I hear any kind of sound. If the food source is gone, will the zombies move on? Maybe we can make a run for the school then.

"You know," Percy says, "this is awfully romantic. You. Me. A dark dumpster full of trash." An attractive boy whispering into my ear. Okay, I'll admit it. I might have a teeny crush on Percy Jackson. "I have to tell you, this really give me high expectations for the second date."

I don't know what is wrong with my brain. Hot boy hitting on me? Check. Mother's certain disapproval? Check. Guaranteed popularity? Check. Most teenage girls would be ecstatic. I was thinking that getting eaten by zombies might be preferable to spending one more minute in the dark with Percy. Because he was close enough that if I turned my head, we'd be kissing.

This so would not work.

"I think the coast is clear."

"Running away, Chase?"

"Percy, the world may be ending. Do you want to survive or do you want to sit in the dark hitting on me for another few hours?" I pushed the lid of the dumpster up a sliver. Nothing in the alley was moving. I stood and carefully propped the lid against the wall. Percy crawled out with me.

The smell follows us. We are wearing it now, instead of being surrounded by it. As bad as it is, I'd rather smell of trash than of human.

"So what's the plan?" Percy whispers. We pause at the edge of the alley.

"Why do I have to come up with the plan?" I ask. I glare at him. Wasn't saving our butts enough?

"Thinker," he says, pointing at me. Then he points at himself. "Doer. You think up the plan and I'll make sure it happens."

"Fine. We need weapons and we need somewhere safe to stay."

"So," he stops and thinks for a minute.

"School," we say together.

Now you might think that a school is a strange place to find weapons. But, let me explain something about our Latin teacher. Chiron Brunner is a bit eccentric.

I'm pretty sure that teaching Latin is his hobby and reenactments are his full time profession. The man has weapons from almost every era you could imagine. Civil War. Revolution. Seven Years War. The World Wars. But nothing and I mean nothing compares to his collection of weapons (replicas and historical artifacts) from the Greek and Roman period. Reason #1 why he is the boys' favorite teacher. Now, most of them he doesn't keep on the school premises. It's hard to explain a Lee-Enfield rifle mounted on your classroom wall, even if it isn't loaded. (Kids only know about his guns because Mr. Brunner teaches World History to the freshmen and sophomore classes.) But the older weapons? Swords. Spears. Knives. Some of those he keeps in his office. He even has a few bows and crossbows locked up in the gym. Did I mention he also teaches self-defense? Once you hit junior year, you can satisfy your PE credit by signing up for Mr. Brunner's self-defense class a.k.a. Weapons 101.

It is—was one of the classes that Percy and I shared.

The coast looks clear. Not counting the bodies that have been left behind now that that the feeding frenzy has moved on. I step over the body of a woman as I leave the alley.

"Hold on," Percy says. He returns to where I found him. Looking a little green, Percy pulls his skateboard out from underneath a teenage boy.

"Seriously, Jackson?"

"Seriously. Chase. I don't have enough books in my backpack to use it as a weapon." Percy stiffens. Then he runs over to where I am. Taking my arm, he hurries in the direction of school. "He moved."

"You moved him."

"Annabeth. I saw him move."

I want to roll my eyes and call him a drama queen, but then I see a small girl twitch. And it's not because she could be alive. There is a large, gaping wound in her neck. Her shirt is dark from blood with one bright patch on her left shoulder to show us that the shirt was yellow. We start to run. The bodies don't get any thinner as we get closer to the school. Something grabs at my ankle. Pavement grinds into my palms as I fall. Kicking at the zombie clawing at my leg, I scramble up. A thwack sounds from behind me. Percy has clocked the zombie on the head with his skateboard. We keep running.

We reach the school. All around us, corpses are starting to stir. None of them are on their feet yet, but I know it won't be long.

Percy tries the door.

It's locked.

He looks at me with panic in his green eyes. I'm pretty sure he's seeing the same thing in mine.

"What now?" he asks. "Do we try the other doors?"

But there's no time for that. I grab his skateboard, swinging it so the hard rubber wheels hit one of the small window panes. It shatters and I continue breaking pieces of glass out. Not taking the time to undo the buttons, I rip my shirt off and wrap it around my hand. Glass snags at the fabric as I reach in a turn the lock, but it doesn't touch my skin.

"C'mon," I say, turning to Percy, who is watching me, open-mouthed. My black tank top suddenly feels much lower than it actually is. Resisting the urge to yank it up past my collar bones, I open the door and head inside.

"Wow, Chase. First a dumpster and now breaking and entering with a strip tease. This is turning into the best first date ever."

I pull the door shut. Later, if I have time, I will admire his ability to laugh in the face of death.

"We need to barricade the door."

"One step ahead of you. Help me with this." He has the end of one of the metal benches that line our hallways. I grab the other and we swing it around, shoving the legs at my end through the two push bars on each door. "Think that'll hold?"

I nod.

"So…weapons now?" Percy asks.

"Hold on." Pulling Percy down the hall just enough that we're hidden in the growing shadows, I watch. Streetlights are coming on. The corpses are getting up. They wander the street. A few make the climb up the steps. Every muscle in me tenses, but I don't move. They push at the doors and shuffle around, but when nothing gives and with nothing to attract their attention, they move on. I stop holding my breath. "We should secure the back doors."

The main building of our school is several stories and shares two sides with the buildings on either side of it. Leaving the front and back the only places with entrances that we need to worry about. We quickly execute the set up on the front doors on the doors at the back of the gym and the service entrance in the cafeteria. While we're there I dump my school books and stuff food in my backpack. Not the most nutritious options, but it'll keep us from starving if we have to run. Percy does the same.

"Now," I say, "weapons." Mr. Brunner's office is, of course, locked. Percy busts up the end of his skateboard attacking the doorknob. Eventually, it breaks off and we gain access. I've been in Mr. Brunner's office on multiple occasions. I head straight for the wall covered in weapons.

"Whoa," Percy says.

I have better things to do than stare. I start pulling things down. A bronze knife for me. Another one I hand to Percy. He's busy staring at a sword. He reaches out and lifts it down from the wall as if he's afraid it will turn to dust in his hands. Like the rest of Mr. Brunner's Greek weapons, this sword is made of bronze. It has a leaf-like shape and a hilt that is wrapped in leather. Mr. Brunner called it Anaklusmos. It's a perfect replica of a sword found in a dig in Athens, according to him.

"I like this one." Percy holds it out.

It's good enough, I suppose. There is a large cabinet in the corner. It's locked as well, but I know where the keys are. Out of it I pull belts and sheaths.

"Here," I say, tossing one to Percy. It's made to go over the shoulder and looks about right for the sword he has. Then I pull out what I was really looking for. Mr. Brunner's crossbow and a quiver of bolts.

"Wish we had some guns."

"You obviously have never watched The Walking Dead," I say.

"And you have?"

"I'm friends with Grover."

Percy nods as if to say "touché".

"Guns draw attention and run out. Better to have weapons that don't rely on ammo."

I attach the quiver to my belt and sling the crossbow over my shoulder.

"Now what, oh Smart One?" Percy asks with a grin.

"Now we make sure the rest of the building is secure."

We search every floor. Starting at the ground and working our way up. The school's silent alarm is probably going crazy right now, but with what is happening all over the city, I doubt that it is the only one. Percy wants to split up, but I quickly quash that idea. Better not to wander off.

Everything is quiet, too quiet for me to feel easy. This is usually the point in the movies where it all goes to hell. But luckily for us, this isn't a movie. This is very, very real. We return to the second floor and set up in a classroom that faces the street. I didn't see much zombie action in the alley. It's the horde out front that worries me. Percy steps out for a minute and comes back with pillows and blankets from the nurse's office.

"Here," he says, handing me a pillow and pointing to a corner. "Knowing you, you've probably been up since the butt crack of dawn. I can take the first watch."

Percy pulls together two desks next to a window in the back corner and hops on top of them. He looks outside. I'm not quite sleepy yet, so I come up next to him. He looks tense. I glance at the clock. 8:30. The time he was meeting his cousins at the theatre.

"I'm sure they're fine."

"What?"

"Thalia. Jason. Bianca. Nico. I'm sure they were off the streets and goofing off at home when everything went crazy."

Percy nods. "It's not them I'm worried about."

"Really?" I scoot onto a desk, placing my feet in the blue, plastic seat.

"You think it's true? The stuff they were saying this morning about Miami."

"Probably."

"My brother is down there."

I'm shocked. I didn't know Percy had brother.

"He's seven. He lives down there with his mom."

"Percy—I didn't know…"

"Maybe I should try checking on them." He pulls out his cellphone. Takes a look and then groans. Reception at school has always been horrible. Personally, I think the principal has some sort of cellphone blocker on school premises. Percy doesn't speak again, so I head to my little nest in the corner.

"Hey. Annabeth."

"Yeah?"

His face is turned towards me and the light makes it hard to see his expression.

"Thanks for coming after me. I'd be a goner if not for you."

I shrug. Like it's no big deal.

"Seriously, nobody would have blamed you if you had left me on my own. You didn't have to help me."

"Of course I did."

"Why?"

"Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain." The name slips out like I used it just yesterday and I realize something.

It's true.

I guess this was inevitable. Not the zombie thing, but us. If the world hadn't dissolved into chaos, Percy reaching out to me today would have just been the start. Today's event had just sped things up. He was my friend and being mad at him would always feel wrong. Deep inside of me, something that had been twisted up for a long time, finally released.

"Anymore stupid questions."

"No." I didn't need to see his face to know that he was smiling.

Pulling the blanket up, I turn away from the window and tell Percy to wake me up in a couple of hours.

After I few minutes, I hear Percy whisper, "Good night, Wise Girl."

If you've asked any questions. HERE is where you want to look. Because I'm not saying this again.

This story has no plan. No update schedule. I work on it when I have ideas and when those ideas peter out, well, hopefully I'll have ended it by then. But I am making no promises.

One thing I do want to do is start to work in moments from the books. You may have noticed that I already have. If there are any that you think might work in this world/scenario, go ahead an mention them in your review. I may use them, I may not, it all depends on the needs of the story. But I'd appreciate the help remembering all the good ones (because there have been so many good ones). And not just the Percabeth moments, I do want to incorporate other characters from the series. Just be warned. I'm fudging some of the ages a little bit (mostly Luke).

So enjoy.