"Worst zombie apocalypse ever," Grover mutters from the backseat.

"Are you complaining?" Percy asks. "Do you want us to get eaten by zombies?"

We can see the barricade. Chain link and metal poles has been stretched between buildings, creating a twenty foot gate that a prison would be jealous of. The car has to be left here. There are too many other vehicles clogging the street for us to drive all the way.

When this is all over, scavengers are going to have a field day.

We grab our stuff out of the back and start weaving our way through cars. Juniper has been silent this whole time. I can tell this is overwhelming her. She leans into Grover. Worrying about Juniper is what's keeping Grover from panicking. I've known him for a long time and his first reaction to danger is definitely flight. He fights it. Which I think makes him the bravest person I know.

"Stop right there," a soldier says. "Hands up."

We stop. But not because he says please. He has a rifle pointed right at me.

"You, with the bandage, how're you wounded?"

"Glass," I say.

"You're sure. No bites."

"No bites."

He lowers the gun and motions us forward. We hurry to comply. When we are right in front of the gate, he opens it. We are all ushered inside. There is another massive chain link gate thirty feet ahead. Several tents are set up in two rows.

"Boys on the left. Girls on the right. You'll have to submit to a strip search if you want to get to the inner barricade." He gestures in each direction.

"Strip search?" Juniper asks.

"Have to make sure you don't have any bites."

He sends us on

"I'll be right there the whole time," I say to her.

Juniper shakes her head.

"If it will keep us safe," she says, "I don't mind."

Arm in arm, she and I head into the tents on the right where we are asked to remove all of our clothes. The searchers (on our side, at least) are all female and very thorough. They spend several minutes asking about my arm. The gauze sticks to the cuts as they pull it off. At last, they hand us our clothing and give us green armbands. I get an extra blue one, which they say means I should see the medics.

"Wow. This is as good as a concert," I say.

Juniper giggles as she puts her pants back on. I'm having difficulty getting my button up from yesterday on over my damaged arm. The rough fabric keeps catching on the edges of my wounds. Finally, I decide to stick with the black tank top for now. If I had been smart I would have grabbed a shirt from Sally's wardrobe. It would have been too big, but at least it would have been clean.

It was cold inside the tents. It's freezing. All of the hairs on my arms immediately stand up. The boys are waiting for us at the second gate. We show the guards our wristbands and are allowed through. The scene on the other sides is a mess. Stepping from between two buildings, we're on Lincoln Highway. As far as we can see in either direction it has been turned into a disaster zone. People wait just feet from the gates looking for loved ones. There are tents all over the street. 42nd Street Plaza has been transformed. Everywhere is crowded as they tried to fit in the remainder of NYC's 8.5 million inhabitants.

"Percy?" is shouted from the crowd. People are pushed apart and someone comes flying at Percy. She slams into him and wraps her arms around him. Another figure is right behind her, though not quite as exuberant.

"Gods, Percy, we thought you were dead," Thalia says. She and Jason aren't even paying attention to the rest of us. I look at Grover and Juniper and shrug. We turn to go.

"I'm sorry, you're going to have to turn your weapons in."

Percy and I turn to face the woman who has spoken. Her posture and the tone of her voice mark her as military, even if she's not in uniform. I start to cross my arms, think better of it and leave them hanging at my side. Percy is already starting to remove Anaklusmos.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we don't feel comfortable with that," I say. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Percy shoot me a look that says, 'We don't?'. "With everything that has happened in the last two days, we think it's smarter to keep them with us."

"I assure you that everything is perfectly safe here, miss. But we can't have kids running around with weapons they don't know how to use."

Percy puts a hand on my shoulder. Let me try his eyes tell me.

"Ma'am," he says, "do you know who my father is?"

The woman blinks once.

"No. And frankly, young man—"

"But you know who mine is," a young man says from behind her. He's tall and muscular, but with a little bit of the baby fat still around his face. Definitely Asian, Chinese if I'm reading his facial structure right. "It's cool, Lieutenant. They go to my school."

"That's all very good, but—"

"Besides, you wouldn't want to infringe on American citizens second amendment rights." That seems to placate the woman. The newcomer turns to us and holds out his hand. "Frank Zhang-Ultor. My dad is officer in charge here at the barricade."

We shake hands with him.

"Let me know if there's anything else you need."

"I think we'll be fine," Percy says.

Frank nods and heads back into the crowd. And it's a just the six of us again. We stand there awkwardly. Thalia looks at me. Jason looks at Thalia. Grover looks at Percy. Everybody is looking for someone else to talk first.

"Hey, Annabeth," Thalia ventures. She reaches out and gives me an awkward hug. "I'm glad you guys are all right."

"Thanks," I say. Silence. "I'm gonna go see the medic. Um, why don't the rest of you get some food? I'll come find you."

At the mention of food, Grover's eyes light up. We all head over to the group of tents at the 42nd Street Plaza. I part from the others and head over to the medical tents.

"How did you do this?" the doctor asks as she examines my arm.

"I shoved my arm through a window."

She looks up at me. I quickly explain how we escaped this morning. She nods.

"Well, I can clean it up. It'll need stitches, but all I have right now is topical anesthetic. You'd still feel some pain. If you want I can patch it up until you get to the other side."

I look down at my arm. The edges of the three cuts look good. Nice and straight.

"I can handle it," I say. "I'd rather not wait till we get to the other side."

The woman contemplates me for a minute. She must decide that I indeed can handle it because next thing I know, she's pulling out sutures and antiseptic.

"You know you really don't have to prove your reputation as a bad ass. We believe you."

Percy is standing behind me. He holds out a bottle of water and sandwich wrapped in plastic. From the smears at the edges it looks like some sort of tuna or chicken salad. I take the water gratefully. He looks at me for a minute then, pulls off his jacket and drapes it around my shoulders.

"Thought you might be hungry."

"Thanks," I say.

"Do you want me to call you mom and let her know you're here?"

I shake my head. The doctor takes my arm and begins to clean out the cuts. I fight the urge to grimace.

"She'd ask me questions. I don't feel like thinking that hard just yet."

Percy just nods. Then he holds out his hand. I take it, just like I did this morning and hold on as the doctor starts to stitch up my arm. It begins to burn as she draws the skin together.

"Um, so…" I start. "Have they told you anything? About what's causing the outbreak? Or how it started?"

"As far as I've heard, it spread through the major airports." She doesn't look up as she talks. Just keeps piercing my skin and pulling it together. "We're not sure how the original virus was spread, but it seems to spread solely through the bite." The needle pierces my skin again and I hiss. The doctor looks at me with concern. I'm trying to think of more questions. But all I can think about is the fact that needle is going to jab into the other side of my cut in a minute. And then she's going to pull.

"So it's just through the bite?" Percy says. When the doctor gives him a look, he just shrugs. "Keep talking. Learning always distracts her."

I have to smile at how well Percy still knows me.

"So far yes. We have a handful of people that were just scratched. They're in quarantine." She nods to buildings behind us. A sort of pen has been erected and it's full of people who are obviously still living. "Left to on its own, the virus kills in 24 hours. Perhaps scratches kill more slowly, but I don't think so. We weren't able to find any abnormalities in their blood." She's finished on laceration and is halfway through the second. This one doesn't hurt as much, though if that's because the topical anesthetic has had more time to work or because I'm getting used to the pain, I don't know.

"What." I have to swallow. "What kind of virus is it?"

"As far as we can tell, it seems to be a mix between HIV and viral encephalitis. They haven't figured out what's animating them after death." She finishes on the last gash and looks my hand. She doesn't have to say that it's going to hurt. "Don't bite your lip. I don't want to have to stitch that up too."

Percy laughed.

"Remind me to hit you later," I say.

She's quick and it's done. Finally. She hands me some painkillers and I'm dismissed. Percy is already dialing my mom.

"She says stay here," he says, putting the phone back in his pocket.

You can tell when my mom arrives. Even in the middle of an apocalypse, she demands everyone's attention. You can see the wave of people parting before you see her. She's still dressed for work, black slacks, white button down, her hair twisted up on top of her head. All that's missing is her black blazer. Her boots thump against the pavement.

My mom wraps her arms around and I am safe.

"Hey kiddo."

Yes. In case you're wondering, the license plate was the Easter egg. Haven't decided if we'll see Rachel. But I needed to at least mention her in some way.

Time for me to go back to NaNo.