Percy wasn't going to lie, he was terrified up until the point where he and Annabeth got picked up by a helicopter. He just couldn't help but think that whoever killed the security guard was still around. Occasionally, he'd hear someone or something shuffling around in the building at night and he swore he saw a door open and close at one point.
Needless to say, he didn't sleep a wink until the helicopter arrived.
You'd expect his life would've gotten so much easier when the helicopter arrived, right? Nope, apparently every single infected in the area thought the helicopter was the dinner bell because as soon as it arrived, the infected started swarming the building. He and Annabeth didn't have a choice but to escape to the roof and get picked up there.
Percy had practically slept through the entire flight to the safe zone, he was too tired to even care where they were going. They could've been taking him to a volcano to drop him in, he really didn't care, as long as they let him sleep on the way there.
When Percy woke up, it was because Annabeth was nudging him with her foot.
"Hey, wake up, sleepy head." Annabeth said, "We're here."
Percy groaned as sunlight shined through the helicopter's windows. His neck and back hurt from sitting in the same position for the past few hours. Not to mention, he was still really tired, the second he found a bed, he was crashing into it.
"Where are we?" He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
Annabeth nodded towards the window.
He crawled across the helicopter and peered out the window. Instead of a volcano, they were flying over lush forests and fields, he could even see some farms where the farmers were going about their daily routine as if there wasn't a zombie apocalypse going on. Granted, the roads they flew over were devoid of cars but he noticed a lot of people down there were travelling on horseback.
"Where are we?" He turned to Annabeth.
"Georgia." She answered, "I know you said your mom is in Florida but we have to land here."
"It's alright, Florida isn't that far anyways." He said, "At least we're in the safe zone now."
"Yeah, you should've seen it, there was a whole wall along the border between Georgia and South Carolina when we flew over." Annabeth said with amazement, "It was crazy."
"If it works, it works." He shrugged, "Where are we landing?"
"Some camp outside of Atlanta." She said, "We should be there soon."
Percy sighed as he sat back in the helicopter, he couldn't wait to see his mom in Florida, the fact that she just happened to be in a safe zone at the same time all this zombie stuff started popping off was amazingly lucky.
When they finally got to Atlanta, it wasn't at all what Percy expected. He and Annabeth were both bunched up at the windows, staring at the city, or at least, what was left of it. All but a couple of the high-rise buildings were gone, the ones that remained looked like a giant had come and ripped the top of them off and ate them. There weren't any black plumes of smoke anymore, so whatever happened didn't happen recently. The roads were charred and a ton of the buildings were reduced to black smoldering ashes.
"What the hell happened here?" Percy asked, maybe a bit too loudly.
"The Air Force is what happened here." One of the pilots called back.
Percy looked over and crawled to the front, "What?"
The co-pilot looked at him, "The Air Force firebombed Atlanta with a bunch of B52s. the military said it would've been too risky to try to clear it out with ground troops when the infection started spreading so they just settled on dropping every bomb they had, they even used white phosphorus and napalm."
"What about civilians?" He asked.
The pilot's grim silence told him more than any words could. His hands started to shake a little, dropping conventional bombs was bad enough but he'd attended briefings about white phosphorus, that stuff was ten times worse. There was nothing precise about it, yeah it would kill zombies but it would kill just about everything else too.
"It wasn't only Atlanta." The co-pilot told him, "Jacksonville, Orlando, Savannah, and Miami all got wiped out too. We had to wipe them out, it was the only way we could stop the zombies from overrunning the states. Of course, the civilian militias and the military swept the cities after and made sure everything was dead."
Percy sat back, sort of still in shock. He just couldn't fathom the idea of dropping bombs on cities still full of civilians. At the same time, he was a pilot too. If he was ordered to drop a nuclear bomb on a city, he'd probably do it. He wouldn't want to but he would still do it regardless.
The helicopter tilted over to the right as the pilot started guiding them in for landing. He looked out his window to see a giant camp. He was amazed by the size of the camp that rested just outside the city. He'd seen Marine camps during their exercises and yet this camp was even bigger.
From the air, he could see the camp had barbed wire and sandbags lining the perimeter with guard towers evenly spaced out to cover the most ground. Behind the lines of barbed wire and sandbags were concrete barriers big enough to cause trouble for even tanks. There was only one gate in and one gate out and from what he could see, whoever had made the camp had thrown everything they had into making sure the gates were defended. Aside from the armed guards who looked like tiny specks from where he was, there were at least three different gates and automated turrets.
The rest of the camp had rectangular shaped buildings, he assumed those were the living quarters, a hanger area which he figured had to be for helicopters since there was no runway for airplanes nearby, and one big fortress right in the middle of it all.
"Alright, you two, this is your stop." The pilot chirped as the helicopter finally settled into the helipad.
Percy wasn't too sure about leaving the helicopter, especially after spotting all the armed guards waiting for him and Annabeth. He recognized some of their uniforms, he saw Marine uniforms, Army uniforms, even a few police officers amongst the mix. Standing out in front was an old guy in a suit and by old, Percy meant ancient, this guy looked like he could've been there with the Founding Fathers.
Annabeth slid open the door before Percy could stop her.
"Come on, let's go!" She grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the helicopter.
As soon as they were both out of the helicopter, a few of the guards snorted and walked off, muttering about how they should've known they weren't zombies.
"Annabeth," The old guy smiled, "I'm glad to see you're okay, we thought we lost you in New York."
Annabeth grinned, "I thought you had more faith in me than that, Chiron."
So this guy was Chiron, the one Percy had heard over the phone. He definitely looked how he imagined.
Chiron's gaze flickered onto him and Percy suddenly felt like he was being inspected, like Chiron was picking him apart to see how he worked. He glanced down at the rifle in his hands before offering him a friendly smile, "I take it you helped her, Mr…"
"Percy, Percy Jackson," He nodded, "and yeah, I helped her, after she tried to kill me."
That earned him a kick from Annabeth.
Chiron laughed, "Well, if Annabeth deems you're okay, then we can afford to let you stay. It'd be rude to throw you out."
Annabeth shot him a look that said, 'you owe me', as if he'd asked to get transported to this camp, he just wanted to get to Florida already.
"What is this place anyways?" He asked as he looked around.
"This," Chiron motioned, "Is Camp Half-Blood. The only camp left from the initial days of the outbreak."
"What happened to the other camps?"
Chiron seemed to ignore him as he turned and motioned for them to follow. Annabeth walked along, she seemed use to this type of thing. Percy, on the other hand, liked it when people responded to him when he asked them something. Maybe it was just him missing his military days.
Percy couldn't help but find it weird how he basically wasn't a part of the military anymore, at least, he assumed so if the military had collapsed. If he could find some Navy guys, maybe then he'd continue his service, flying F35s over zombie filled cities.
"Since you'll be staying here for a while, Percy, it's only fair I show you around." Chiron said as he walked, he pointed towards a large building with a ramp going in and out, "That is the armory, I'd be careful if I were you, there's still quite a lot of live ordinances left from the bombings."
Percy shrugged, he was used to flying with bombs strapped under his wings, it just didn't scare him as much as it used to.
Chiron passed a group of guards and CDC scientists laughing and talking over a TV, which amazingly was still running.
"Those buildings over there are the living quarters." Chiron pointed to the rectangular shaped buildings from earlier.
"So, I just pick a building then?" He asked.
Chiron shook his head, "Well, you'll have to stay in the quarantine building for now while we figure out what to do with you."
Percy couldn't help but feel like an inconvenience, like he was being a burden to the entire camp. Annabeth had it good, Chiron probably already had a room picked out for her and he could almost guarantee it was leagues better than whatever the quarantine building was.
"Is that where we're going now?" He asked.
Chiron nodded, "Don't worry, you won't be in there for long."
Now Percy felt like a fish being dumped into a fishbowl, he could only hope there weren't sharks in said fishbowl.
As soon as they reached the quarantine building, Percy could tell he was going to hate his stay. First of all, there were a ton of guards around, some of them wore gas masks while others wore hazmat suits similar to the one Annabeth wore. Then there was the bright yellow bio-hazard sign above the entrance that basically screamed 'everyone who comes in here is a loser!'
Chiron stopped, "I'm afraid we're a little over-capacity here but I think we can make it work, surely Clarisse can handle it."
As soon as Percy heard her name, he heard someone shout, "Can you all go five seconds without fucking something up?!"
Percy and Annabeth looked over to find a woman in a Marine combat uniform berating a few guards in police uniforms. She looked exactly how Percy expected her to look, mean and scary as fuck.
Clarisse walked over after she was done and noticed him and Annabeth. She rolled her eyes, "Don't tell me I have to house two more people, Chiron, we're already full. If we have to take in anymore, I'm going to have to start shooting people."
"I'm sure that won't be necessary." Chiron said politely, "And you will only have to house Percy.", he placed a hand on Percy's shoulder.
Clarisse stared at him like he was possible the most annoying person she'd ever met. He wouldn't be surprised if she threw him in a garbage can instead of actually housing him.
"Now, Annabeth, come with me please." Chiron said, "You must tell me how things in New York went."
As the two walked off towards the big fortress building, Percy couldn't help but make small talk with Clarisse, especially since she was still staring at him.
"Where are they going?" He asked.
"Noneya." Clarisse said.
"Huh?"
"None of your damn business." She said rudely, "Now come on, I need to find a place for you."
Percy clenched his fists, he already hated this chick. At least in training, he could chalk up the rude instructors as just another training thing.
Inside the quarantine building, it was worse than Percy could've even imagined. There were bunks but all of them were occupied, he could see numbers taped to the mattresses. He figured those were probably so people didn't accidentally sleep in the wrong bunk. As he looked around, he couldn't help but notice there were no bunks for him.
Aside from the overcrowding, there was also the smell. Imagine someone spraying the cheapest off-brand deodorant they could find then mix that with bleach. That's what the quarantine building smelled like. He wasn't sure how anyone could live in this dump.
"There's your bed." Clarisse pointed to a sleeping bag in the corner.
"You're kidding." His jaw dropped.
She glared at him, "Does this look like a fucking hotel to you? Suck it up."
Percy walked over to the sleeping bag, it wasn't even a nice one, it was torn and looked like someone had stomped all over it. He looked over at Clarisse, expecting her to say something like 'ha, dumbass, I'm just kidding.'
Yet she didn't say that at all.
"Tell me something." He said, walking back over to her. He could see her tense up, she was ready to fight. "Your last name is La Rue, isn't it?"
Clarisse's eyes widened for a moment before she adopted an angry look, "Alright, who the fuck are you and where do you know me from?"
"Do you remember being on NAS Oceania a few days ago, when you told an aviator to fly to New York?" He asked.
"Yeah, I remember that very—" She was cut off when he punched her in the face.
Now, Percy had always been taught to never hit a woman but in this case, it was well-deserved. She'd sent his ass right into a shit storm without an umbrella and now she was putting him in a sleeping bag that even a homeless guy would've dumped.
"The fuck?!" Clarisse rocketed to her feet.
"I was that pilot!" Percy pointed to himself, "You sent me right into the middle of the shit! Were you trying to get me killed?!"
"We didn't know!" She yelled back.
By now, everyone in the quarantine building was looking over at them as they argued. Even the guards at the door stood there, their jaws stiff as they watched their commanding officer argue with who they assumed to be just another leech.
"Bull fucking shit!" Percy dismissed, "You could've sent me further south. I don't know what the hell your problem is with me but damn it, I am not the one, you understand?!"
"Listen here," She grabbed his shirt, "Just because you're a pilot doesn't mean you have the right to anything here, I could have you arrested for putting your hands on me. You're lucky I haven't shot your ass yet." She pushed him towards his sleeping bag, "I hope you hate your stay, fucker!"
"Yeah, fuck you too!" He yelled at her retreating back.
Percy sighed as he sat down on his sleeping bag, he just wanted to get out of here already. He hadn't even been in the camp for more than a day and he wanted out. This wasn't a safe zone, it was a prison. He knew Chiron was too nice, he wondered if Annabeth had anything to do with this. He imagined they were probably laughing in the fortress about him being crammed into a building with a couple dozen other people.
Then to make things worse, his stomach started rumbling. Not only did he feel like crap, now he was hungry. He almost started praying for a way out, maybe they'd need a pilot or something and he could volunteer.
One of the guards at the door walked over to him. He braced himself for the news that he was going to be executed for punching Clarisse or something stupid like that. His luck wasn't exactly the best so he wouldn't be surprised.
"Man, I haven't seen anyone do that to Clarisse in a long time." The guard said with a crooked smile, "What's your name, dude?"
"Percy."
"Travis Stoll." The guard held his hand out, "I had no idea you were the pilot she sent to New York."
Percy shook his hand, "You knew?"
"Dude, I was in the control tower with her." He said, "And to be fair, she really didn't know. We lost radio communications with command when the zombies started attacking the base."
"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter now. She's definitely going to do something now that I've hit her." He said.
Travis shrugged, "I wouldn't sweat it, she isn't that easy to set off." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Snickers bar, "Here, this'll make you feel better."
Percy took the bar begrudgingly, "Thanks."
Travis smiled at him, "Mess call is at seven, don't be late."