Title: Mystery of Faith
Rating: M/R - one specific trigger scene of gore
Word Count: 7,936
Characters: Annabeth, Percy (background beside the point Percy/Annabeth) and uh... children.
Summary: What was once a routine pick up turns ugly as Percy and Annabeth stumble into territory where they're not wanted. Crossover with Stephen King's story Children of the Corn.
A/N: After taking a break last year, it's time for my annual Halloween fic! This is the second most messed up thing I've ever written. Based on the short story in Night Shift (NOT the movie), but doesn't really require a knowledge of the source (the premise is pretty obvious from the get-go) but if you have a knowledge of the source, you might appreciate it that much more.
All descriptions of gore are taken directly from King's canon - actually, I've toned it down a bit, from what he's described, lol.
It was in the afternoon when the long stretches of farmland shifted entirely to corn. Percy and Annabeth had left the interstate early that morning, and Percy had been whining steadily since before lunch.
"Come on Annabeth, you must be tired. We only stopped for a couple of hours last night." Percy's leg was jiggling as he turned his head to look at her, his eyes big and pleading. "You should take a break and let me drive."
"Chiron said no," Annabeth responded easily, checking her mirrors. It was rather pointless – they were alone on the road, and had been for some time. She hadn't passed anybody since they'd left the interstate and headed north.
"You've been driving the entire time," Percy complained. "It is so unfair that Chiron only let's you and Argus drive the camp van."
"It's not my fault I'm the only camper he trusts with the van," Annabeth insisted. "Besides, it's not like he hasn't let you before." She slid a look at him out of the corner of her eye as she said this, and Percy slumped in his seat.
"It's not fair," he said, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. "I didn't know Blackjack treated cars like landing pads. When he did it to Paul's Prius I blamed Beckendorf."
"That's not all you've done to the van, Percy," Annabeth pointed out, a smile twitching across her face. Percy was glad to see it; she'd been serious and thoughtful for the majority of the trip, when they weren't arguing over punch buggy and traffic and the sleeping arrangements.
"None of that was my fault!" he protested. "Besides, you're hardly a better driver than I am, and you're the only other camper he lets take the van."
"I'm a great driver," Annabeth snapped, keeping her eyes on the road. Percy recognized the tone – it was her "I'm not arguing about this" tone, but Percy couldn't help needling her. The trip had been so long and boring, and this was the most fun he'd had since they left camp.
"You're going almost thirty past the speed limit!" he pointed out, his tone still whining.
"Speed is not necessarily a measurement of safety!" Annabeth argued. "There's nobody around us, and there hasn't been for miles, in case you haven't noticed."
Percy frowned. "Yeah, that's weird. But that's not the point! The point, Annabeth, is that I'm invulnerable! I shouldn't be afraid for my life every time I get into a car with you!"
Annabeth rolled her eyes. The car swerved slightly as she did so, and Percy eyed the road warily. The corn was butting right up against the shoulder. There would barely be enough space for anyone who was driving in the opposite direction to pass them. Annabeth didn't have much breathing room. "Well, if somebody's very existence didn't upset the lord god of air, maybe we could have flown like normal people to pick this kid up."
Percy's frown persisted. "You're friends with him. Can't you talk to him?" He'd given up all hope of Poseidon putting in a good word with him – Percy had a sense that it was a touchy subject that was rarely addressed among the gods, but Annabeth had complained before that the gods were more than a little interested in their relationship. Why hadn't she tried to convince Zeus to lift this ridiculous flying ban?
"I work for him," Annabeth corrected. "That hardly counts as being friends with him."
Percy made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, but made no comment, going back to watching the rows of corn pass. His forehead hit the window with a dull thunk; somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if Nebraska grew any crop other than corn. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen anything else, and it appeared to stretch in every direction, all the way to the horizon.
Road trips were boring, particularly road trips with your gorgeous girlfriend that had featured way less fooling around and way more actually taking this seriously than the situation seemed to promise. And Nebraska had absolutely nothing to look at once they had gotten away from the highway and the city. Percy wondered if Mist even existed out here – there didn't appear to be much that really needed covering up. Monsters seemed as uninterested as Mt. Olympus in the vast farmlands of Nebraska.
Mostly uninterested, anyway – at least one god had found a mortal to keep them busy, the result of which was responsible for Percy and Annabeth's road trip. The call had come from a satyr travelling through the area earlier in the week, and not long after Chiron had personally and discreetly asked Percy and Annabeth to drive out and retrieve him. He hadn't had much information on the kid; only that it was a younger boy, currently living in the middle of the Nebraska farmland.
Percy couldn't help wondering what god's attention had been caught in Nebraska. "Whose kid do you think we're picking up?" he asked Annabeth, his head lolling across the headrest lazily to look at her. It had become something of a game over at camp; even since he'd imposed the age thirteen rule for claiming demigods, most of the kids took fun in posting bets on kid's various parentage until the god actually claimed them.
Annabeth frowned thoughtfully. "I think it must be a big one," she finally said, her eyes still trained on the road. Her shoulders were slightly rigid.
"What?" Percy couldn't help sitting up taller, curious about Annabeth's declaration. "Why do you think that?"
There really wasn't any reason for him to care – he was the one who'd sworn Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades off of their "no offspring" oath after the Battle of Manhattan. However, in the years since the battle there had not yet been born a new child of the Big Three – as far as he knew, anyway. He, Nico, and Thalia were the only three to have been claimed, and Annabeth had a direct connection to the Olympus Gossip Vine. There hadn't even been a whisper about another child.
"They would have to be little," Percy mused when Annabeth didn't respond immediately. "Or else somebody broke the oath again before it was lifted."
Annabeth shot him a look, the one that indicated she wasn't impressed with his line of thinking. Out of the corner of his eye, Percy could see the empty road zooming underneath them. There was nothing but grey, blue and green surrounding them, all the way to the horizon. "Age has nothing to do with it Percy. Just think about it. Don't you think it's weird that Chiron decided to send me and you alone for this? Has he ever sent just the two of us to pick up a new kid?"
"Never," Percy confirmed. It was one of the reasons he'd been so elated when Chiron had given them this mission in the first place; they were never chosen for quests anymore because they were considered old pros at this point, they were never sent on pick ups together, and there was absolutely no privacy at camp. This was the most time he'd spent alone with Annabeth in months.
Annabeth shook her head. "Chiron likes to use these pick ups to get inexperienced kids out of camp and into the real world. Usually it's me and a younger kid, or you and a younger kid." It was true; not everyone could get chosen for a quest. Finding new demigods gave a lot of kids who otherwise would never leave camp the chance to get out for a little while. "This time he's sending his two best fighters. Doesn't that seem weird to you?"
Percy scratched his head. "I guess it does," he said quietly, his hand automatically drifting to his pocket to check for Riptide. He couldn't account for the sudden feeling of apprehension, but he found Annabeth's thoughts almost ominous. Or maybe he was just that bored.
"I don't know," Annabeth shrugged, and Percy could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard Annabeth utter that phrase in their shared life. "I really just want to get this kid with as little fuss as possible and head back." She gave Percy an uneasy sidelong glance. "You haven't had any weird dreams lately, have you?"
Percy shook his head, "Nothing interesting," he answered, a little bit too quickly. Meaning nothing he particularly wanted to share with Annabeth; too often, dreams that weren't demigod related were about her. "Where is this kid anyway?" he asked, wanting to change the subject. "Are we close?"
Annabeth reached out and pressed a button on the GPS. They hadn't used it much, coming out of the city, because they were both afraid it might attract trouble – a device that announces the locations of demigods? – but as they'd reached the plains states Annabeth had yet to turn it off. Percy didn't really think it was necessary, as they'd made a grand total of two turns since they'd entered Nebraska, but he wasn't going to argue with her, seeing as his opinions as a navigator had been unwelcome since they'd been driving through the Amish countryside of Pennsylvania. "It's a town called Gatlin. That's where the message from Rufus was tracked to. We should be there within the hour."
"I can't wait to see something other than corn," Percy remarked, settling back into his seat and closing his eyes, trying to calm his nerves. "Are you going to IM Rufus once we're there?"
Annabeth nodded. "Yeah, if he's still there. Chiron said he hadn't heard from him since the initial report."
"Huh." It was unusual for a satyr to move on before a kid was picked up, especially someone like Rufus who had a lot of experience with younger kids. If he'd been in a hurry to get somewhere and only stumbled on the kid by accident though, it didn't seem like there was a lot in the area to threaten him. Maybe the satyr had continued on. "I guess we'll see."
Their arrival into Gatlin was marked by the GPS chirping, "You have arrived at your destination." As far as Percy could tell, they hadn't arrived anywhere – all he could see was corn, more corn, and a little ways off in the distance, a radio tower.
Annabeth slowed the van down, but didn't brake. "This can't be right."
"This is weird," Percy agreed. "There's nothing here. I didn't even see a sign." All he could see was… corn. Although – he craned his head up to confirm – he could barely make out a break in the rows up ahead. "Keep driving," he told her, trying to ignore how alarmed he felt.
Annabeth wrinkled her nose and kept driving, the car almost creeping down the road. "This place is off," she complained, and Percy couldn't blame her for being uneasy. They'd been caught too many times, in too many situations, and knew by now to listen to their instincts. Neither one of them could smell monsters the way a satyr could, but both of them could tell when something was waiting for them.
"We could turn back," Percy suggested cautiously.
Annabeth shook her head. "Not yet. Let's see if we can find anybody – I don't like it if there's a kid trapped here. And we can try to find a water source to IM Rufus."
There was a sudden break in the line of corn against the side of the road, and Annabeth slowed all the way to a stop as they both turned their heads to study what was the closest they'd come to a sign of life in hours.
It was the dilapidated remains of a gas station, the windows knocked out and the roof caved in. At some point, a storm – or something else, Percy couldn't help thinking – had knocked over the tall sign announcing the prices. The pumps were rusting, but Percy could see they were the old, old kind, with rotating numbers on the face of the pump as opposed to digital ones that he'd seen everywhere else. Corn grew right along the edge of the property, as close as it could get without actually sprouting within the building itself, and narrowed up against the road again, leaving no shoulder for somebody who wanted to pull over.
Which was just as well, seeing as –
"What do you think went first?" Annabeth asked. "The gas, or the cars?" Her eyebrows were pulled low, like she was trying to put together the puzzle. Percy didn't answer her, but he knew they were both thinking the same thing: the damage was too advanced and too old to determine if it had been done on purpose or simply left to rot.
His gaze turned forward, down the road. "How about the power?" he asked, leaning in the seat to squint at what he thought he was seeing.
Annabeth took her foot off the brake, the van lurching ahead once again. "That's a traffic light," she remarked, sounding exactly as confused as Percy felt at the sight of the power line strewn across the road, the old traffic light lying on its side in the middle of the intersection. "If there's no power," she asked, and Percy could tell by her tone that she was mostly talking to herself, "Is there even running water? We need to talk to somebody. This is too weird."
She carefully edged her way through the intersection. As they passed through, Percy could see that the road extending opposite of them turned to dirt and then more corn within a few hundred yards. As it was, the road they were on – obviously once the main drag through town – was pocked and potholed, any paint that once marked it long worn away.
The road widened as they rolled into town, and occasionally there would be a turn, a road that led away into what had once been neighborhoods, judging by the remains of the houses that still stood. There wasn't much left – mostly the foundation, sometimes roofing tiles, or some other piece of domestic flotsam and jetsam, like a porch swing, or a spindly grill – but it was enough to make Percy realize that not only was this town abandoned, it was completely empty and forgotten. Everywhere that there wasn't wreckage, there was more corn, fighting an aggressive war against the lawns and former streets, creeping in wherever asphalt had broken away.
"I don't think we're going to find a kid here," he finally said cautiously. "Do you really think anybody could live here?"
Annabeth grimaced, and Percy could practically see the mental battle she was fighting with herself. "I don't think so," she admitted, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles had gone white. "But what if it's a kid who ran away and is just hiding here?"
She didn't sound very confident as she said it, and Percy knew why – if that had been the case Rufus would be standing here, waiting for them. Or he would have escorted the kid somewhere safe and had arranged to meet up. For Rufus to be missing in action after giving them directions to a town like this didn't bode well, and both Percy and Annabeth could feel the tension starting to fog up the air.
Percy knew exactly why Annabeth was pressing on despite their better judgment, had figured it out the moment she wondered out loud about a runaway – it was because she suspected it was a kid just like her, someone who was trying to hide. "I don't know if we're going to find anyone here," he said carefully. "What would he even live on anyway? Corn?"
"You make do," Annabeth replied in a hazy, far away voice.
Percy didn't have a reply to that; he had a hard time finding appropriate words when Annabeth talked that way. When she spoke again, her voice was much clearer: "We'll only stay long enough to scout and call somebody," she finally said. "I don't really like it here. You get the feeling we're being watched?"
Percy understood the sensation she was talking about – you tended to indentify it quickly, being stalked by monsters all your life. "A little," he admitted, his eyes sweeping over the crumbling facades of the former storefronts. They'd clearly left behind the residential part of Gatlin and were heading into the center of town. "But come on," he added, unable to resist going for the joke, "Can you blame them? We have to be more interesting than corn."
Annabeth flashed him only the ghost of a grin, her face still serious. "Look," she said, pointing over the steering wheel.
They'd reached the center of town, an area that had clearly been meant to serve as the social hub, judging by the old shops and flower beds now growing wild around it. Their condition was similar to the gas station and houses around the edge of town – the windows were long gone, as were most doors, though there still occasionally hung an unlit and lonely –WARE, announcing the store's identity in another life. In the center of it all sat a peeling and rusted out basin – a fountain, once upon a time.
"Can you get anything out of it?" Annabeth asked, slowing the van to a halt.
"Let's see," he replied, taking Riptide in hand and sliding out of the van.
He could feel it instantly – there was water, old and stagnant, just waiting under their feet. Percy concentrated for just a moment before it burst forth and with the right twist of his hands, he had it separated out into a spray, a rainbow shimmering in the sun.
Annabeth flipped a drachma, "Oh goddess, accept my offering. Show me Rufus Fife."
As soon as she said it, Percy's ears perked. He whipped his head around, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. For just a moment he thought he'd heard –
"Percy!" Annabeth snapped. "Keep still! The picture's already fuzzy!"
"Sorry," he responded, adjusting his hands. "What's he doing? Did you get him?"
"It's not a great picture," she said quietly, leaning forward. "All I can really see is corn…"
"So do you think he's still in the area?" Percy asked, his hopes rising.
He never heard her response; as soon as she glanced over at him Percy heard it again. He could have sworn it was the sound of children laughing…
"Annabeth move!" It happened in an instant. Percy had craned his head around, looking for something that his gut was telling him to look out for, and in a heartbeat he'd reached out, grabbed Annabeth by the arm, and pulled her firmly away from the path of the blade flying through the air.
It blew through the rainbow as it dissolved and struck the front tire of the van, the handle gleaming pinpoint bright in the sun.
Annabeth folded herself against Percy's back, her dagger out and ready to go. "Where did that even come from?" she asked, her voice shaky.
Percy didn't respond. His entire body was pulled taut, ready to attack. Riptide was stone still in his hands. "From that direction," he responded, pointing down one of the streets that turned neatly away. From what he could tell, it was the only street that no longer had corn growing at the end of it. "Are you okay? Did it hit you?"
"I'm fine," Annabeth answered absently, her tone distant as she scanned for danger. It seemed that whoever had assaulted them had retreated just as quickly, and after a few minutes of just waiting for something to happen, she said slowly, "We should go after them."
Percy looked back at the van, now listing forward with the flat tire. "One of us should change the tire."
"We shouldn't split up," Annabeth shook her head violently. "I don't think that's a good idea. We both go, or we both stay."
They looked at each other for a long minute; they'd been partners for so long that they could have entire conversations in a glance.
Finally Percy caved. "Do you even know how to change a tire?"
It took them a full five minutes to read the signboard outside of the church. In all fairness, at first they were too busy gawking at the church to really bother reading the sign.
This was where that narrow lane had led from the center of town. It was small and squat, with a short steeple, but clean and obviously well maintained. The signboard butting up against the sidewalk spelled out the name of the church in shiny white letters, which Annabeth slowly read out loud:
"The Power and Grace of He Who Walks Behind the Rows." She blinked, tilting her head as she considered this information. She glanced at Percy, looking for his reaction, but all he gave her was a one shouldered shrug. Neither one of them really knew anything about churches; Annabeth had remarked once that her stepmother had dragged her father to church every Sunday, but had never attempted to make her go as well. "Behind the rows? What does that… ?"
Her eyes scanned over the crop of corn that was invading what used to be the front lawn of the church. "You don't think…?"
"The only thing I think is that this place is creepy, Annabeth," Percy informed her, his posture tense as he kept a lookout. It was rare for Annabeth to get so caught up in thinking that she missed something, but Percy wasn't about to take the risk. "And there's something here, but I'm not sure it's a kid."
She took a few cautious steps towards the door of the church, stopping once to scratch her head. "You don't think somehow we've missed an entire colony of kids out here, do you Percy?"
"A colony? Of what, halfbloods?" Percy couldn't help snorting in disbelief. "The monsters would be all over them. Half of Tartarus would have tipped us off, I think."
Annabeth's eyes were distant, focusing somewhere far away within the corn. "Yeah. You're right. I guess so."
And then she turned away from him, walking up the flagstone path so lightly Percy barely heard her footsteps. He glanced around, and then called, "Hey, are we going in there?"
"Yes," Annabeth replied firmly. "It's the only building in town that looks like it's used. It has to have some answers."
"You don't even know who's in there -!" Percy started to protest, but Annabeth cut him off, wheeling around to look at him while she slipped her Yankees cap out of her pocket.
"I'll only go in for a few minutes," she replied, and someday, honestly, Percy was going to get used to the sound of Annabeth's voice coming from thin air. "You stay out here and keep watch."
With those words she slipped through the door, so quietly he didn't even hear it creak. Percy strained his ears, listening for the sounds of people talking, screaming, or even the laughter he'd heard earlier, but all he heard was the sound of the wind rustling the corn around him.
For some reason, his heart was racing. This whole place was off, there was something seriously wrong here, and Percy knew without a doubt that this church was at the center of it. It seemed so innocuous, standing against the sprawling miles of crop, but the longer he waited for Annabeth to come back out, the more nervous he felt when nothing happened.
He spent a few minutes jiggling his leg and turning Riptide over and over in his hand like a rotisserie chicken before he caved and carefully – sword out, arms straight – pushed open the door, giving himself a wide berth to duck away if someone came flying out at him.
There was nothing, however. Inside was a dry and dark vestibule, the only light filtering through coming from the windows planted into the door. Percy looked around, ears straining, and then finally stepped up and through the doorway that lead into the main chapel.
It was lighter here, at least, light of different colors as it passed through the stained glass windows on either side of the aisles. Rows and rows of empty wooden pews stretched out before him, broken only by the organ tucked into the front corner of the room, and the walkway that led up to the front altar.
Percy's jaw dropped. Granted, he'd never been into a church before, didn't have much experience with organized religion, but he was almost positive that most churches didn't have an enormous mural painted onto the back wall; the subject of the mural had a wide set, demented stare, and twisted yellow cor sheaths making up his hair. It stretched from the floor to the ceiling. He knew the muses could inspire some wild things – Purple Haze came to mind – but he was pretty sure that this was too much even for them.
"Percy," Annabeth's voice came from the altar, her body still hidden by the invisibility cap. He approached her slowly, skipping over the three or four steps that led to the pulpit and striding up next to her. "Look at this."
She had a book in her hands, and swept her cap off anxiously as she showed it to him. Percy glanced down, his eyes nearly going crossed at the tiny, printed text:
Ben Richardson, b. Mar. 19th, 1990 Mar. 19th, 2008
Jesse Tobin, b. Apr. 1st, 1990 Apr. 1st, 2008
Tabitha Wells, b. Apr. 30, 1990 Apr. 30th, 2008
"What is this?" Percy asked, confused, his eyes straining to keep the words ordered correctly. Flipping through the pages showed dates up through the last couple of months.
"Eighteen, Percy," Annabeth hissed, her eyes glowing. "Have you noticed that none of them are older than eighteen?"
"What happens when they turn eightee-" Percy started to ask, but before he could even get the question out the front door opened; a long stretch of light spread across the floor, and with it the shapes of three people.
Percy and Annabeth both looked up: it was a pair of boys, the smaller no younger than eight and the elder no more than thirteen. For a moment they all stared at each other, and then the older boy's eyes lit up, and he reached to his side to pull out a large knife, the long, curved kind the hunters of Artemis used. Percy had Riptide back out in a heartbeat; Annabeth unsheathed her dagger and stepped in front of him.
"Sinners!" he cried, and it was almost casual, the way he strode to meet them, his eyes wide and angry, his pupils dilated in excitement. "You dare to step onto the blessed ground of He Who Walks Behind the Rows? You are an atrocity in the eyes of the Lord –"
He lifted his blade, but Percy wasn't worried. He was used to teaching the younger kids at camp how to spar, and he could spot someone who wasn't used to holding a sword from a thousand paces. This kid had never raised that knife in a fight before, probably only used it for hunting, and just as he was about to bring the knife down Percy shouldered Annabeth to the side, thrusting Riptide forward to block the blow.
It was with total surprise that the blade fell, going directly though Riptide to slam into Percy's wrists. If he hadn't been invulnerable, his hands might have been severed, or at least severely injured. He let out a shout of surprise, dropping his sword and falling back. Annabeth yelpedl, and as the kid, smiling devilishly, took another step forward to strike again, a loud voice boomed over the din.
"Stop, Ephraim. He has sent me a vision about these two."
The boy dropped back so quickly he might have been burned. His jaw hung open in disbelief. "You saw them Elijah? What did He say? Tell me!"
Riptide returned to Percy's pocket; he had it back out before it could even settle. Annabeth's eyes were darting back and forth between him and the kids. Vaguely, outside, Percy heard the noises of more people talking – not just talking, chattering, shouting in excitement. It sounded like there were a lot of them.
"I saw them," the youngest boy said quietly. "I saw them. The man is untouchable. The Row Walker will find his vulnerability. We can't touch him."
Percy felt his heart drop; a complete stranger knew about his Styx invulnerability? And more than that – his vulnerable spot?
"The woman though –" And here Elijah turned his head and looked at Annabeth, his face solemn. "The woman is to be sacrificed like all the others. She is charged to us."
"Wait just a minute –" Annabeth started to interject, but Percy grabbed her by the scruff of her t-shirt, pulled her back towards the aisle, away from the creepy children talking about sacrifices and vulnerabilities.
"Annabeth, run." She kept step with him as they ran up the aisle and burst through the vestibule, blinking wildly in the sudden influx of sunlight.
It took them almost ten seconds to realize that they were being watched. At the end of the flagstaff walk stood a group of children – and Zeus help them, he'd been right, there were a lot of them – children, as young as seven and eight and as old as fifteen, sixteen, all holding large, ugly looking blades and scythes.
"Elijah was right," The leader of the pack, a boy of maybe seventeen with hair so pale it was almost white and wearing nothing more than a simple tunic and canvas slacks, stepped toward them. "The abomination was a sign from the Lord. The woman is our sacrifice. Leave the man to He Who Walks Behind the Rows."
"This isn't Greek, Percy." Annabeth said in a hollow, shocked tone. Percy had Riptide out, but he had a sinking feeling it was worthless; it wouldn't work against mortals. "This isn't Greek."
They charged, and Annabeth grabbed Percy by the arm, shoving him bodily to the side. "Our weapons are useless; we have to get out of here."
Her hand slipped into his, and Percy took off, practically diving into the surrounding corn. It grew so thick and so close together that Percy could barely make a path. Behind him, he could hear Annabeth panting, and the excited shouts of the children chasing them.
This isn't a game to them, Percy realized, his world a blur of green and yellow as he ran. This is real. This is their sacrifice to somebody.
They seemed to have broken up, trying to encircle them on either side. Percy could hear the creaking of the corn swaying as they pushed through and the directions they were calling to one another. Above him there was nothing but blue sky; he had no idea where or even what direction he was running in.
"We need to lose them," Annabeth huffed, still keeping pace with him. "We need to lose them and get back to the van."
"We need to call somebody," Percy shot back at her, daring to glance behind. Was that a scythe bobbing over the corn stalks?
"But – we've never –" Percy knew what she meant – he'd sort of been thinking it too – not even during the darkest moments of their quests together had they considered calling for help from camp. This, however – nothing like this had ever happened on a quest before. That kid's knife had gone through Riptide. Percy felt naked without his blade.
It only took Annabeth a minute to arrive at the same conclusion. "Water, Percy. We need to find water."
Water – there was water all around them, in the same way there was oxygen in the air. Percy could feel it under his feet and in the veins of the corn stalks, pulsing like a living thing. It had to come from somewhere though – the ground was too well nourished to rely just on rain.
"Come on," Percy called, and cut to the right. They were ahead of the kids now, the kids he could still hear hollering and banging their weapons some yards behind them. They had enough of a lead, if they could just keep their advantage, running through the corn –
They ran for maybe ten minutes, but each step felt like a mile to Percy. It had been an old well once, back when the land had actually belonged to somebody who'd tried to farm it, someone who'd been responsible for its care at one point – before it took care of itself.
He pulled up, tugging Annabeth close to him. He wasn't sure which part of their shouts had unnerved him more – the talk of his vulnerability, or the talk of sacrificing Annabeth to somebody. "Got a drachma?" he asked, before looking at her face and doing a double take.
They were both sweating, and covered in cornsilk and spider webs, but Percy's invulnerability had shielded him from any sort of injury – Annabeth had been cut by the leaves as they'd run, and now she had bright red lines across her face, down her neck, and around her arms. "Are you okay?" he blurted, reaching out to touch one gingerly.
Annabeth shrugged away, reaching into her pocket. "It's fine. They're just scratches," she insisted. "Get the water so we can get a hold of somebody," she ordered, looking around anxiously. "Who knows how long until they catch up."
The water he pulled from the well was old and sludgy, dark brown with a smell that Percy thought for sure would end up alerting their pursuers to their location. But it still created a spray; separating the water out from the slime created the rainbow, and Percy strained his ears listening for anyone coming close as Annabeth stepped forward and made her offering. "Show me Chiron, at the Big House."
It was a disturbingly long time before Percy heard anyone speak again, and his heart fell when he heard a voice that was definitely not Chiron's ask, "Hello? Hey – what are you doing?"
"Nico!" Annabeth exclaimed, and if they hadn't been in life-threatening danger Percy might have smiled; somehow Annabeth had an exasperated way of saying Nico's name whether he was interrupting their make-out sessions or answering an iris message meant for Chiron. "What are you doing there? Where's Chiron?"
"I'm playing X-Box with Rachel," Nico replied, as if it were obvious. "Chiron's – hey. Are you okay? Your face is all cut up."
"Annabeth," Percy said in a warning tone. There were voices on the wind, coming from the west where the sun was starting to lower towards the horizon. "We don't have much time."
"Tell Chiron – I think we stumbled onto someone else's territory." Annabeth said urgently. "We're definitely in trouble."
There was the sound of corn groaning and cracking, and then a girl – her hair in a long braid, wearing a dress with slacks peeking out from underneath – broke through. A scout, Percy thought wildly, judging by the widening of her eyes and the smile that rose up behind it. She lifted her chin, pointing her face towards the air, and let out a whoop. There were answering calls, and Percy dropped the water and reached for Annabeth again, but she was already moving; clipping him as she tried to force him back into the corn.
"Not that way," Percy called – they were pointing towards the west, to where he'd heard the shouts coming from before.
Annabeth curved east easily, and Percy followed. He kept his eyes trained on her – until he looked behind once, to see if they were still being chased, if that girl was close. When his head swiveled around again, Annabeth was gone.
He pulled up, his heart hammering in his chest. "Annabeth?" he called hoarsely, half afraid of tipping anyone off to his location but equally terrified of being separated from his partner. Backtracking a few steps, he tried to look for broken corn, thinking maybe she had veered in a different direction when he'd looked back, but there was nothing. The corn stood straight and tall, and there wasn't a single broken stalk – not even in the direction they had both come from. Fear crept into his heart. "Annabeth!"
It was getting dark; Percy pressed on, trying to head away from the setting sun despite the fact that time and time again he found himself facing it, burning red as it fell in the cloudless sky. It was sometime before he thought that he might have lost them, that he might be safe now. He hadn't heard anything but the rustling of the corn for quite a while. He was surrounded by darkness; what light was left by the sun couldn't penetrate far enough for him to even see his hand in front of his face. He needed to find Annabeth. He needed to get back to the road and try to sneak back into town to get the van, if there was anything left of it. He needed to get a message to someone. He needed to find water and a drachma. He needed a weapon that wasn't made of celestial bronze.
He needed to stop heading west, in the direction of that judgmental sun, burning at him as though it were watching him. That's Apollo in his chariot, Percy thought to himself, but the thought was hollow and fake, a lie parents tell their children to soothe their night terrors. There's no monster under the bed. That's the sun god, not a silent hourglass. Once the sun was down it would be pitch black. He'd be stumbling blindly through the crop.
These giddy, slightly hysterical thoughts were racing through his mind when he heard it – one of the most chilling noises he'd ever heard in his life. It was the sound of Annabeth screaming - not just I'm alarmed shrieking, or I'm injured groaning, but completely hysterical screaming at the top of her lungs.
Percy took off, calling her name. She wasn't far, judging by the volume of her cries, and Percy couldn't help noticing that he was running due west, directly towards the sun half-covered by the horizon. The corn seemed to part for him; where there was once nothing but stalks growing so closely he could barely find footing, now there was a neat row for him to sprint through.
He broke through the last row and pulled up short, almost alarmed at finding himself no longer surrounded so closely he could barely breathe. He'd stumbled into a clearing, a large, round space filled with hard, packed earth. He looked around frantically for Annabeth, and found her crouched at the edge of the field, still screaming, her hands slapped over her eyes.
"Annabeth!" he called, going to her and grabbing her by the shoulders. She shrieked and tried to pull away. "Annabeth, it's me!"
"Oh gods," she moaned, tossing her head and clawing at her eyes as he tried to grab her wrists and wrench them away from her face. "Oh gods, Rufus, oh gods."
"Rufus? What?" Annabeth finally looked at him, her eyes huge and panicked. They were red-rimmed, her face wet with tears. Her skin was clammy and cool, so pale Percy thought she might faint.
"Did you see?" she asked, no longer trying to pull away, now reaching for him, wringing her fingers in his shirt. "Did you see what they did to him? This isn't Greek. Where are we?"
"Annabeth, what are you –" He'd been about to ask what exactly she was going on about – she didn't appear to be injured, and he couldn't figure out what they'd done to her. He'd been so focused on her and if she was okay that he hadn't taken everything in, hadn't actually seen what had happened.
Slowly he looked around, and felt his stomach shrivel up; his mouth was dry, and he knew if there had been anything in his stomach he might have vomited.
Crude crosses had been erected in a curving line through the clearing and from those crosses hung –gods, Annabeth was right. Where were they?
There were six in total; two held skeletons, had been there for so long that not a trace remained of the original bodies. Another one – a woman, Percy could tell by what clothing remained – had been there for ages, judging by the fact that she was almost mummified. Two more men hung next to her, and Percy felt bile rise in his throat as he took in their modern dress – one of them was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt – and realized that they had been attacked almost recently.
But the worst – the worst was the last, because it was Rufus Fife strung up, held up with ordinary barbed wire like the rest of them, his eyes wide open in terror and his mouth stuffed with a cornhusk, like he'd gotten too excited at the thought of it and couldn't resist trying to eat it all in one bite.
They hadn't heard from him since his initial report, Percy remembered Annabeth remarking. He'd been captured and sacrificed, all because he had sensed that creepy little boy with the strange dreams and thought he was a demigod.
The abomination was a sign, the leader had said happily as he'd studied Annabeth and Percy outside that church. The abomination was a sign. A satyr with his goat's feet and horns on his head would be seen as an abomination to these children…
"Annabeth," when he spoke again, his voice was strangely calm and quiet. She was still shaking and crying against him, his arms tight around her shoulders. "Annabeth. I haven't heard anyone in a while. We need to get out of here, try to get back to the road. If we can't get back to the van, we need to get to the next town. There has to be one somewhere. We can call Chiron, or somebody. Blackjack, maybe."
"It's dark," Annabeth whimpered, and she was right. The sun had set on them in this place, while they tried to reconcile what they'd just seen. Just as Percy had feared, it was pitch black – he couldn't even see light from the moon, and the sky had been cloudless while the sun was setting."They won't come into the corn at night."
"What?" He pulled away from her, surprised at the tone of her voice, the matter-of-fact way she'd said it. "Are you okay? Did they do something to you?"
"Percy," she was practically whispering, and Percy hadn't seen her look so nakedly frightened since that time they were nearly overrun by mechanical spiders; she was the bravest person he knew. "You know gods coexist together. They have their own territories. This isn't Greek. We've trespassed on someone else's land."
"Then we need to get out of here," Percy responded firmly, taking her by the hand and trying to lead her back into the corn. There had to be a way out. The corn couldn't go on forever.
Annabeth didn't resist, but she didn't help either. They'd taken two steps back in when he heard it, his heart stopping. Annabeth's hand clenched around his.
"Oh gods," Annabeth whimpered trying to shove him forward. "Oh gods. Don't look. Percy, don't look."
"What?" he asked, looking back. He hadn't really been trying to see what she was talking about; he'd just wanted to see if she was okay. When he did so though, he saw it rising up against the darkness.
He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
Percy broke into a sprint, still clutching at Annabeth's hand, running so hard that he knew if he weren't invulnerable his lungs would be burning. He could hear Him behind them, walking through the corn as if it were parting just for Him, panting in the dark as He chased them down.
They couldn't run forever, Percy knew. He would catch them, eventually.
And the Row Walker would find his vulnerability.
He was going to die. He was going to die by the hand of some forsaken corn god in the middle of Nebraska, and Annabeth was going to be sacrificed to him and all he could try to do was pick up his feet and run as hard as he could –
The creaking and groaning of the corn stalks picked up, and it took Percy a few moments to realize that it wasn't just them. It wasn't until he ran directly into the skeleton, surrounded by comrades hacking and chopping at the corn, heard the pain-filled shrieking of the Row Walker behind him that Percy realized what was going on.
The skeletons were wearing Greek armor.
"Nico!" Percy shouted, but Annabeth kept pushing at him.
"Don't stop, don't stop," she urged. "He's right behind us,"
Percy just glanced over his shoulder, caught a glance of the glowing red eyes, and tugged Annabeth along after him once again. "Nico's here, he has to be,"
They weren't attacking the demon at all; they were only hacking away at the corn, but each slice must have been a world of agony for the Row Walker, judging by the way he screamed and recoiled.
When a pair of arms caught him by the shoulders, Percy's first instinct was to fight back; it wasn't until Nico had an arm around his neck that Percy realized exactly who had caught up with them.
"There you are," Nico breathed, clearly relieved. "Hold on tight,"
They were still surrounded by darkness, but Percy recognized this feeling, had been here before – Nico was shadow travelling, and taking them with him. It only lasted a minute, but he'd forgotten the swimmy, hazy feeling the shadow travel always left him with; they ended up back on the banks of the river boarding camp, and a wave of nausea overcame his immediate relief to be away from the terror in Nebraska.
Annabeth had never shadow travelled before; she stumbled to the nearest tree, bent over and heaved. A dryad popped her head out and glared at her, but shrunk away once she got a good look at Annabeth, who looked even worse in light than she had before; cut and bleeding, pale and unkempt. Her eyes were still wild when she wheeled around to look at Percy and Nico.
"What in Tartarus happened back there?" Nico demanded. "It took me forever to find you! Do know how big Nebraska is?"
Percy heard a conch shell call blaring across the fields – a centaur, signaling their return to camp. There was going to be a crowd down here in another minute or so.
"We trespassed on sacred ground," Annabeth murmured, and when she made eye contact Percy couldn't help stepping closer to her, wanting to keep her near. They'd wanted to sacrifice her to someone else's god. "Crossed into someone else's territory."
"In Nebraska?" Nico asked, incredulous. "What god lives in Nebraska? What about the kid. Wasn't there a kid? Did you pick him up?"
Annabeth shivered. "He's been claimed by another god," she said simply, and that was all she'd say until Chiron galloped into the clearing.
They both slept with the lights on that night; neither one could stand the thought of being in a darkened room while the new moon rose outside.
A/N: RSquared basically states outright in The Red Pyramid that the different pantheons of gods coexist in the world together; I wanted to write a fic where Percy and Annabeth stumbled into a world that wasn't ruled by the Greek gods. Also, Children of the Corn is fun.