Downtown appears deserted.

Like weirdly deserted.

Maybe more people got to safety before the outbreak got this far. This is mostly an island if you cut off the bridges. I remember my dad talking about that while we were waiting to see the direction of a hurricane one summer. I wouldn't want to stuck on an island with a zombie plague loose, people probably booked it to safer ground real fast and where there are no people, there can't be zombies. Right?

I wish Annabeth had been able to come with us. She'd know what to make of this eerie feeling that we're not alone, even though we are.

We smash around some convenience stores. Check in a couple of empty looking houses. The real jackpot is when we find canned food. It may be heavy, but it lasts forever. We pack it all into an old minivan that Travis was able to hotwire.

My theory starts to fall apart as we move into the more crowded downtown area, away from the apartments and historic looking houses. There we find cars left in the middle of the street. The streets are oddly absent of bodies, but I start to notice splashes of blood. Windows are boarded up. Doors are broken open.

So far, though, no zombies.

"One more stop," I say.

We run in a Publix supermarket, sweeping shelves full of medicine and food into shopping cars. There are signs of looting, but people seem to have gone for the high price items and not the practical ones. The beer is all gone, but the bottled water is still sitting on the shelves. I'll get the Stolls to hotwire another couple of vehicles and we can carpool back to the yacht.

"Of course I picked one with a sticky wheel," Thalia says as we leave the store. It rattles through the sliding doors, jerking wildly to the right as it hits the sidewalk. Thalia looks around. "Where are Luke and Frank?" she asks.

I scan the parking lot. There is no sign of our lookout.

"Guys? Not the time for pranks," I call. My insides feel heavy.

I hear Thalia snap a bolt into her crossbow.

A hulking man rises from behind one of the cars. He has short-cropped brown hair and more muscles than anybody has business possessing. Seriously, this dude makes the Governator look like a pipsqueak.

"That's far enough," he says, his voice booming across the parking lot. A couple dozen more figures rise from behind more cars. All of them rough and dirty. The variety of their weapons is not putting me at ease. "Gerry, why don't you show these lovely people what we found?"

Luke and Frank are hoisted to their feet. They're bound and gagged. It still takes several guys to hold onto them. Despite the guns aimed in their directions.

"So, we have your friends," the buff dude says. "Weapons down and give me one good reason why I shouldn't bash your heads in."

Thalia and I glance at each other.

"Um." What would Annabeth say? Annabeth probably wouldn't have been caught in this situation to start with. I wrack mybrain. "Why don't talk this through." I motion for the rest of my group to lower their weapons. Nobody looks happy about it, but Luke and Frank getting shot isn't a better option. Thalia goes into a relaxed position, her crossbow held in what is supposed to be a non-threatening manner.

"Way I see it," the buff dude says, "ya'll are trespassing. We've worked nice and hard to keep the corpses out of this zone."

"We can respect that," I say. "How about we just put all of this back in the store and you let me and my friends go."

"Not good enough," he says. "What's to keep you from coming back with more people?"

Really? We're running into that again?

Next to me, Thalia shifts. We're in no position for a showdown. They've got our only guy with a gun. And while supermarkets are great places to go if you want to make spaghetti, they are severely lacking in the departments of ammo and cover.

"There's got to be some deal we can make," Thalia says. "Just let us get back to our boat and we'll..."

"You have a boat?" he asks.

Crap.

His eyes narrow, taking us all in.

"Alright, weapons on the ground," he says. "Ya'll are going to take us to this boat."

When we don't immediately respond, there's a gunshot and one of the large windows behind me shatters. I crouch, putting Riptide down on the ground. There are clanks behind me as more weapons go down to the ground.

"Okay, now come out this way, hands where I can see them."

Nobody moves. Finally, wanting to avoid more motivational gunshots, I step out from under the awning. Heat reflects off the pavement, I can feel it baking my legs as I walk forward. Behind me, my friends follow one by one.

"Arachne, that one is yours," he says, gesturing to me. A woman with stringy black hair and a pinched face falls into step behind me. There's a round point of pressure on my back.

"I'm not afraid to use this," she says. Her voice is raspy, like she's one of those pack a day smokers. "Lead the way, pretty boy."

They leave everything. Our supplies, our weapons, our ride. They don't seem like the kind of people to want replica Greco-Roman weapons. Not with the kind of fire power they have.

It's a good twenty minute walk from the shopping center back to the yacht club. I spend the whole walk wishing I was Annabeth. She would be able to figure out a way out of this, but all I can see are the guns pointed at my friends. My heart is hammering behind my ribs. My brain is trying to work at a million miles a minute.

Behind me, I can hear Clarisse chatting up the buff guy. From what I can tell, she's trying to convince him to let her and her friends join him. His name,apparently, is Hercules.

Standing at the door to the yacht club, Calypso is the one who spots us. Grinning and waving, she turns to shout behind her, "They're back."

She takes three steps forward before she sees the goons with the guns. Calypso bolts for the door, running smack into Annabeth who has made her halting progress to the outside. They hit the floor and roll, disappearing as the door closes.

"Do they have weapons?" Hercules asks.

"Yeah," I say.

"Kid, we're not interested in hurting you or your little friends. So you walk up there and convince them to come out so we can keep an eye on them while we get situated on this boat of yours." He shoves my shoulder. Then he points behind him. "See that guy, right there?" Said 'guy' is holding a rifle. "That's Austin. He could shoot out eyeball at twice this distance. Any funny business, there'll be a bullet through the back of your skull."

Hands in the air I walk forward. Hoping, hoping, hoping that my friends will not open that door. But it does open and out comes Jason. He has his sword in one hand, not that it will do him much good.

"Percy," he says.

"Jason," I reply. "They," I wave at the group behind me, "want us all out here. No weapons."

Jason takes in all of the adults clustered behind me.

"Percy?"

I look him in the eye "Do what you have to, man."

He disappears back inside the building. We wait for several long minutes for the others to come out of the building. First Jason, his hands in the air. Calypso. Juniper. Annabeth. She looks better than she looked this morning. She's on her own two feet, at least. Piper hovers behind her. They line up in front of the door.

"That's good," Hercules says. He motions for the rest of us to join them.

I slide into the line, right next to Piper. "Where's Leo?" I ask, keeping my voice low. She just shakes her head. I scan over the group one more time, nope, no Leo. He's probably still on the boat. I glance over Piper at Annabeth and mouth, "Leo." Maybe she can do something with that. She looks beat. Sweaty hair sticks to her neck, there are deep circle under her eyes and she's pale, really pale. Almost as white as the railing she leans against. I elbow Piper and look meaningfully at Annabeth.

"Hey," Piper says, putting an arm around Annabeth's waist. Annabeth sags against her.

I wish there was something I could do. This has got to be killing her. No, not killing her. I know what that looks like now, but it has to eating at her to feel so weak.

"Now, which one of you knows how to operate this boat?" Hercules paces in front of us, his gun held casually in front of him. He's not aiming for our heads. If he shoots, the unlucky victim will get a gut full of bullets.

I don't think twice. I step in front of the line.

"I do." A hand catches at the back of my shirt. I don't have to turn to know that Annabeth is shaking her head at me, but the only other choices are her, Jason or Leo, wherever he is.

"You?" Hercules glares at me for a minute. "How do I know you're telling me the truth?"

"It's my dad's yacht," I reply. "Besides, if I'm lying you can just shoot me and grab someone else."

He tilts his head, looking me up and down again. Then he jerks his gun towards the yacht. "I'm keeping this trained on you, pretty boy. Get everybody else back in that building. Lock 'em in."

I glance back at Annabeth, pleading with her to keep them from doing anything stupid. She shakes her head, but she doesn't protest as the skinny lady with the greasy hair commands them to get inside. Thalia has to pick Tyson up and carry him, struggling, back into the building. I turn back around.

"It's okay, Tyson," I hear Annabeth say. "Percy is going to be fine."

No one causes any trouble. No one makes a fuss. In what seems like minutes I'm up in the pilothouse, with two of Hercules' goons watching me as I monitor everything and get us sailing. Hopefully, they've listened to my instructions and we'll get out of port smoothly.

"Could you, I don't know, point those things at the floor?" I ask as we pull away from the dock. "You're making me nervous." Sneaking a peak behind me reveals that they haven't changed. And something else. "Um, guys, we're set here for a few minutes. You think maybe I could sneak off and take a leak?"

The more muscled of the two guys thinks about it for a minute, then nods. I'm allowed to step away from the controls and into the hallway.

"Bathroom is this way," I say, pointing down the hall. Muscles steps back so I can pass him, and we head towards the "bathroom". We don't get very far before there's a groan and a heavy thud behind me.

"Valdez," I say, turning to find Leo standing behind me, a heavy wrench in his hand. At his feet, my guard lays in a heap, blood oozing from the side of his head.

"Percy." He kneels, pulling the gun from the guards grasp. "I've got all the lifeboats except for one disabled. We can be out of here in five minutes."

I shake my head. "We need more time. If any of them get off this thing, they'll come after us."

"So, what do we do?"

"We need to keep them occupied."

Leo gets glint a in his eyes. "I've got an idea, but you're not going to like it."

I cross my arms and wait.

"How attached are you to your dad's boat?"

"I'm more attached to my life."

"Okay," Leo grabs my wrist, fiddling with my watch. He sets the time to seven minutes. "Be at the aft deck before this timer goes off. I'll meet you there."

"Why what happens in seven minutes?"

Leo brings his fists together, expanding his fingers and drawing his hands apart quickly. "Distract them for me," he says, taking off down the hallway. Then he stops, "And hurry or I'm leaving without you."

Grabbing the gun he's left on the floor, I run back to the pilothouse. A quick spray of bullets at the floor gets the other guys attention. Then I'm running. His gun erupts behind me as I duck around a corner. There are yells and more footsteps join the pounding of his. I skid around another corner and down a flight of stairs, running smack into one of Hercules' friends and sending her tumbling down the stairs. She tumbles and I jump over her when I hit the bottom. My watch reads 4:12.

Two guys block the passage in front of me; I turn into a hallway that leads me to the second level deck. Whipping around, I send bullets down the hall. There's a stairway that leads to the kitchens around the fore deck. If I can get to that, I might be able to lose them. I'm met by Hercules and one of his lady friends, who were apparently making out on the deck chairs. I spin, thinking about how silly it is that I don't want to shoot these people when we're about to blow them up. One minute, twenty-three seconds.

I hear shots behind me. I should weave, right? That's what they do in the movies. I pass the hallway I just came out of minutes before my other pursuers erupt from it. Over the din, I hear the start of a small engine. Forty-six seconds.

This deck runs all the way to the back of the ship, overhanging the aft deck. I know what I have to do, nothing for it really.

"Go, Valdez!" I scream as I hurl my gun over the side. Behind me, Hercules roars. Summoning every ounce of strength that has ever helped me win a match, I run. Vaulting over the railing, hurling myself away from the boat. Beneath me, Valdez is already speeding away from the yacht. The shoreline is a line of green and gold. I can see small dots moving around.

I'm about to tuck in so I don't hurt myself hitting the water when something rips through my side. I scream and flail. My body slams into the ocean in the world's worst belly flop. And I'm gone.

Sorry this took so long. Things have been crazy busy, what with writing the script for church and diving headfirst into the HTTYD fandom (guys, if you are not HTTYD fans already, you need to be because Astrid might be the closest we ever get to an accurate on-screen Annabetth) and then there's my serious WIP, the one I might possibly try to get published-eh, dunno on that one, we'll see after a couple of edits.

Not sure how long it'll take for the next chapter to get up, it's gonna require quite a bit of research-but more on that when we get there.

Anyways, I hope you like it. And I hope you don't hate me too much after that ending. Thank you to all the favoriters, followers and reviewers who've given me feedback. I really do pay attention to that stuff and it does motivate me to stick with this. Also, thank you to all the readers who have made this my most popular fic to-date. If you could keep it up, I would appreciate it. Because as much as I love HTTYD-I'd hate to have one of those fices become more popular than this one.