Penny Ranger and the Lightning Thief

Chapter XVI: We See Some Realistic Statues

We were in shock after the bus blew up. Annabeth was the one who was taking it the best, her training probably kicking in and spurring her to act. I made an effort to get over the shock as well just so I wouldn't be completely useless. As for the boys, they looked like zombies, stumbling through the woods and mumbling while Annabeth and I pulled them along.

"Come on! The farther away we get, the better." Annabeth warned.

"All our money was back there. Our food and our clothes. Everything." Percy said numbly.

This seemed to annoy Annabeth.

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight..."

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?" Percy interrupted.

"You didn't have to protect me, Percy. I would have been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread, but fine." Grover commented.

"Shut up, goat boy!" Annabeth told him.

"Tin cans. A perfectly good bag of tin cans." he complained.

After that, an awkward silence settled over our group. I moved up to the front, trying to find any sort of landmark that could help guide us out of the woods. Zeus seemed dead set on making it as hard for me as he could, the rain making it harder for me to identify anything.

I noticed Annabeth walking over to Percy and starting a conversation. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I really hoped she was apologizing to him. I could understand her slight predisposition to be annoyed at him, thanks to the whole Athena-Poseidon rivalry. But we couldn't really fault Percy for coming back to save us. And it definitely wouldn't help us at all if those two continued their constant bickering. Especially when they could be so much stronger if they just worked together. I mean, Annabeth was the best strategist Camp Half-Blood had ever had, and Percy was a son of the Big Three, making him one of the most powerful half-bloods alive.

Sometime during the walk it stopped raining, which made seeing where I was going much easier. I didn't thank any gods though. I really didn't feel like thanking them for anything at the moment.

At least now I could also think clearer without the constant sound of rainfall drowning out my thoughts. There was something off about the attack on the bus. For starters, one of the first monsters I had read about was the furies, mainly because of the incident at Yancy. From what I had read combined with what Annabeth had told me, they could have been a lot more vicious and deadly than they had been at the bus. It was as if they were holding back. And when they cornered us, they asked "where is it?", not "where is he?". It was like they were looking for an object, not Percy.

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a horrible sound. It sounded like a dying cat scraping its claws on a blackboard. But it wasn't that.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover exclaimed excitedly.
"Now if I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

It wasn't exactly a 'find path' song. It was actually more of a 'find nature' song. Percy immediately slammed into a tree, Annabeth tripped over a bush and a low hanging branch smacked me in the face. I spat out a string of curse words while Grover apologized profusely.

"Guys, do you smell that?" Percy asked.

At first I didn't, but then the smell of delicious, greasy food reached my nose. Only then did I realize how hungry I was.

The smell came from a building with a neon sign above it. Annabeth, Percy and I began walking towards it while Grover hung back nervously.

The building was a small shop that sold stone statues next to a deserted road. The path leading up to it was littered with statues. They were strangely realistic, looking almost like frozen figures rather than stone. The sign above the shop was glowing neon red and displayed a cursive writing. Normal writing is already bad enough for my poor dyslexic eyes, but cursive and neon was an even worse combination.