Killer! Thriller!

🙶Darkness Falls Across the Land...

"Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult."

- Michael Jackson

"That's not funny!" Annabeth fumed, lightly punching her date in the arm.

Percy shrugged and ran his hand through his raven hair. "I mean it, Wise Girl! We're out of gas."

Annabeth crossed her arms. Even if he was telling the truth, it was nothing to laugh about. Would you find it funny if the troublemaker you've been seeing just so happened to run out of gas right next to the haunted woods?

Of course, the woods weren't really haunted. That's just a story parents told their children to keep them from getting lost or stumbling upon some drunk teenagers.

The car rattled as Percy slammed his door shut. Gentlemanly as ever, he sauntered across to the passenger side to open the door for Annabeth.

"C'mon, I'll walk you the rest of the way home," he said with a devilish glint in his sea-green eyes—a glint Annabeth was beginning to find irresistible.

He held his hand out, waiting for her to take it.

"Okay," she said, "but straight home. No funny business."

"Wouldn't dream of it." He took her soft hand in his, which was calloused from football games, fishing trips with his friends, and whatever else it was Percy Jackson did when he wasn't driving Annabeth Chase home from the homecoming bonfire.

It might have been smarter for Annabeth to ask Percy to walk her back toward the bonfire so she could get a ride home from one of her friends. Maybe he could have gotten car help from one of his football teammates, but no. They chose to walk alongside the woods.

Percy pretended to yawn in an attempt to put his arms around Annabeth and asked her about how the planning for the homecoming dance was going—all the things teenage guys in the nineteen-fifties did to express their feelings to teenage girls without actually saying anything.

He finally found his opportunity when a chill blew down the road, sending an autumn shiver down Annabeth's spine.

"Here," he said as he draped his orange and white letterman jacket around her shoulders.

A blush rose to her cheeks as she tried to hide her smile. The most popular boy in school was lending his letterman jacket to her! She felt so small in its gentle embrace and found it incredibly hard not to pretend that with his name across her back, she might be his.

Although a million thoughts were probably racing through her mind, she simply said, "Thank you."

Percy beamed, as awkward teenagers do, and then finally, he said, "I've been thinking and..."

"And?" Annabeth teased.

"Well, what I'm trying to say is..."

"Is?"

Percy's breath appeared in a cloud around his face as he sighed in frustration. "Look, Wise Girl, I'm trying to ask you to be my girl and you're not making it very easy!"

She squealed and clutched Percy's letterman jacket to keep it from falling off her shoulders. "Percy! I thought you'd never ask!"

He muttered, "I thought you'd never let me." He took his hand from his pocket and twisted his shiny senior class ring off his middle finger.

Seeing that Percy clearly cared for her enough to bestow such a gift, Annabeth unlatched the chain from around her neck and held it out as Percy laced it through his ring.