Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Bullfighting

We sprinted down a dark country road, with the wind beating the Cameron and the rain beating hard on the windshield.I don't know how Mom could see the road ahead, but she did keep her foot on the gas pedal. Every time the lightning strikes, I'll take a sneak peek at Glover, who's with me in the backseat, and wonder if I'm mentally ill, or if he's wearing a pair of pants with a shag seal on them.But it's not, I remember this smell, it was when we taught in kindergarten at the cute zoo... It was lanolin, it was the smell of wool, it was the smell of a wet sheep farm animal.

All I could say was, "So you... know my mom?" Glover's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, but there was no car behind. "Not acquaintance," he said. "I mean, we've never met, but she knows I've been watching you." "look at me?" "Keep an eye on you to make sure you're okay, but I'm not pretending to be your friend," he added hastily, "I'm really your friend." "Well, what the hell are you then?" "It doesn't matter now." "It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey..."

Glover made a high-pitched guttural sound, "Bah-baa-" I've heard him make that sound before, but I always thought it was his nervous laugh, and now I know it's more like an angry sheep cry. "It's a goat!" he shouted. "what?" "I'm a goat from the waist down." "You just said it's not important." "Baa baa! If other satyrs heard such insults, they would have stomped on you!" "What? Wait, satyr? You mean... those Greek myths Mr. Brunner talked about?" "Percy, aren't those old ladies at the fruit stand and Mr. Dawes also myths?"

"So you admit that there is Mr. Dawes!" "certainly." "Then why..." "The less you know, the fewer monsters you attract," Glover said as if everyone knew about it. "We use fog to cover the eyes of humans, hoping to make you think that the goddess of mercy is an illusion, but the effect is not good at all, and you begin to understand who you are." "I'm... wait, what does this mean?" The eerie roar sounded behind us again, closer than last time.Whatever that is, it still follows us. "Percy," Mom said, "too much to explain, we're running out of time, we must get you to safety quickly."

"What danger? Who's chasing me?" "Oh, no, not a lot," Glover said.He was clearly still pissed off about the donkey. "Only Reaper and a few bloodthirsty minions." "Glover!" "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Can you drive faster? Please." I tried to figure it all out, but I couldn't.All this is not a dream, nor is it a fantasy. I have never dreamed of such a weird thing. Mom made a sharp left, and we turned onto a narrow road, speeding past dark farmhouses, wooded hills, and white picket fences that said "Pick Your Own Strawberries."

"Where are we going?" I asked. "The summer camp I told you about," Mom's voice was serious.For my own good, she tried to look like she wasn't frightened. "It's where your father wants to send you." "But you don't want me to go there." "Please, honey," my mother begged, "it's hard enough now, you have to understand that you're in danger now." "Just because some old ladies cut the yarn." "They're not old ladies," Glover said. "They're the Three Fates. Do you know what they mean when they appear in front of you? They only appear when you... when someone is dying."

"Oh, you just said 'you'." "No, I didn't, I meant 'someone'." "When you say 'you' you mean me." "When I say 'you', I mean 'someone', not you." "Children!" said Mom. She turned the steering wheel hard to the right, and I vaguely understood that her sharp turn in the storm was to shake off... the dark shadow floating behind us, now gone. "What's that?" I asked. "We're almost there," Mom said, ignoring my question. "Two kilometers more, please, please, please."

I don't know where that place is, but I can't help but lean forward to help drive, hoping to get there smoothly. There is nothing but rain and night outside the car, such an empty country at the top of Long Island, I think of the moment when Mrs. Dawes conjures fangs and bat wings, my limbs are paralyzed by the belated fright, She is really not human, she is really going to kill me. Then I thought of Mr. Brunner... and the sword he threw at me.Before I even asked Glover about it, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.A dazzling flash appeared, boom!Our car exploded.

I just remember being lighter all over, and being crushed, fried, and beaten, all at the same time. "Percy!" Mom yelled. "I'm fine..." I tried to pull myself out of the trance, I wasn't dead, the car didn't really explode.Our car was in a ditch, the driver's side door was stuck in the mud, the roof popped open like an eggshell, and the rain poured in. Lightning, that's the only explanation.Our car was thrown off the road, and I was still in the back seat next to a big, immobile mass. "Glover!" He was completely paralyzed, and blood flowed from the corner of his mouth.I shook his hairy buttocks and shouted, "No! Even if you're half an animal, you're still my best friend, and I don't want you dead!

At this time he moaned: "I'm so hungry." I knew there was hope. "Percy," Mom said, "we have to..." Her voice trembled. I turned around and in the light of the lightning we saw through the mud-spattered rear windshield a figure on the shoulder of the road, shambling towards us, and the sight gave me goosebumps.It was the black silhouette of a big guy, as muscular as an American football player.He appears to be holding a blanket over his head, his upper body is hairy and bulky, and his raised hands look like they have horns on his head. I swallowed hard. "That is……"

"Percy," Mom said several times seriously, "get out of the car." Mom tried her best to deal with the door on the driver's side, but the door was already stuck tightly by the mud outside. I tried the door on my side, and it was also stuck.In desperation, I looked up at the hole in the roof, maybe it was an escape exit, but the edge of the hole was sizzling and smoking. "Climb out the door on the other side!" Mom told me, "Percy! Run! Do you see that big tree?" "what?" In the light of another bolt of lightning, I looked through the smoking hole in the roof and saw the tree my mother was talking about, a pine the size of the White House Christmas tree, standing on top of the nearest hill to us. "That's the dividing line," Mom said, "over that hill and you'll see a big farm in the valley. Run and don't look back. Scream for help and don't stop until you reach the gate of the farm .” "Well, you go with me." Her face was pale, and her eyes were full of sadness, the same expression she had every time she looked at the sea. "I don't care!" I yelled, "You have to come with me and help me out of Glover." "Hungry!" Grover moaned, louder. The man with the blanket on his head continued toward us, purring and snorting loudly.As he got closer, I realized he wasn't lifting the blanket over his head because his thick, fleshy hands were dangling from his sides.There was no blanket on his head, but the fuzzy mass was too big to be his head... no, it was really his head, and the pointy thing on it looked like Horns... "He's not after us," my mother told me. "He's after you, and I can't cross the line." "But……" "We're out of time, Percy! Go, please." I was angry, angry at Mom, at Glover's goat, at the thing with the horns thumping toward us.The thing moved slowly and indulgently, much like... like a bull. I climbed over Glover and pushed the door open, letting the rain in. "We're going to be together, come on, Mom." "I told you..." "Mom! I'm not leaving you, help me move Glover." Without waiting for her answer, I climbed outside and dragged Glover out of the car.He was lighter than I thought, but if my mother didn't help me, I still couldn't carry him for too long. Together we put Glover's hand on our shoulders and started walking up the shambling hills across waist-high, rain-soaked grass. I glanced back, seeing the monster clearly for the first time.He was over two hundred centimeters tall, like a man on the cover of a muscular man magazine, and his hands and feet had bulging biceps and triceps, and other protruding muscles, like a baseball stuffed under a vein.He was wearing nothing but white underwear, which would have been ridiculous if you didn't look at his frighteningly muscular upper body.The brown shag begins at his navel and grows thicker as it reaches his shoulders. His neck was a mass of muscle and hair, and above it was his huge head, his nose was as long as my arm, with shiny brass rings on its snotty nostrils.He had cruel black eyes, and on his head were huge black and white horns so sharp you couldn't even sharpen them with an electric pencil sharpener. Well, I recognize this monster, he is the character in the first fairy tale told by Mr. Brunner, but he should not be real. I blinked, trying to squeeze the rain out of my eyes. "That is……" "He's Pasiphae's son," said the mother. "I should have known they wanted to kill you so much." "But he is Mi..." "Don't say his name," she warned me: "Names have power." The pine tree was still far away, and there was still at least a hundred meters to the top of the mountain. I glanced back again. The bull man was in our car, looking in through the car window with his back hunched over. In fact, he couldn’t say “seeing”, he was more like smelling with his nose.I don't understand why he went to such trouble because we were only fifteen meters away from him. "Any food?" Grover moaned. "Shh-" I said to him. "Mom, what is he doing? Didn't he see us?" "His eyesight and hearing are bad," she said. "He relies entirely on smell, but he will soon know where we are." The bull man seemed to have got a clue, he roared, grabbed the cracked roof of the Cameron, lifted the car up, and the ground creaked.He lifted the car over his head and threw it into the road.The car fell on the wet asphalt road with a bang, and slid for about seven or eight hundred meters before stopping, and sparks were blown out.Then, the fuel tank exploded. Don't scratch my car, I remember Gabor saying that. damn. "Percy," Mom said, "when he sees us, he'll come rushing, you wait until the last second to jump out of the road, just jump out of the road. Because when he attacks, he can't change direction instantly. Get it? ?” "How do you know this?" "I was always worried that you were going to be attacked. I should have expected it sooner. I was selfish and kept you by my side." "Keep me by your side? But..." With another roar, the bull man began to walk towards the top of the mountain with heavy steps. he asked us. The pine trees were only a few meters away, but the hill was getting steeper and slipperier, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The Bull is approaching, and he'll catch up to us in a few seconds. Mom must be exhausted, but she's still carrying Grover. "Go, Percy! Split up! Mark what I said." I don't want to be separated from her, but I think she's right and this is our only chance.I sprinted to the left at full speed and turned to see the creature approaching me.His dark eyes gleamed with hatred, and his whole body gave off a strong stench, like a piece of rotten raw meat. He lowered his head and charged, pointing the razor-sharp point straight at my chest. The fear welling up in me made me want to run, but it didn't work, I couldn't outrun this guy, so I stopped, and at the last moment, I jumped out of the road. The Bull Man sprinted forward like a freight train, then he let out a yelp of frustration and turned around, but not at me this time, but at Mom, who put Grover on the grass. We have reached the top of the mountain and looked towards the valley on the other side. As my mother said, I saw the yellow lights of the farmstead flickering in the rain, but we couldn't reach the place that was only a few hundred meters away. The bull man purred, put his feet on the ground hard, and stared at his mother intently.Mom backed down the hill slowly, returning to the original road, trying to lure the monster away from Grover. "Run, Percy!" she said, "I can't go any further, run!" But when the monster charged at her, I just stood there, frozen with fear.She tried jumping sideways, like she taught me, when the monster has learned its lesson.When she tried to escape, the monster reached out and grabbed her by the neck, and she was lifted high, struggling in mid-air with punches and kicks. "mom!" She looked at me and managed to squeeze out the last word: "Run!" This is, in an angry roar, the monster tightened his mother's neck.She melted into dots of light in front of my eyes, shining golden, like the dots of laser three-dimensional patterns.After a blinding glare, she... disappeared. "No!" Anger replaced fear, newfound strength blazed through my limbs, and my whole body surged with energy, just like when I saw Mr. Dawes grow his claws. The bull man approached Grover, he was lying helpless on the grass, the monster hunched over, sniffing out my best friend, he seemed about to lift Grover up and make him melt away too. Never allowed. I stripped off my red raincoat. "Hey!" I yelled, waving my raincoat as I ran to the monster. : "Hey! Stupid! Beef!" "Moo moo moo!" The monster turned to me, waving its fleshy fists. I have an idea, silly noticing, but better than going blank.With my back to the big pine tree, I waved my red raincoat in front of the bull man, planning to jump away at the last moment. But then I didn't find a script to act in. The bull man rushed too fast, he stretched his arms in the direction I wanted to avoid, and he was about to grab me. Time suddenly slowed down. My legs were too tight to jump aside, so I jumped straight up, using the creature's head as a springboard, then turned in the air and landed on his neck. How did I do it?I thought about it, and a thousandth of a second later, the monster's head hit the tree with such force that it almost knocked my teeth out. The bull was rocking back and forth, trying to shake me off, and I was desperately grabbing his horns to keep from being thrown.The thunder and lightning continued, the rain hit my eyes, and the stench of raw meat filled my nostrils. The monster kept shaking its body and leaping up with its back bent, like a bull in a doll's rodeo.He should have backed up and bumped into a tree just now, crushing me. At this moment, I also discovered that this guy only knew one trick: rushing forward. This is my Grover moaning on the grass. I really want to tell him to shut up, but now my body is shaking up and down, and if I open my mouth, I must bite my tongue off. "Hungry!" Grover moaned. The bull man suddenly turned around and pointed at him, his feet started pawing the ground again, ready to charge forward.The thought of this monster crushing my mother's life and letting him disappear into the beam filled me with rage like fully burned petrol.I gripped one horn with both hands and pulled back with all my strength, the monster tensed up, let out a surprised grunt, and... snapped... snapped! The Bull Man screamed and threw me into the air.I landed face-up on the grass and hit my head on the rocks.When I sat up, my eyes were blurred, but I was holding a horn in my hand, a weapon about the size of a dagger. The monster rushed over. Before I had time to think about it, I rolled to one side, stood up and knelt high.When the monster passed by at high speed, I picked up the broken horn and pierced his body from the side, hitting his chest. The bull man let out a desperate roar of dying, he grabbed his chest, and his body began to shatter and disintegrate.He didn't want to turn into a glittering golden light like his mother, but smashed into sand grains, was broken into sand grains by the wind, and was blown away by the wind gusts, just like Mr. Dawes. The monster disappears. The rain had stopped, but the storm was still rumbling in the distance.The air smelled of livestock, but my knees were still shaking and my head seemed about to burst.I was weak, terrified, and trembling with grief and anger.I just watched my mother disappear in front of my eyes. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover who needed my help, so I tried to pull her up and stumbled towards the lights of the valley farm.I cried and called for my mother, but I still held on to Grover, I couldn't lose him again. The last thing I remember, I was lying on a wooden porch and looking up at the ceiling fan whirling and moths flying around the yellow light.Then came a familiar serious face with a beard, and a beautiful girl like a princess with curly golden hair.They looked down at me and the girl said, "He's the one, he must be." "Annabeth, be quiet," the man said. "He's still conscious. Take him in."