The Titan's Curse

skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.
    “A gift,” Grover muttered.
    And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I’d ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair, and its eyes were wild and angry.
    “REEEEEEEEET!” it squealed, and raked the three skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed to pieces, thigh bones and arm bones twirling everywhere.
    Then the pig turned on us.
    Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, “Don’t kill it!”
    The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.
    “That’s the Erymanthian Boar,” Zoë said, trying to stay calm. “I don’t think we can kill it.”
    “It’s a gift,” Grover said. “A blessing from the Wild!”
    The boar said “REEEEEET!” and swung its tusk. Zoë and Bianca dived out of the way. I had to push Grover so he wouldn’t get launched into the mountain on the Boar Tusk Express.
    “Yeah, I feel blessed!” I said. “Scatter!”
    We ran in different directions, and for a moment the boar was confused.
    “It wants to kill us!” Thalia said.
    “Of course,” Grover said. “It’s wild!”
    “So how is that a blessing?” Bianca asked.
    It seemed a fair question to me, but the pig was offended and charged her. She was faster than I’d realized. She rolled out of the way of its hooves and came up behind the beast. It lashed out with its tusks and pulverized the WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT sign.
    I racked my brain, trying to remember the myth of the boar. I was pretty sure Hercules had fought this thing once, but I couldn’t remember how he’d beaten it. I had a vague memory of the boar plowing down several Greek cities before Hercules managed to subdue it. I hoped Cloudcroft was insured against giant wild boar attacks.
    “Keep moving!” Zoë yelled. She and Bianca ran in opposite directions. Grover danced around the boar, playing his pipes while the boar snorted and tried to gouge him. But Thalia and I won the prize for bad luck. When the boar turned on us, Thalia made the mistake of raising Aegis in defense. The sight of the Medusa head made the boar squeal in outrage. Maybe it looked too much like one of his relatives. The boar charged us.
    We only managed to keep ahead of it because we ran uphill, and we could dodge in and out of trees while the boar had to plow through them.
    On the other side of the hill, I found an old stretch of train tracks, half buried in the snow.
    “This way!” I grabbed Thalia’s arm and we ran along the rails while the boar roared behind us, slipping and sliding as it tried to navigate the steep hillside. Its hooves just were not made for this, thank the gods.
    Ahead of us, I saw a covered tunnel. Past that, an old trestle bridge spanning a gorge. I had a crazy idea.
    “Follow me!”
    Thalia slowed down—I didn’t have time to ask why— but I pulled her along and she reluctantly followed. Behind us, a ten-ton pig tank was knocking down pine trees and crushing boulders under its hooves as it chased us.
    Thalia and I ran into the tunnel and came out on the other side.
    “No!” Thalia screamed.
    She’d turned as white as ice. We were at the edge of the bridge. Below, the mountain dropped away into a snow-filled gorge about seventy feet below.
    The boar was right behind us.
    “Come on!” I said. “It’ll hold our weight, probably.”
    “I can’t!” Thalia yelled. Her eyes were wild with fear.
    The boar smashed into the covered tunnel, tearing through at full speed.
    “Now!” I yelled at Thalia.
    She looked down and swallowed. I swear she was turning green.
    I didn’t have time to process why. The boar was charging through the tunnel, straight toward us. Plan B. I tackled Thalia and sent us both sideways off the edge of the bridge, into the side of the mountain. We slid on Aegis like a snowboard, over rocks and mud and snow, racing downhill. The boar was less fortunate; it couldn’t turn that fast, so all ten tons of the monster charged out onto the tiny trestle, which buckled under its weight. The boar free-fell into the gorge with a mighty squeal and landed in a snowdrift with a huge POOOOOF!
    Thalia and I skidded to a stop. We were both breathing hard. I was cut up and bleeding. Thalia had pine needles in her hair. Next to us, the wild boar was squealing and