Free Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac

for it means that other things in the woods that would normally be making noise at this time know something is still out there. Something dangerous. Like me, they’re waiting.
    Then I see it. A beam of light coming through the forest. It is sweeping back and forth, not at random but moving slowly, patiently. He has a flashlight. Its illumination is moving toward me, its beam like the strand ofa spider’s web that will catch me. It’s getting too close, and I have to move. I crawl downslope as slowly as I can, a hand’s width at a time, until I reach the trail. Then I’m up and running toward the falls again. I’m not making much noise, but I begin to hear the feet of Skeleton Man thumping on the hard-packed earth of the trail behind me.
    â€œWhoooo,” he cries. “Whoooooo. I’m coming for youuuuuu!”
    There’s a place just ahead of us, around the next corner, where I remember my father and I had to duck under the long, low limb of a maple tree that overhung the trail. I’m praying that no one has trimmed that branch as the path bends around the hill. Yes! The branch is leaning over the narrow trail just as I’d remembered. I grab it as I run and it bends with me. Still holding it, I turn slightly. He’s too close! He’s about to grab me, but when I fall back and let the branch go, his hand misses me. The branch whips back to strike him in the face, knocking him off balance onto one knee and onto the loose stones at the steep edge of the trail. He begins to slip, and for a moment, it seems as if he is going to slide all the way off the trail into the deep ravine below. But, at thelast moment, he whips one bony arm out, grabs the branch, and starts to pull himself back up. Before he can get to his feet I’m up and running again.
    As I run I startle something that had been hiding in the brush next to the path. It runs ahead of me, clearly visible in a band of moonlight shining through the overhanging branches. It’s a rabbit again. I know there are rabbits all through the park. You hardly ever walk through here in the morning or early evening without seeing at least four or five of them. It’s not at all likely that it is the same one that slowed down my pursuer back near the house. But something in me tells me different, tells me that it’s the same rabbit and it is trying to help me. It runs ahead of me and then suddenly darts off the main path onto a smaller, even steeper trail.
    I know where this trail leads. It might seem like a dead end to some people if they just read the signs that say TRAIL CLOSED and BRIDGE OUT on them. But I can see that the wooden-planked suspension bridge over the gorge is still there. Its boards are old, but it should be able to hold my weight. I follow the rabbit up that trail, my feet slipping on the loose stones, my hands grasping at branches and clumps of grass as I climb.
    Just as I’d remembered, there is a hole in the bottom of the chain-link fence big enough to crawl through. It was probably made by the local kids who carried up the narrow pieces of plywood to lay over the spots in the long, swaying bridge where the boards have rotted and fallen away, down into the stream, which is nothing more than a thin band of silver among the jagged rocks far below. But it doesn’t look as if even the daredevil kids from the high school have ventured across the bridge for a long time.
    I drop to my knees and crawl under the fence. A sharp piece of wire scratches my cheek and I feel the blood flow down my face. Another wire catches on my pant leg and I pull as hard as I can. I can’t be caught here.
    â€œWHOOO!” The eerie scream comes from right behind me and then there is a crash as his headlong rush takes him right into the chain-link wire. I feel something grabbing at my foot. I pull free, leaving my sneaker behind.
    There’s no time to stop or think. I start across the bridge, my arms spread out to