Free Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac Page A

hold the rusty cables on each side, my eyes looking down to see where to place my feet. One step, two, three. Old boards creak under my feet andthe bridge begins gently swaying back and forth. Four, five, six. The rhythm is almost like that of a dance. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and I’m almost halfway across.
    â€œMolly.” The harsh whisper that cuts through the night from behind me makes me take a wrong step. My foot goes right through a rotten board. He’s never spoken my name before, and the chill that it sends down my spine makes me shake all over. “Come back here.”
    I can’t stop myself. I turn around and look. He’s standing there, back at the end of the bridge, perhaps hesitant to cross it. His long arms are held up above his head, his fingers spread out so wide that they look like the talons of a giant bird. The moonlight glistens off his pale hard face and the top of his head, and it seems as if there is no skin at all. His eyes are twin blue flames burning from within his skull.
    â€œNo,” I say, not just to him, but to myself. I wrench my foot free, break away from his hypnotic gaze, and start forward again. There’s a thin piece of plywood just ahead spanning the last ten feet.
    Suddenly the bridge starts to shake. I know that he is on it, moving across to catch me. Andhe’s coming fast. I’m on the plywood now and it bends, almost to the point where the end that overlaps the concrete lip at the end of the bridge slips free. But it doesn’t. I reach the safety of the other side. Then I keep myself from doing the one thing I want to do—which is to scream for help and run headlong, run as fast as I can to get away from the bony hands that I know are about to reach out and grab me. Instead, I turn and drop down onto the ground and kick my heels against the edge of the piece of plywood. And even though he’s already on it, the plywood slips— fwap! —past the lip of stone.
    The plywood falls from beneath him, sails down into the gorge like a flipped playing card. He pitches forward, his long fingers clawing forward wildly. I try to pull myself back, but one clawing hand wraps around my ankle. It holds on so hard that I feel a searing pain, as if I’m being burned by those fingers. I begin to slide back toward the edge. I’m about to be pulled into the gorge with him! I grab hold of a metal bar that sticks up from the concrete. My arms feel as though they’re being torn from my shoulders, but I don’t let go. Instead I kick at the fingers with my other foot, the foot thatstill has a sneaker on it. Those fingers are strong, but they are bone, nothing but bone, and I’m alive, and I am stronger than Skeleton Man. I won’t let him defeat me now. I kick again and again and then…
    The clawed fingers wrapped about my ankle slip free. I hear the one last despairing cry of “Noooooooooo” as Skeleton Man falls away from me like a bad dream disappearing when you wake.
    My own hands are slipping. But after all I have been through I can’t fail now. I won’t let myself fall. I dig in my fingers. My sneakered foot finds a rock for leverage as I push and claw my way up to the top, away from the brink. My heart is pounding like a drum, but I am alive. I breathe in and out as I look at a sky that is filled with the light of the moon and stars. After a while, I inch my way back to the edge and look over. All I can see is darkness and the thin, glittering line of the stream far below, a ribbon of silver touched by the light of the moon. I rub the place where Skeleton Man’s fingers scratched my ankle. I can hardly believe it, but I’m perfectly safe at last.
    â€œMolly,” a deep voice calls from the main trail below me. “Molly.” That voice is worried,almost frantic, but it makes my heart leap with joy.
    â€œI’m here, Dad,” I answer. “I’m coming.”
    Then I go leaping down