Skeleton Man (5 page)

I
WAS INTERVIEWED TODAY
by a bunch of people. The nurse, the school psychologist, Mrs. Rudder. They think my problem may be a chemical one and that I need counseling. They think that my story about my uncle was brought on by the stress of uncertainty combined with my already imaginative
personality. Lucky I didn't tell them about the rabbit dream.

Ms. Shabbas talks with me after school about it all.

“If you ask me, witch doctors know more about people than some of these professionals,” she says. “If there's a problem, throw a prescription at it. That's all they seem to know lately.”

I wonder why she is talking to me this way. I don't think most teachers would. But Ms. Shabbas is not most teachers. When she likes someone, trusts someone, she really talks to them. I've never realized before how much she likes me.

“Honey,” she says, “I don't care if they didn't find any lock on your door. My bones tell me something's rotten in the state of Denmark. We got trouble right here in River City.
Comprende
?”

I nod. Part of me wants to jump up and down, pump my fist into the air, and yell, “Yes!” But even though I have an ally now, there may not be much she can do. Plus I'm still sick—and confused—about what I heard in my dream, those words the rabbit said. My parents are buried.

“Listen,” Ms. Shabbas whispers, breaking
into my thoughts. “I'm not saying do anything stupid. But bring me something solid to make your case, I'll move heaven and earth to get you away from that man. Just be careful, hear me?”

“I will,” I say. But I am also thinking that it may not matter whether I am careful or not. Tomorrow is Friday. Whenever I think of that, I start feeling even more scared.

I'm the last one to get onto the bus. The driver's not happy that he had to wait for me, but Ms. Shabbas called down and told him to hold on till I got there. A truck pulls up behind the bus as I get on. Men climb out carrying toolboxes and equipment like drills, power saws, big wrenches, and cable cutters. The school is being hooked up to the information superhighway. They'll be here again tomorrow, then finish after the weekend. The weekend that begins tomorrow afternoon.

By the time I get to the house, I am just about overcome by a feeling of dread. It doesn't help that the days are getting much shorter now and it is almost dark already. As I open the door and go inside, a little shiver goes down my spine.

“Hello,” I call. No one answers. I look into the kitchen. No note telling me to eat. I
wonder if something is wrong, something more wrong than usual, I should say. I walk back into the hall and I notice that the door to my uncle's study is open. It is rarely open and it draws me, like a moth to a flame. Step by step I walk down the hall. I'm trying to stop myself, but I can't. The only thing I seem to be able to do is go more slowly so that my steps don't make the floor creak like it would if I went faster. I try to walk the way my father taught me that our Mohawk ancestors would when they wanted to go through the forest without making any noise. My elbows close to my sides, my hands held in front of me, I place one foot down slowly, then another until I reach the study door.

It's a small room. My uncle isn't in there; there's no place he could hide. His chair is pushed back from the desk as if he suddenly had to go somewhere. I can see, though, the one window at the back of the room out into the yard. The toolshed door is open and a light is coming out of it. That must be it. For some reason he had to get up and go out to the shed to do something.

I should turn around now. I should not go into that room. But I still do.

There's a color laser printer next to the computer, the kind that does really high-quality prints on heavy glossy paper. Just like regular photographs. But what attracts my attention are the three small TV monitors on the shelf above the computer. I take another step closer and I freeze.

I feel as if I have been kicked in the stomach. I'm unable to move. My mouth is open and I think I'm about to scream. But I don't. Instead I will myself to thaw out, tell my feet to start moving me out of that room before my uncle comes back. I get up the stairs. I'm just opening the door to my room when I hear the front door open.

“Where are you?” my uncle calls. His raspy voice is a little out of breath, maybe a little worried. “Where are you?” he calls again, louder this time.

“Up here,” I call back. “I don't feel good. I'm going to bed.”

His heavy feet are coming up the stairs faster than usual. I shut the door before he gets to me.

He's breathing hard, waiting outside in the hall. He doesn't speak and neither do I. Finally, he snicks the lock and goes back downstairs. I
crouch in the corner of the room with my arms around my legs. All I can see, even when I close my eyes, are the pictures on those TV screens. Live pictures from the hidden cameras trained on the front door, the back door, and the door to my room.

E
VEN THOUGH
I'
M
more afraid than I've ever been, I'm thinking fast as I crouch in the corner curled into a ball, hoping I'm out of sight of the cameras. I have so many questions in my mind. When did he set up those TV cameras and why haven't I seen them? Why does he have them set up like that? Then there is the scariest question of all. What will he do next?

I've got to be logical, though. That is what Mom always tells me. Think first before you try to run away from a problem, otherwise you
might run right into an even worse one. And stay alert.

I've always been a light sleeper. Dad used to say it was because I had warrior genes and he'd tease me about it, calling me Warrior Girl. He told me my Indian name might be Keeps Herself Awake. In the old days I would have been the one told to keep watch at night against enemies. Neither he nor Mom could ever come into my room at night without my waking up instantly.

There is no way that my so-called uncle can sneak into my room without my knowing it. Unless I've been drugged. But I haven't felt strange since that first night. I've stayed away from the food. I'm certain now that the person who calls himself my uncle is an impostor at best, and something much more terrible at worst. I begin to think of my dream, of the similarities between the creature fattening up the girl and my uncle. Skeleton Man. He's a modern-day Skeleton Man and this house is his cave. A glimmer of hope appears to me. If it really is like my dream, maybe I can find an answer in my dreams about what to do.

It is too cold in the corner and it's hard to think there. I get up and climb on the bed and
let my head fall back onto the pillow. I start remembering back to the times I've come awake in the night since I've been here. Lots of times, now that I think of it. And every time it's been because I've had the feeling that I've been watched. I've just opened one eye, slowly, just a little. Not enough for anyone to notice I'm no longer sleeping. My whole body has been awake and waiting to act each time I've done this. But I've never seen anything. There has never been anyone else in my room. Never. But maybe there's a TV camera set up to look at me in here, too. Maybe the monitor for that camera is in his bedroom down the hall.

I look up at the ceiling. Up there is where it must be. We've learned about fiber optics in school and I know just how small the opening can be for a lens. No more than a pinhole. There's a light fixture right over my head. I'm betting that is where it is. If I piled my suitcase and my box on my bed and climbed up on top of them, I could probably reach it. The ceiling is only about eight feet high. But I won't do that now. I don't want him to know that I know. This has to be like a chess match. Never let your opponent know what your next move will be until you make it.

I think of what Dad taught me about chess. He loves the game and is always coaxing me to play it with him. Chess is a game based on war, on two armies starting out equal and trying to wipe each other out. Not with brute force, but with strategy, with thinking ahead much farther than one move.

My so-called uncle probably doesn't think of this as chess or any kind of an equal contest. He probably thinks that he has all the weapons. He's just playing with me.

But if I think of this as a chess game, it gives me an advantage. I can't just be a victim. I have to counter, even find some way to attack. Great, I think. But now what will my move be? I know that I have to make one. And it has to be a good one. Something my dad said comes back to me, some of the Mohawk warrior wisdom he was always teaching me. “It doesn't matter if you are the hunted or the hunter. Sometimes the most important thing you can do in a tough situation is to keep quiet, breathe slowly, and think.”

So that is what I do—sit quietly for a long time. Finally, I think I know what to do.

First of all, I don't take off my clothes. I just slip off my sneakers and socks and crawl under
the sheets. I pull the blanket over my head like a tent. I know it isn't any real protection, but it makes me feel safe. It is like when I was a little kid and used to make pretend longhouses under card tables draped with curtains. No one could see me.

“Help me,” I whisper as I settle down to sleep. And this time it's not just a generalized plea to the universe. I'm speaking to my dreams.

A
S
I
HIDE UNDER
the covers, I feel as if I am never going to go to sleep. The thought that eyes might be watching me, that a camera might be looking down from overhead makes me as tense as a guitar string about to be plucked. I close my eyes tight against that thought and I clench my fists. I'm not just scared; I'm also angry and frustrated. How am I ever going to fall asleep?

Suddenly the covers are whisked away from
me. I jump up with a yell. I'm ready to resist however I can. I'll kick and bite and scratch. Even though my so-called uncle is bigger than I am, I won't give up without a fight. I blink my eyes, trying to bring the shadowy world into focus, step back with my hands still held up…and bump into something big and hard and rough. I spin around and find myself face-to-face with the trunk of a giant tree.

A tree? How did a tree get into the room? And, for that matter, where has the room gone?

“Little Sister,” says a voice from behind me. It is not a human voice. Yet it is a voice I welcome. I know who it is even before I turn around.

As I do, I realize that I'm back in deerskin clothing with moccasins made of thick moose hide.

“Little Sister!” the rabbit says again. This time it sounds as impatient as a parent trying to get the wandering attention of a child.

“Yes,” I say.

“You must keep running,” the rabbit says. It points with its left paw toward a direction that I somehow know to be the direction of the sunrise. “The one who seeks to devour you is close on our trail. Follow me.”

The rabbit begins to run and I follow close behind. I've only taken a few steps when a scream splits the night. It is so terrible—and so close—that I stumble. But I don't fall. I just run harder. The rabbit is leading me though the dark forest. There is just enough light from the moon, her face like that of a grandmother trying to help her little ones see their way.

She isn't just lighting
our
way, though. I can hear heavy feet thudding behind us. We run and run. We run through a glade of great pine and cedar trees and down a hill into a ravine thick with brush. We force our way through tangles of saplings and blackberry bushes. We leap over fallen logs, splash through a swamp thick with ferns, climb one hill and then another. How long we run, I don't know. I seem to be able to run without getting winded as I would in the waking world. But we are not getting away. The heavy feet keep thudding behind us.

Then I begin to hear something else. It is water. The rabbit leads me headlong down a trail that looks familiar to me. I've been in this place before, not in my dreams but in the waking world. I can tell by the giant stones and the lake that glitters in the valley off to our
right and the shape of the land. It's the park where my father and mother used to take me sometimes on picnics. It's only about two miles from the house of my so-called uncle. But things are different. In the waking world there are roads and sidewalks and benches. Here there are only old tall trees and a deer trail. Still, I know where we're going. Toward the river just above the big waterfall.

Moonlight gleams on the river just ahead of us as we begin to scramble down a steep slope. The river is high, higher than I've ever seen it before. But the swinging suspension bridge that I've always loved, the bridge I've crossed so many times, is not there. Of course it's not there, a voice inside me says. This is long ago, even if it isn't far away.

But if there is no bridge, how are we going to get across the river?

We're right on the bank now, and the rabbit stops. It stands up to its full height, looking one way and then the other, as if confused. Did it expect a bridge here, too? What kind of spirit guide is the rabbit, anyhow?

“What can we—” I start to say. But I don't finish my question. The howl that rips apart the night air is so loud, so full of hunger, that it
makes me spin around and fall to one knee.

The creature is there, on top of the slope above us. He's no more than a hundred yards away from us, and the light of the moon that shone so gently on me is stark and hard in the way it lights up the creature that looms there above me. He is taller than a tall man. He wears tattered buckskin clothing, clothing that hangs from him in shreds. But he has no need of clothing to warm his flesh, for whatever flesh he once had is gone. Shiny white bones can be seen through the rips in his buckskin shirt, and his head is a glistening skull.

But even though he is a skeleton, he has eyes. His eyes are green and burn like strange flames, and there is a darkness about his teeth that I'm sure is dried blood. The creature turns his head, as if sniffing the air. Then he stares down toward us and he opens his mouth in a wide grin. He raises his arm and points down toward us. Correction, toward me. For when I look around for my guide, I realize that the rabbit has disappeared,

“My niece,” the Skeleton Man cries, in a voice that is both scream and whisper, “I am coming for youuuuu!”

I'm ready, more than ready, to wake up now.