Page 94 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
He slips his hand into his pocket and wraps it around the knife. Then he fake-sniffles and drops his head forward, snuffling harder and rubbing his injured ankle with his free hand.
Through the fringe of his hair, he can make out the figure. It’s still nothing more than a dark shape.
What if it’s not a person?
It is. There’s no doubt of that. This isn’t a bear sneaking up on him. It’s a person, and that person realizes Max is facing his way, and they back up, deeper into shadow. They disappear to the left, out of Max’s line of sight. Circling around him. Coming up from the back.
It’s the bear-man. It must be.
Approaching from the rear makes things easier for the bear-man, but tougher for Max. He’d wanted to let the guy walk up, thinking Max was too hurt and scared to notice him. Then, when he was close enough, Max would have attacked.
Now he can’t see or hear his former captor.
Max snuffles again, loudly, and pushes to his feet, exaggerating his twisted ankle, the toe barely touching the ground as he gives one hop and then hisses as if in pain.
In a weird way, acting like his ankle is worse than it is actually makes it feel better than it is. As if it’s reminding him that things could be worse—much worse.
He hobbles another step before stopping.
“I can’t,” he sobs. “I just can’t.”
He looks up sharply, as if he heard something, and he turns.
“Is someone there?” he says, injecting as much hope into his voice as he can.
He looks from side to side, but sees only thick brush.
Max snuffles again and takes a hobbling step toward the bushes, like a killdeer luring a predator away by faking a broken wing. Except he’s luring this predator in.
I’m hurt, see? Really hurt.
“Hello?” He raises his voice. “Is someone there?”
Sheriff Eric’s birdcall gives him another idea. As long as he’s pretending to raise his voice to lure in the bear-man …
“Hello!” he says, louder now. “I know I heard someone. I need help. I’m lost.”
He takes another step toward the bush as he pulls the knife from his pocket. “Hello! Is someone—?”
A blur and the crackle of bushes, only it doesn’t come from the ones in front of him. It’s to his side. Max wheels just in time to see a figure running at him. A figure with something over his face, and all Max sees is eyes and a mouth behind a black ski mask. The figure is leaping, like he’s going to tackle Max, and Max turns to run, but his ankle gives way.
His ankle gives way … and saves him.
When his leg folds, he topples sideways instead of lunging forward. The figure lets out a grunt as it tackles empty air.
His attacker hits the ground. Max hasn’t fallen. He only stumbled out of the way. Now he sees the masked man on the ground, flat on his stomach, and he imagines leaping on him and stabbing his little knife into his back. Stabbing and stabbing and—
Max shudders.
Yes, he wants to hurt the man who captured him, who has terrorized him for days. Wants to kick and punch and pummel him and scream at him.
But stab him? Kill him? No, he doesn’t want to do that, and he wishes he could be a good person and say he doesn’t want to murder anyone, but mostly what he thinks is that he doesn’t want to have murdered someone.
And he thinks something else, in that split second while he hesitates. His mind rolls the video on him jumping on the man and stabbing him … and then the man leaping up and grabbing him, hands going around Max’s neck.
There’s blood on the bear-man’s leg, which must be the spot where Max stabbed him last night, and Max races over and kicks that spot as hard as he can, channeling all his rage into that kick. The man screams, and that scream might be the most satisfying thing Max has ever heard.
Then Max runs. Runs faster than he thought he could on his injured ankle. Behind Max, the bear-man bellows in pain, and that spurs him on, keeps him running.
