Crazy Dangerous Read Free Page B

kind of idiot?
    I faced forward and put on some extra speed, fueled by fear. I felt Harry Mac’s fingers lose their hold on my shirt and slip away. I looked ahead and there was the train, snaking around the curve to head for the end of the bridge. Once it got there, there would be no way to get out of its path.
    I glanced back one more time. Now, even Harry Mac had figured out this was the craziest thing ever. He had stopped on the bridge. He was standing in the middle of the train tracks, breathless, staring after me, shaking his head.
    Just before I faced forward, I saw him turn away. I saw him start jogging back toward where Jeff and Ed P. were standing in safety at the bridge entrance. They had stopped where they were. They had not come after me. They weren’t complete idiots after all.
    I wish I could say the same about myself. Even then, I might have had time to turn around. I might have headed back toward where Jeff and his thug pals were standing and gotten off the tracks before the train came. Why didn’t I do it? What was the worst that could’ve happened to me? Jeff and his friends would’ve picked me up by my ankles and driven my head into the ground and left me there buried up to my neck with my feet dangling in the air. That wouldn’t have been so bad, really—at least not when you compared it to getting flattened by that oncoming freight.
    But I just couldn’t think that clearly. All I could think about was getting away from Jeff—and beating that train to the end of the bridge. So I kept running, watching as the train got closer and closer and closer to the other side.
    Now I was about two-thirds of the way over. The freight engine was chugging hard across the last stretch of the ridge, winding around the bend toward the bridge entrance. Right at that moment, I liked my chances. I thought I had a good shot of getting all the way across before the train cut me off.
    I gave it everything I had, pouring all my strength and effort into my legs. With the fading blue of the afternoon sky all around me, I felt as if I were suspended in midair, running desperately through the middle of nothingness. I caught wild glimpses of the hills up ahead and the town below. But mostly I saw that train. Closer and closer to the bridge. Fully around the bend now so that the front of the engine was pointed straight at me, barreling straight toward me.
    The whistle pierced the air again, so loud it hurt my ears. I raced headlong toward the front of the engine. Yes, I truly believed I was going to make the exit before the freight got there and blocked it off.
    Then I stepped on a rotten tie, and the wood snapped. My foot went crashing through, my ankle twisting. I stumbled forward, trying to keep on my feet. I couldn’t. I fell, putting out my hands to brace myself. My palm smacked the rough wood of the railroad ties, and I felt the burning pain as my skin was pierced by splinters. I screamed and hugged my wounded hand to my chest.
    But there was no time to worry about it now. I scrambled to my feet. With horror, I saw that the freight was less than a hundred yards away from the end of the bridge. I cried out and ran straight toward it—there was no other choice. If I turned and tried to run back now, the thing would just plow right over me.
    The freight whistle screamed again as if in anguish at what was about to happen. I screamed too, just from the effort of running—and, oh yeah, from terror. The thing was fifty yards away.
    I reached the end of the bridge. The freight reached it at the same moment. The front of the locomotive loomed, gigantic and deadly. There were maybe ten yards separating us now.
    I hurled myself through that gap.
    The scream of the freight whistle filled the air, filled my mind, filled everything, and my own scream filled everything too, as I hit the ground and tumbled over the gravelly slope.
    Lying on my back, I looked up and saw the great monster of a train flashing over me, the giant cars