The Blue (The Complete Novel) Read Free Page B

thoughts of the watch. You see it, you get me up, okay? he says as we get inside the tent. I nod my head, letting him know I will.
                I want more than anything to prove to him I’m not imagining the thing—but he knows I’m not. He’s seen the tracks already. And I know he’s not wondering about if it’s real anymore, and neither am I. But it’s something to rent space in my head. Something concrete. To prove to him we’re being hunted.  
     

Chapter 2
     
    Russell and Voley finally start to fall asleep. Voley buries his nose behind Russell’s knee. The fishing rod, which Russell hasn’t stopped playing with for the last hour, slips from his grasp. And it’s just me, alone, with the pistol in my hand. I kneel at the entrance to the tent, forming a wall so the cold air and snow won’t blow in on them as they sleep. I cross my legs and sit down, same as I have the past two nights, and stare out at two layers of darkness. The first layer is the floe itself, a darker mass that covers everything along the bottom of my vision. The only thing that breaks it up is the outline of the boat and a distant set of pressure ridges that are on some ice floe way out beyond the Ice Pancake. Above the first layer of darkness is the second layer, the softer, deep gray glow. I’ve mastered its sky consuming shade and shape, so that I can detect even the slightest shift in it: The dark form I’ve seen the past two nights that bobs up and down along the distant edge of the ice floe, blending its blackness with the first layer, letting me know he’s watching.
     
    I watch patiently, knowing the night’s just getting started. That it will be a long one tonight, with the new information about the boat’s hull, and the loss of the rest of the dog food. The thoughts of dying start up every few minutes, but each time I push them away. I tell myself it’s nothing to die, that Ernest and Dusty have already done it before me, so there’s nothing to fear. That dying will be easy, so why think about it? But each time I manage to push it away, and imagine some version of the future where we can get out of this alive, the vision comes back into my head, slapping away my optimism—it’s a vision of Clemmy, for some reason. Out of all the dead bodies I’ve seen. His slides back into my mind the easiest. Like I haven’t let anyone else really be dead in my mind, just him. Like the rest are just waiting somewhere, like the crazy religions that Russell used to make fun of. Finding something to pray to is one thing, he used to say. You’re just centering yourself. Deluding yourself into nonsense is another. And it’s been a long time since he’s mentioned anything like prayer or God. No one’s waiting for you, I hear Russell’s voice say in my head. They’re gone. And we’ll go too. Nothing unpleasant about it. Just the way things work. But we’ll do it under the sun. Our terms.
     
    And if the sun’s anything like it was in my dream, I tell myself, then I can’t wait. Can’t wait to die in the sun.
     
    My mind rolls into darker thoughts. How can we all shoot ourselves? Somehow, someone will have to go last. And I don’t want it to be me. But at the same time, I want to know everyone else is gone. To know the ocean and the rain didn’t take them. That we all left on our own terms. But then it hits me—it’s the vision of Voley’s eyes and his warm kisses, and I know I could never go last. I could never live to see us do that to him. And I know that I’ll have to go first. Russell will have to be the one to do it all. I’ll have to convince him to take me out first. And maybe then, maybe then I’ll have to pray again. For him to have the strength to do it. He’ll need to pray for himself too. How else could you go through with something like that, if you didn’t trick yourself into courage? The thoughts race in and out, and I start to imagine the beginning of our trek down into the Ice Pancake, and