How the hell do you plan on climbing that? I ask him as he leaves me. Come on boy, Russell says. Voley starts after him. And then he tells me, stopping to see that I haven’t started to follow: We’re not climbing anything. We’re getting behind it. Come on.
For the life of me I can’t figure out why, because it seems like getting behind the enormous cliff will just put us under its weight, one side of it or the other. Either way, I see it collapsing on our heads after an enormous wave, or grinding down into the sea, carrying our low ice into the cold brown. But I don’t say anything else, because I don’t have a single better idea. Anything to not die in the waves. And all I have is my trust of Russell.
We jump gap after gap, more quickly and recklessly now, like we’re in a race against time, and I learn to ignore my stomach. The wind kicks up more, blowing at our sides now, and I keep checking the sky, hoping the blue will miraculously return. But it doesn’t.
After an hour on the ice, when I feel so raw that I almost beg Russell to stop so that we can put the stove on and rest, I realize the rain is slowing up and the wind hasn’t gotten any worse. I tell him I think it’s letting up, but he’s not so sure. He says it might be, but we shouldn’t change course yet. And so I march on, and look back, wondering how the seal is doing with the new weather. But he’s nowhere to be seen.
When the night comes, we barely speak a word. Just plant the tent about thirty feet away from the ridge. It’s about ten feet higher than the pancake ice, and if it was somehow climbable, I’d convince Russell that we should try and make the effort. But its walls are like sheer mirrors, and as strong as it looks, and as much as I know it’s probably immune to the long, rolling swells, I crawl into the tent without a word about moving anymore.
I wish Russell had his guitar. Or just that he’d sing. Or anything. Even touch me. Hold me. But he just curls up into a ball, holding onto anger—about the weather or the seal, I can’t tell—and falls asleep after telling me it’s my watch first. I want to curse at him, and tell him he’s the one who’s giving up. That it’s his idea to stay hopeful, and that I can’t do it without him. And when I look at Voley, knowing he’s always hopeful, no matter what the situation is, he just whines. The long, high whine that means he’s hungry. And I can read his mind. He’s been walking all day, and his muscles are sore, and we’ve used up everything we have, and he needs to eat something. But there’s nothing to eat. I tell him this softly. Sorry boy, we don’t have anything right now. He doesn’t seem to understand, and keeps on whining, so I just pet him. I wonder if Russell will come to life and get angry if I start the stove up. I remember he told me that we only had a night’s worth left. If that. But I want to use the last of it now. It’s the only thing I can give Voley. I start to work my way toward the bag, trying to sneak the stove out, but then Voley whines louder, like he wants to give me away, even though I’m trying to help him. I decide we’ll just freeze and return to him empty-handed. I’m sorry, I tell him again. And then, I just pet him. For the longest time, I don’t even go out to stand my watch. I just sit by him and pet him until he stops whining. And I tell him that I know, I feel it too. What I would give for another pebble of dog food. And finally, soaked along his chest, Voley lies down in the cold slush. And the rain starts up again, nearly to medium, and the patter begins on the tarp. But the tarp barely shields us. Voley slides along Russell, the only warmth left to him in the world, and I escape into the darkness.
The wind hits my face. I walk away from the tent and the ridge and invite the weather to come. Bring it on. I feel the cold steel in my pocket and my aching joints and make my way over to one of the small cracks of open ocean. I don’t even know where I’m going. I take the gun out and raise it toward the sky. Like I can shoot the blue open again. But I know there’s a monster out there. Brewing behind the gray clouds. A storm that’s coming to swallow us up. Ice and spray and metal salt death. Me and the last friends to ever know.
I get so far away without realizing it that when I look back, the tent is almost gone from my view, cut off by part of the rise of the ice cliff. And for some reason that I can’t explain, I burst out at the rain. Right up into it. I scream. At first it’s nothing but primal sounds, dark emotions that could never have words. I express my darkest remorse at having lived, at having had to come through this all. All of it pointless. A dream before I die. Some memory that I lived a life, and all those things in it, the people that I shared it with, will all just be a flash of remembrance, and then it will be gone. I scream because I want it all to mean more than what it means. The love I’ve felt. It should mean more than this. And finally, from my guttural moanings come words. I shout the names of the people I miss. Every single one that ever touched me—I call out for Jennifer and Delly. I tell them that this is where we are now. This is what happened to your old friends. Washed out by the rain finally. I holler up to them, and ask if they’ve already been taken by it. I ask the rain too. And then I tell them goodbye. I call for the Cap’n, who always knew how to keep us alive. For the longest time, and why couldn’t you get us through one storm? You fought storms your whole life. I tell him it was just a storm. And that I loved it on the Sea Queen. Then I come to Ernest, and I tell him that he’s got to do something. He’s got to get us through this. Just one more time. Get us through it. That this is the real spot to sacrifice yourself for. Come out from wherever the hell you’re hiding. And haul us on again. You can’t leave us here, I tell him. And then I think of Dusty. And how much I loved him. I tell him as loud as I can that he shouldn’t have come after us from Blue City. He shouldn’t have done it. Are you happy? I yell. And I apologize because I don’t mean to yell at him, but I yell at him anyway. Is this how you wanted to end up? I yell at him like he’s dying right in front of me again. And when I catch myself from my tantrum, I look back toward the tent, sure that Russell will be glaring at me. Awake and watching me lose my mind. With Voley next to him, baffled. But I’ve walked too far away. They don’t hear me.
I reach into my pocket and take out the metal box. The red powder tin. I push it into my mouth and lick it. Nothing but cold steel. And then I roar into the wind and throw it. As far as I can. And watching me, like I’m some sort of curious attraction, is the seal. He stares at me, wide awake and alert, about fifty feet away. I tell him not to move, because we need him. Need your body so that we can live. Yours for ours. I tell him it’s just the way it goes, and finally, when I’m crazed enough that I forget that it’s the seal that chased me last time, I charge at him. Right on with everything I’ve got, not even worrying about the cracks and the ocean gaps and the splitting ice beneath me. Far from the sight of Russell or Voley or anyone in the whole world. Just me and the seal. And just when I’m picking up real speed, and I think I can take a shot with the pistol, I trip, bang my elbow hard against the ice, and sink up to my waist in a pool of frigid water. When the daze clears, and I look up, I already know what I’ll see. The seal will be crashing down on me. Ready to devour me. It’s body winning out over mine. And why not. Isn’t that the way it goes anyway? Aren’t the face eaters the ones who really understand how the world works? But when I raise my head from shock and look at him, he hasn’t moved. But then I realize that I’m wrong—he is moving, only very slowly. He’s coming to get me because he knows I’m down. But he can’t run anymore. And when I claw out onto firm ice again and get to my feet, and he sees that I’m not dead or paralyzed like he thought, he turns around. I start my mad chase again, but then he rolls over, right into a crack of the sea.
I don’t even make a sound. Just turn and head back toward the tent.
When I get back, and Russell and Voley are still sound asleep, completely ignorant of the mania that’s taking over my head like a virus, I lie down quietly. Just lie with them. And listen to the rain, and feel it slip through the tarp onto me, and let it all go. I don’t even remember to wake Russell up for a watch. The wind whips up and dies back down, whistling against the poles. I squeeze my body against t
heirs but all of us together hardly produce any more warmth. It’s only a single, stretched out moment that I remain awake, and then everything fades away into a deep sleep, until I hear Russell screaming. I have no idea why he’s screaming, or where he is, but all I know is I’m awake again. Like it’s only been a minute. And that I’m falling. The tarp coils in around me, and I see Voley shoveling away, feel him kicking off of my legs, trying to climb away from the collapsing tent. And before the chaos makes any sense, a cold wave of ocean falls over everything. And in one shuddering moment of terror, I know: The ice cracked apart right beneath the tent, and the sea is taking us at last.
Part 2
Chapter 8
A cold stabbing wash of foam stings my eyes as I try to open my lids. Darkness tumbles in on me, concealing strange light and the sound of yelling. I throw out my arms against the tangling mass of the tarp, trying desperately to escape suffocation. But the tent doesn’t want me to come back up—it clings to me, a magnet to my skin, and wraps around me tighter. I sink, and then, the next wave of water rushes in and I hold my breath. The weight of the sea and the shock of its temperature strip me of thought. The world goes quiet and the calls from above disappear, and I think that maybe the ice didn’t break out from underneath the tent, like I thought—it was the seal—he came in the night, nabbed me by the arm, and pulled me all the way to the edge, driving me back into the icy sea. Playing for keeps this time, knowing I don’t have another jacket to lose. But then the darkness lifts, a momentary vanishing, and there’s gray light, and the hollering again, soft and muffled. I kick and thrash and try to rise up, fighting death with all the fury I have left in me, and at last, from numbness, I am above the water and there’s Russell. He’s pulling the canvas tent away from my head. Uncoiling it where it tried to mummify me. And then, he’s down on the ice, lying on his belly, his arm extended over the lip of the floe. Tanner! Grab on! he shouts. I extend my frozen fingers and he grabs onto them. And in a wash of white burning I’m pulled against the ice, hard over the edge of the berg, grinding through my sweater, and then I spill onto the hard surface of ground again. Solid floe and air to breathe. I open everything wide, mouth and nose, and draw in torrents of air, over and over, until my lungs feel like fire. The sky is above me, light and gray and empty. Becoming less and less fuzzy. I wait for a single flake of snow to hit my cheeks, but there are none left to fall. And when I hear a splash, I spin my head where I lie, and that quickly, as fast as it had disappeared, my horror returns.
I see that the ice really did split apart right beneath our tent, but Voley didn’t make it out of the water. And Russell’s in now, chasing after him. I throw my two fists into the top snow and push up—every bit of energy I have to get to my feet—and by the time I stand up, I can only watch helplessly. Russell paddles through the six foot lead of brown toward Voley. But Voley’s already slipping under because it’s too cold. Each time he surfaces, his head darts around, like he’s desperately hoping for something to bite onto. But there’s nothing.
Frantically I look around for a spot to jump across the new crack, somewhere the ice didn’t get too far apart, so that I can get around closer to Voley. But the gaps are all too far, as if the split wanted to separate us from each other. I run farther, searching for some way across, and with each pounding beat in my chest I hear another mad splash, Russell’s or Voley’s, I can’t tell. I keep my eyes on the white near my feet where the flow shelves off and turns into the sea. Six feet wide gap. Seven. Six again. Five. But then the slit narrows and there’s a spot to jump across where there are only three feet of water. I run as hard as I can and leap, more than enough to clear the gap, and land smoothly. The wind drives against my dripping body and stings, trying to force me to stop running, but I can’t. From the corner of my eye, I think I catch the seal—watching us, calmly taking in our life-and-death struggle. But he’s far away, two floes off, far enough that I just ignore him. I cut my path back toward the floe’s edge closest to Voley. When I make it there, Russell dips underneath the ocean. At first I think he’s drowning too, but then I realize: he’s trying to get under Voley’s body and shove him up, high enough to spill over the raised floe shelf. Then, in his powerful burst, Voley softly clears the ocean surface, but barely goes any higher. And I realize. Russell can’t do it. He’s not strong enough anymore.
I reach the ridge and kneel down, hanging over the sea and yelling at him to shove up harder. Again! I tell him, and I send my arms out like life rafts, curled up to grab Voley’s chest as he catches the small bit of air Russell can give him. I yell again when Russell doesn’t respond. Finally, Russell goes under the water again, and then, right when I think he’s not coming back up, that he’s down there too long, he blasts up so hard that Voley gets airborne. I push out as far as I can without toppling in, and I snatch him—a perfect grab—my one hand under his chest, and the other grabbing a paw, but the weight is too much, with his soaked fur and wildly thrashing body, and he slips right out from under my arms. His paws beat outward in each direction, frantically trying to latch onto anything at all, anything solid, to drag himself back onto firm ice again. It’s useless though, because his paws strike the air and foam, and his body splashes back into the sea, right on top of Russell, and tangled together, they both go under. I watch helplessly as their bodies twist underneath the brown—Voley kicking, anything to escape, hitting right into Russell, and Russell strikes out his arms and legs for his own life now. They claw at each other for another breath.
I freeze, like time has stopped, and look around—paralyzed, unfeeling, unable to recognize that this is really happening. I push all the fears aside, everything but the fact that I have to do something immediately. I look for anything that can help us. And my eyes trace the blank ice in a stupor, as if there’ll be a life raft right by us, or a pole to lay out into the water, but there’s nothing. Just the plain ice, white and blue and merciless forever. I see our only bag, but it’s on the other side of the floe, and I know that even if I had it, there’d be nothing in it that could help. And then, when my head twists past where I’m certain I saw the seal before, he’s gone. And there he is—on a different floe now, much closer. As if he’s finally stalking us again—like he’s been waiting calmly for chaos to appear. He bobs his head up and down, like he knows we’re panicking—no longer a solid unit, but separated from each other, vulnerable, and it’s giving him the energy to hunt. And by his eyes I know it’s me he wants. To carry me off with his frail, starving body. But I hear the gasping breaths and dying splashes of the ones I love, and I look back down into the water, and ignore the seal.
Voley is up again, dog paddling, strangely calm, and it looks like it’s Russell this time who’s losing it, barely staying afloat. And I am hit with a wall of fear that he’s going to die down there, and it will just be me to save Voley. Come on, boy! I yell. I get down again and reach out with my arms. Voley paddles close enough to me that I can pull on his paws when they rise from the splashing, but he’s too heavy. I let go and he struggles to dig into the ice again, but his nails can’t penetrate the rock-like sidewall of the floe. Each time he seems to catch a notch, and partly pull himself up, the claws slide right out and he falls back, his head disappearing. And then, I hear a new noise, something besides the splashing and Russell’s gasps and Voley’s helpless scraping—it’s the beating of the seal’s body against the ice. The unmistakable sound of a charge.
I glance behind, over my shoulder, to be sure, and to my terror, he’s coming—I see the glistening ribs bounce, his long body barreling right at me. My eyes instinctively dart around on the ice floe for signs of the guns, but I don’t see them. Sucked in already, down into the brown rain sea. Or maybe they’re in the bag on the other side. But I have nothing.
I extend my hands one more time for Voley, and hope that he’ll catch on to me this time, and I’ll have the strength to hold onto him, long enough to hoist him so he can get enough traction to pull himself up out of the abyss. He lunges for
ward and rises, and I grab his paws and tug, and together we vault up and out, just for a moment, but then it’s all too wet, and nothing grips, and his fur slides right through my fingers. He splashes right down next to Russell. And when I look to Russell, he seems to have gained his breath again, and he’s no longer gasping, like he’s somehow adjusted to the freezing water. His face rises to mine and he yells something at me. I don’t make out the words, but I know by the sound—he can hear the seal coming too. I stand up and turn to face it.
The seal’s mouth slowly opens, displaying the jagged razors inside. His eyes hold the same look of hope and desperation that I know too well, that I’ve seen on most of the people I’ve met since the Midwest. The hunger for survival. His dog-faced body undulates, up and down, in thumping rhythm rushing forward, straight for my body like it’s the one single thing left in the world that can keep him alive. But there’s a noise against my feet, and there, wet, useless, is a gun. From the sea behind, from Russell’s waterlogged pocket. He knows what’s coming, and as trapped as he is, he has given me my only fighting chance. With only ten feet between us, I reach down, ignoring the slow deaths behind me, and lift the pistol. My brittle fingers lock on hard and I take aim, pointing right at the wide chest, praying that the gun fires.
The thumping body, still many times the size of my own despite its starvation, makes its final lunge over the last stretch of ice. The seal’s eyes fix their gaze on me, calculating the fatal jaw snap, and then I take my last shot. And as it raises its torso high, and I see the pink of its tongue tucked between the white fangs, its head bending down to rip my neck this time, and not a jacket, I pull the trigger.
The Blue (The Complete Novel) Page 5