The Blue (The Complete Novel) Read Online Free

what it will be like on the thinner ice.
                You’re healthy again, says a voice in my head, interrupting the others. It comes out of nowhere. It’s Ernest, talking to me. All of you, he goes on, healthy again. That’s a miracle, isn’t it? Enough of one that you don’t need to be thinking about killing yourselves. You all can just about walk again! he says. And then, as I realize the delirium of my imagination setting in, I push Ernest out of my head. But as hard as I try to keep quiet, something else pops back in, something I didn’t want to remember. It’s him, sitting with me at the top of the Nuke Building. He’s telling me how many times he’s been shot. Four times. And that he’s got me beat by two. And it becomes clear that I can’t kill myself, because then I’ll be stuck at three. It seems to make sense for a moment, like it’s some reason to stay alive. To hope, even when there’s nothing ahead but open ocean and nothing to get across it with. Even with the canoe, in Wyoming, crack and all, we at least had something that floated. Bail all day, but we could still bob on the canvas sea.
                The worries in my head start to spin in on themselves, compounding into an anxiety attack, and right when I think I’m going to explode, I stand up and breathe in a lungful of cold air and step away from the tent. Alone and out onto the floe, with the tent glowing softly behind me. Nothing disturbing the two layers of the darkness. No sign of the thing that’s hunting us. And I have to clear my head, so I begin to walk toward the edge. A night round.
     
    When I get halfway to the edge of the Resilience, and my nerves have started to calm down with the motion of my feet, I realize that it’s probably not a good idea to get too far away from the tent. When I turn around at last to head back, there he is. Crawled all the way from the edge of darkness, from the deep brown sea underneath of us, to nearly twenty feet away from the tent. Silent and standing erect, watching me and the tent. Perfectly still, waiting for a trigger. And I can’t scream or make a sound, or even raise my pistol, because I can’t believe how enormous it really is—twelve feet long if it’s a foot, and even in the darkness, I can see the mouth open and close gently, and within the mouth, a glimpse of razor teeth.
     

Chapter 3
     
    At first I think the creature’s frozen to the ice—he doesn’t move a muscle. No gesture toward me or the tent. And then, it starts to slowly slink toward the glow of the stove, and I know it’s after Russell and Voley. Russell! I scream, and I raise the pistol and steady it, but it’s no use—my line of sight has blended the creature in with that of the tent and the boat. There’s too much darkness and I can’t risk shooting in. I’m not that good of a shot, so I have to run.  
     
    My feet race over the ice toward the tent and the monster crawls slowly, but Russell still hasn’t stirred inside the tent. Then I hear a bark. Loud and piercing, and then shadows inside the tent moving. Voley’s barks wake Russell. He kneels and pokes his head outside the tent and sees the beast. Then he bends down again and Voley jolts out past him, growling as I run. My feet pound harder and I know I shouldn’t sprint on the slush but I do it anyway because I don’t want anything to happen to them. I keep the gun up in case I get a clear shot, but just like that, the black form stalking us moves directly behind the tent and I can’t see it at all. I shout one more time to warn them.
                Russell stands up over the tent, rifle rising, just when I slip hard on the ice. I yell and dig my elbow into the snow and start a long slide. My body rolls and dips into a pocket of icy water that rises up to my waist. And I think I’m going all the way down, underneath a thousand tons of solid ice, when my feet hit solid again. I start to hoist myself out despite the