Read Online The Blue (The Complete Novel) by Joseph Turkot - Free Book Online Page B

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 sound of the click seems distant, like it didn’t really come from the gun in my hand. And then, in the momentary shock, knowing there is nothing I can do to avoid my fate, and that the gun misfired, and I’ll be eaten alive, after all these days of failing to hunt the seal, I fall backward, the only thing I can do—back into the freezing cold sea of rain.
     
    I feel the kicks of someone—Russell or Voley, I can’t tell who’s digging into me. My arms flail and thrust to push up through the water, and when my head erupts again, I see nothing but the ice shelf in front of me. The taste of metal salt rolls through my mouth and I spit, waiting for noises and sounds and a visual on the hunter. There’s nothing, and then, from the numb silence comes Russell’s voice. He’s in some kind of struggle behind me, pounding down into the foaming brown. I turn and see: he’s fighting the monster. And Voley’s back on the ice somehow—when I hear the whine, I look up from Russell and see Voley looking down, miraculously switching positions with me. He barks and lowers his nose and then raises it, beckoning me to come up. He scrapes his paws and then leans over, barks, and then retreats.
     
    I spin around to see Russell fighting in the darkness beneath, the sea monster, and then, like the seal’s body is a springboard, he launches himself up, using its back, and he’s up safely on the floe too. And it’s all reversed, because I’m in the ocean and they’re out—but I’m in the same danger as before—it’s still just me and the seal. Russell hollers and he has his arm out for me to grab while Voley whines. I swim with everything I’ve got, reaching out with my right hand, knowing that at any moment I’ll feel the bite. And then I do—the jaw clamps onto me, just as I imagined it would. The pain bursts through my body, more intense than the pain of the stabbing sea, and the sharp teeth slide along my calf and then stop, the jaw locked in place on my leg. The seal starts to pull me down. But Russell grabs my arm, and he pulls too, and Voley barks like mad, and I feel like I’m going to be split in two. And then, I feel a great tearing. Like a piece of my leg has just