Read Online Esperanza by Trish J. MacGregor - Free Book Online

him,” Tess said.
    “Suits me. It’s eerie here. Let’s get back to the bus.”
    The fog now surrounded them. Although Ian could hear Nomad’s barking, it echoed in the thick whiteness. Wind rustled through trees, but Ian realized it was a soft whispering, insidious, mocking. And then the whispers became voices, a strange, haunted chanting that sounded like,
Find the body, fuel the body, fill the body, be the body,
over and over again, louder and louder.
    “Jesus,” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”
    Alarm filled her eyes. “It sounds like—”
    Suddenly, a group of men emerged from the fog, six, eight, then ten. They wore dark shirts and trousers, with white wool blankets wrapped around their shoulders. Their eyes seemed to be all pupil, shiny black surfaces that reflected nothing. Some had long braids, others had short hair, some wore shoes, others were barefoot.
    “
Campesinos
,” Tess whispered. “Peasants.” But where had they come from? Ian wondered.
“Buenos días.”
    “Buenos días,”
one of them replied.
    Ian nodded and looked away from them. He and Tess walked faster. Two more men appeared on either side of them and fell into step alongside them.
    “Buenos días,”
Ian said again.
    “De dónde vienen?”
the man on the right asked.
    “What’s that mean?” Ian whispered to Tess.
    “They’re asking where we’re from. This is seriously creepy, Ian.”
    As the man repeated his question, Ian took Tess’s hand, gripping it tightly. He no longer heard the chanting and wondered if they had imagined it. He and Tess walked faster, the two men fell back. When Ian stole a look behind, he saw at least two dozen of them now, fanning out behind them in a half-moon, the men at either end closing in, tightening the semicircle. Then nothing registered except his certainty that he didn’t want these men to touch him. “Run,” he rasped.
    They raced forward, he tripped over something on the ground, lost his balance and flew forward. Tess’s hand slipped away. He slammed into the ground, air rushed from his lungs, and Ian lay there, unable to breathe. Nothing in his body worked, except for his brain, and it shrieked,
Get up now, fast, run.
And, somehow, he did, lurching to his feet with the gracelessness of Frankenstein.
    Only then could he suck air in through his clenched teeth. He racedtoward Tess’s vanishing shape in the fog, toward Nomad’s frantic barking, toward the roar of the bus’s engine, all these sounds concentrated in one area of the fog.
    But the men surrounded him—and closed in on him. Ian feinted to the right, the left. They moved as he moved, as if they were connected to him, as if they were all part of the same wave, the same netting, the same huge piece of seaweed. He saw a tiny opening, dived, struck the ground, rolled, leaped up, and raced away from them. The bus roared into view and Tess swayed in the doorway, shouting at him, gesturing wildly. He loped toward her, toward the bus, the men pursuing him, nearly reaching him. Tess leaned out and grasped his hand and pulled him aboard, her strength as shocking as the fact that he had escaped at all.
    The doors shut, he and Tess stumbled back against the seats. Manuel shouted,
“Hold on, amigos,”
and executed an erratic ninety-degree turn away from the group.
    Tess fell into the nearest seat, her head cut off Ian’s line of sight. Then she shot to her feet and grabbed onto one of the bars above her head as Manuel swerved into another ninety-degree turn. The bus skidded back onto the dirt road, tires kicking up dust and stones, and raced ahead, engine roaring, and broke free of the fog.
    Ian grabbed onto the armrests, Nomad sprawled against the floor, Manuel drove madly. When he finally spoke, he sounded angry. “You cannot leave the bus again. Not until we arrive at the hotel.”
    “You haven’t told us shit,” Ian spat. “Neither of us remembers buying tickets to Esperanza. Neither of us has a clue what the hell we’re