Esperanza by Trish J. MacGregor Page B

shutters like this?
    When he emerged from the bedroom, the kitchen and living room blazed with lights, and Tess was pounding her fists against the shutter across the front door. “Hey, we’re trapped in here, I didn’t sign up for this shit!”
    Ian realized these shutters had also closed off the skylights, every window, the rear door to the back porch, even the pet door Whiskers and Nomad used. They apparently were prisoners. He marched over to the fridge, threw open the door and determined, in a quick glance, what might make a good breakfast. Mushroom omelets with cheese. A side dish of sliced mangos. Mugs of rich Ecuadorian coffee. He found celery and tomatoes and chopped with a kind of vengeance. He whipped four eggs with a frantic rhythm, a drumbeat for war. Slammed the knife through a brick of cheese,
chop chop, chop chop.
The preparation of food became his weapon, his defense.
    Tess ran into the kitchen. “What’re you doing? We need to get the hell out of here.”
    “Out of
here
? Where the hell is
here
? We don’t have any idea where we are with respect to any other point in this country.”
    Then an assault began and it sounded as if the hounds of hell had been turned loose. The rooms echoed with the clamor, a battering storm like hailor rocks pounding the shutters as
something
fought to get in. Paralyzed, he and Tess stared at each other, then Ian forced himself to turn back to the counter, to finish the omelets.
    “Are you nuts?” Tess burst out. “You’re
cooking
while we’re under attack? Jesus, Ian, we need weapons.” She jerked open one of the drawers, grabbed a long, sharp knife. “We’ve got to be able to defend ourselves.”
    He looked at her, spatula in hand. “Against what?
Brujos
? What the fuck are they? We don’t know. How’d we get here? We don’t know. What’s happening? We don’t know. What’s really going on, Tess?
We. Don’t. Know.
”
    Her eyes widened. “You’re deaf? You can’t hear this attack?” She threw her arms out at her sides. “Something is attacking this cottage and if . . . if it breaks through, if . . .”
    “We don’t know shit.” He poured the whipped eggs into the frying pan, grabbed the spatula, folded celery, tomatoes, and mushrooms into the eggs. “And I’m hungry. I’m going to eat.”
    Just like that, the assault stopped. Silence suffused the cottage. Tess’s arms fell to her sides, she stared at the shuttered windows, the door, and dropped her head back and looked up into the dark belly of the skylight. Then she spun around with the knife clutched in her hand and vanished into the living room. Ian turned back to the stove, the frying pan, the omelets, to what he understood and could control.
    With the abrupt cessation of the assault, Tess’s desperation for light and visibility propelled her straight to the front door. If these shutters were anything like the ones at home, then they would have an inside lock, something simple that could be turned quickly.
    She threw the door open, ran her hands over the flat, smooth surface. This shutter wasn’t an accordion; it was a metal panel, flush against the door. But down near the bottom, she found a turn lock, flipped it, then leaned into the panel, pressed her hands against it, and pushed. It slid slowly to the left, admitting early morning light, a chill, the sweet scent of pine.
    As she started to slip through the opening, Ian grabbed her arm, bellowing,
“No! We don’t know if it’s over.”
He jerked her back so hard she nearly tripped over her own feet.
    Tess wrenched her arm free, furious that he had attempted to restrain her. “Don’t
ever
do that.” The vitriol in her voice shocked her. Ian looked as if she had slapped him. “You said we don’t know shit. It’s true. And it’s time to find out what’s going on.”
    She brushed past him, pushed the door open wider, and stepped out onto the porch. An overturned cleaning cart blocked the path from the main building, a bank of