Echoes of the Past

Echo held his tin can out into the pouring rain, letting the water fill up about halfway, until he pulled it back. He held the can to his scarred lips, letting a small amount of cold rainwater flood into his mouth. He swished it around, letting the numbing cold equate throughout his inner cheeks, then swallowing the water and satisfying the human need of thirst. He set the tin can down on a railing, the paint peeling and barely hanging on to the wood. He turned and walked inside the house, a shelter from the pouring rain.

            Echo, tall and lanky, wiped his shoes and took off his damp jacket. He turned it inside out and hung it up on an old coat hanger. He swung his arm around to his backside, and removed the six shot stuck in the back of his worn jeans. He gripped it in his right hand, spun it around for a second or two, and then flipped it over to his left. He looked up at the ceiling, the cracks growing longer every week, and the wallpaper peeling almost to a point where it would double as flowered paper. Echo scowled at his surroundings, and grasped the pistol tighter. He looked up again, then took the first step down the hall and continued to follow through with his steps till he reached the door at the end. He grasped the knob with his right hand and exhaled. He opened the door and pushed himself through, then closing it behind him.

            Echo walked into a larger room, where the dining room table occupied once upon an age ago. He stood with the weapon in his hands over the metal frame of a bed, where a man stripped naked lay. He was bound with leather straps to each side of his arms and legs, a giant rubber strap around his chest and stomach, and rope binding his feet. There were three other men standing around the bound man, each just watching him lay there. Echo pushed his way to the middle of the group and handed one man his six shot.

            “Any progress?” Echo asked, kneeling down and grabbing the man’s limp wrist and checking for any vitals.

            “Nothing since you left. We gave him more juice, but it wouldn’t wake up. Maybe a bit more and it could-” said a tall man to the right of Echo, but was interrupted mid sentence.

            “Wha?” asked a black man on Echo’s left, “You mean I gonna shock dis man agin? Jus so he can jump about like a fish outta da barrel and go back agin? I ain’t doin dat!”

            “What do you mean Scarlett?” Echo asked the black man.

            “Whiles youse was gone, gettin wata or somthin like that, we’s gave him anothuh jolt, and he lept about like da devil wus in ‘im or somthin,” replied Scarlett.

            “I just thought that if I gave him a higher bolt, then he’d wake up from his sleep!” said the tall man on the right, stepping closer to Echo.

            “Staten! I said try and revive it lightly! Not send him deeper into the hellhole this… thing is in!” Echo demanded.  The man named Staten backed off a bit.

            “Suh, if I may?” asked Scarlett.

            “Go ahead Scarlett, America isn’t gone yet,” replied Echo, still checking the supposed “Man”.

            “Suh, maybe if we jus waited a bit. Maybe he gonna wake up or sumthin. Jus a break or dat,” Scarlett said, pointing with is long index finger to the thing.

            “Scarlett, that is an excellent suggestion. I suggest everyone leave except for you and I,” Echo paused and watched the group as they stared at him.

            “Go goddamnit!” he demanded.

            The men in the room began to shuffle out behind, and there only were two men standing. The echoes of the rain could be heard off the tin roof, the screeches of the floorboards as the men outside shuffled about, leaving for the farthest room away from the one occupied by the thing.