Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  “I thought you don’t like wasting time, or did you just mean your own?” Eric said, cringing with his words. Just keep your mouth shut and be polite. Too late.

  Detective Eastman set the foam cup down a little too hard and some coffee sloshed out onto the table. “I had a visit to Anadarko, saw Meredith’s mom, Vickie. Very helpful lady. Needs to get herself cleaned up, though.”

  Eric’s heart picked up when he thought of Vickie, of that dyed red hair in a halo of cigarette smoke. His mom never smoked yet she died of lung cancer, something he had wished on Vickie too many times to count.

  “Once she learned about your father’s murder, she was very eager to tell us about what happened the night Meredith was raped,” the detective continued, pinching the edge of the foam cup.

  That night, lightning and thunder cracking, Eric waking and searching next to him, but Meredith was gone.

  “She says your father had to fight to get you off Meredith and then you got his gun.”

  Eric’s chest constricted until he couldn’t breathe.

  “She says your father convinced her to protect you, you being young and all. He didn’t want to see you go to jail, not after they found out Meredith’s baby was fine despite your apparent efforts.”

  The lights overhead seemed to dim, narrowing Eric’s vision, and he closed his eyes. He saw blood on Vickie’s hands, up her forearms, and he quickly opened his eyes again.

  “That’s not—that’s not what happened.”

  The baby was dead. Sam said so all those years ago. Everyone said it. The raped girl in Anadarko lost a baby.

  “Your Aunt Vickie showed me pictures of the kid. Good-looking boy. Has your dimples. Your father had dimples too, huh?”

  Eric couldn’t get a breath. He couldn’t speak. He watched an unnatural look of delight cross Detective Eastman’s face, the huge grin never matching the dead blue of his eyes.

  “So, let me ask you something, Mr. Walker. Who’s the proud father?”

  Chapter 20: Arrow, 1994

  Arrow jolted awake, Trent Reznor’s repeated screams of “kill me” ripping through his ears. He had fallen asleep to the Nine Inch Nails CD he stole from Sam’s room. As he’d done for the last few nights, he’d gasp awake when the end of “Eraser” came on.

  He removed his headphones and heard a strange sound coming from Sam’s room. It was a high, hiccupping cry, and it scared him. He didn’t want to leave his room to see if the cry was Sam’s—he knew it was and he didn’t want to know what was causing it. He had to, though.

  He quietly opened his door and padded over to her room. He didn’t hear anything else besides the cry, and he cracked her door open. Sam was under the covers, lying on her side away from him. Arrow closed the door behind him and she stopped crying, her sudden silence and the rigidness of her body making him pause.

  He moved over by her window so she could see it was only him, but he was afraid to sit on her bed. He recognized that thick force field-like energy around her and it told him to go away, you’re not welcome.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Sam pulled the covers up to her neck. “I had a bad dream,” she said, sniffling. “Go back to bed.”

  “What was it about?”

  “I don’t remember. Just go back to bed.”

  He ignored her and his sinking feeling and sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to rub her back, and her body shuddered like she was cold. That’s when he smelled it—the bleachy-scent of semen cut with soil, sweat, and alcohol. It was all over her.

  His dad.

  His hands balled into fists. He wanted to punch himself, slam his head against her wall, anything for letting it happen. He should have watched over her better and it was too late.

  “Sam.”

  “Please, just go.” Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, someone frail and about to die. “It was just a dream. I’m okay now.”

  Arrow left her room. He couldn’t feel his legs, but they moved him back to his room, to his dresser and to the drawer where he kept his new pocketknife. He opened the blade and crept past the soft snores coming from Grandma Haylin’s room, down the stairs, and to Jeri and his dad’s bedroom. His father lay on his back on top of the covers, his large hands braided together and resting on his naked chest.

  He held the knife high, his arms shaking, over his father’s rising and falling chest.

  He had to do this, he had to stop him, for Sam, but his hands trembled when he thought about sinking the knife into his dad’s heart. His only parent left, but he knew his dad would do it again. Meredith flashed in his mind. Everything would happen again.

  He held the knife higher.

  He heard movement coming from the front of the house, the clinking of keys being set down on a table.

  Jeri. She was back from the Woodland house.

  Arrow lowered the knife, went out to the hallway, and let out the breath he’d been holding. His ears were ringing, the feel of an icy hand gripping the back of his neck hard as he made himself move, quietly, back up the stairs to his bedroom.

  He stood by his dresser, shuddering so hard he almost dropped the knife.

  The right time would come. Saying it in his head calmed him a little. It would come, he knew it in his heart. He made the promise to protect Sam and he would keep it.

  Chapter 21: Sam, 2009

  Sam sat in her car outside of Eric’s two-story Gatewood home, eating a Sonic burger she picked up along the way. The surrounding Plaza District had been “up-and-coming” since she had moved to Oklahoma City twelve years prior. Knowing how much Eric used to love fixing things, she knew the house would eventually end up the nicest on the block. In its current state, it would’ve fit nicely in a horror film, the streetlamps doing little more than illuminating the rotted wood exterior and sagging covered porch.

  She wondered if Eric knew about the boy. Caleb. That’s what Meredith yelled to him when he remained standing on the stairs, staring down at his mother with those soulful eyes that drove Sam stuttering like a damn fool. Eric had to know about him, and he didn’t want her to find out for some reason.

  It was almost ten, the moon high, when Eric pulled his truck into his driveway, nearly hitting Sam’s car parked on the side street. He got out, steadied himself against the driver’s side door before moving to his porch, and Sam knew he was drunk.

  She got out of her car, looked around at his neighborhood again, and hit the lock button on her key fob several times. Eric turned around at hearing her car alarm chirp.

  “Your drunk ass could’ve killed someone.”

  Eric squinted under the dark covered porch. “Sam?”

  “We need to talk.”

  He turned back around to his front door, struggling to put his house key into the lock.

  “I’ve had enough talking today.”

  Sam took his keys from him and opened his door. “Trust me—you’ll want to hear this.”

  She wasn’t sure what to expect on the inside of his house, but she didn’t expect the sparseness. A remodeling zone, sure, but his house had zero furniture. They moved past a large, empty room to the back of the house, which seemed to be the only space in use, with a thin blanket and pillow shoved to the side of a brown leather couch.

  “I don’t have a lotta time to work on it,” he slurred out like an apology, sinking into the couch.

  “It has good bones.” Bones that would take a shit-ton of muscle and skin to make it livable.

  Sam sank into the couch next to Eric and held her breath. The smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and sweat wafted off of him. Bar smells. He looked exhausted, the circles under his eyes and stubble on his face making him seem much older.

  She was tired too, but she tried to focus on the questions she wanted to ask Eric, which now seemed impossible for him to answer given his drunken state.

  One thing Sam knew for sure now was that Meredith didn’t lose the baby. It wouldn’t be
the first time town rumors had the truth wrong, and the local papers only stated general information about an Anadarko girl’s rape, no names mentioned. She thought of her old best friend Chrissy, how she fed Sam all the gossip about Isaac and Eric as soon as they moved to Blanchard. Everyone had talked about them—the old veterans hanging out at the diner, the church ladies getting their hair done, even Grandma Haylin, who was never a fan of Isaac long before she knew what he was capable of.

  After Isaac disappeared, Sam’s mom had asked the local paper to leave out the gory details of the attack, as if people would judge her for what her husband did. She would’ve been right. Sam knew the police questioned her mom about Isaac’s murder, but her mom said nothing about it for some reason. Sam knew she’d have the conversation about it with her mom soon and she didn’t look forward to it.

  On her drive over to Eric’s house, anger at him had hummed low and constant but it didn’t feel justified. For all she knew, he didn’t know about Caleb. There was another emotion trying to surface—resentment—but she wouldn’t allow herself to fixate on it for too long.

  Sam’s eyes caught a framed picture on the wood floor leaning against the wall. Prometheus, benefactor of mankind—it was the drawing she had made for Eric on his sixteenth birthday. There was a line down the middle of the stormy scene as if someone had torn it in half and carefully taped it back. She couldn’t believe he still had it after all these years.

  She looked at Eric. He was staring at the drawing, his chin resting on his chest and his eyes glazed.

  He was probably too drunk to understand anything, but she didn’t care.

  “I saw Meredith Lang today.”

  Eric’s head shot up so fast, Sam jerked back from him.

  “Why?”

  “Because I needed to. I needed to see her reaction about Isaac.”

  “Fucking great. You know the cops are going to follow you. Probably followed you there.”

  “They didn’t.”

  Eric stood up, wobbled some, and went to his kitchen. Sam followed him. He took a plastic cup next to the sink and filled it with water, drinking it down like his life depended upon it.

  “You didn’t tell me how delightful Meredith is.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “But you did.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine. Let’s talk about Caleb then.”

  Eric’s face was blank. Maybe he was too intoxicated.

  “I saw Meredith’s son. He’s your goddamn twin.”

  He looked at the empty cup in his hand.

  “He’s a sophomore. Almost sixteen. I looked him up on social media.”

  Sam could see everything about the kid. Where he went to school, what his room looked like, his favorite music and video games, his friends and hangouts. Everything.

  Eric stared past her, his face pale.

  He leaned over the sink, violently throwing up on a stack of unwashed dishes. Sam looked away, the smell of whatever he had to drink hitting her nostrils. That anger at him fizzed up again, but she forced it down, rubbed Eric’s back until he got it all out.

  She poured him more water from the tap, and he took a large gulp, swished it around and spit it out.

  “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “There,” he said, pointing to the leather couch.

  She assisted him back over to the couch and removed his work boots when he struggled to get them off. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before, his hair a greasy mess. His eyes were unfocused, a dreamy smile playing on his lips that stirred a memory awake.

  It had been two months after the attack and Eric’s leg had mostly healed. She remembered Eric being out late, well past dinner. It was the end of February, the air frigid with a recent snow, and he came back covered in dirt, no coat. As cold as it was outside, he was sweaty, a strange grin on his face, said he had helped the eldest Stewart boy kill one of the wild hogs eating up their winter crop, lost his coat in the process. Shortly after that night, he was gone.

  She watched Eric reach for his blanket on the couch.

  “Actually,” she said, “let’s get you into a shower before you pass out.”

  Eric tried to protest, but she successfully dragged him up and found his bathroom. She helped him undress as the shower water warmed up. She couldn’t get over how different his body was from when he was a teenager. It was like he had slipped from his gangly boy frame and stepped into Isaac’s labor-hard body. Her eyes lingered too long. Eric noticed and took it as an invitation. Drunk as he was, he pressed her against the bathroom vanity, his mouth on her neck, hands working to remove her blouse. He kissed her, and she shoved him away.

  “Hey—let’s get the bar funk off you.”

  He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled hard as he held her by her neck. Shivery pain danced up her back to the spot he held firm.

  “This is what you’ve wanted, right?”

  Sam closed her eyes, heard the words Isaac told her that first time he was on her, pressing her body down on her bed: This is what you’ve wanted. No questions with him, everything an absolute.

  At sixteen, rape was something she read about in books, saw vague depictions of in movies. It didn’t seem to fit what Isaac had done to her. Rape was so much more than the physical act. He had removed any choice from her and twisted her desires to be his own, had broken her ability to sense bad intentions in men until she went through years of therapy.

  Eric squeezed her neck tighter, his lips forceful on her mouth, his erection wedged hard against her pelvis. Memories seared between her legs, as if Isaac were inside her, whispering in her ear how proud he was of her, of how much she took from him without breaking, and she’d beam with his words like a student getting praise from a favorite teacher.

  Eric could be Isaac, with her eyes closed, but she didn’t want that.

  She had a choice now.

  “No.”

  She shoved him off. He looked confused, but he didn’t try to kiss her again.

  “You need a shower. You fucking stink.”

  She left him in the bathroom and wandered through the remodeling mess, every wall staring back blank and cold. She found a large toolbox on the living room floor and searched through it until she found what she was looking for. She positioned a nail and hit it a good three times with a hammer to drive it into the plaster wall. She stepped back after she hung her old drawing. It wasn’t the best or worst drawing she’d ever done, but it mollified something deep in her to see it in Eric’s home.

  She turned to see Eric, hair damp and boxer briefs on, watching her, the lust from minutes before gone from his eyes and replaced with a different kind of longing, the kind that reminded Sam she would never be what she knew he wanted—a wife who could give him kids, a normal life with normal desires. She had pretended with too many men before, and she wouldn’t do it again. The thought alone drained her.

  He glanced at the wall. “Looks good there.”

  “Come lie down.”

  He obeyed like a little boy, looking too tired to resist, and stretched out on the couch. She covered him in the thin blanket, and he tucked it around his body.

  He looked peaceful and she didn’t want to ruin that for him, but she had to ask.

  “Did you know about him? About Caleb?”

  He shook his head.

  “You know what this means, Eric. You could have a half-brother.”

  Or a son? Her stomach tightened into a painful knot when she imagined it, so she tried not to think about it. She repeated the lie to herself: he didn’t have sex with Meredith, and even if he did he would’ve been too young to get her pregnant.

  Eric’s face scrunched up, tears springing up in his eyes.

  She didn’t expect him to be this upset. He used to tell her when they were younger how he wanted a brother, how his mom was pregnant when he was eight but miscarried.

  “This can be a
good thing,” she said, feeling stupid as she rubbed his arm through the blanket. “If it’s true, I’m sure he’ll want to meet you.” She wondered if Caleb would have wanted to meet Isaac. Unlikely, if he knew anything about him.

  “You don’t understand. She’ll never let me see him.” He calmed down some as he stared at her drawing on the wall. “Maybe he’s not…maybe you’re wrong.”

  Sam had no doubt the kid was of Isaac’s gene pool—that straight nose and toffee eyes were Walker all right.

  “I can see Meredith again, talk her into testing Caleb or something. Prove he’s related to you.”

  Eric grasped Sam’s wrist hard. “Stay away from her. Promise me.”

  He looked so panicked.

  “Okay,” she said.

  He pulled his arm back under his blanket burrito and closed his eyes.

  Sam had no intention of staying away from Meredith. There was a reason why Meredith kept Caleb away from Eric for sixteen years, why she manufactured a lie Sam had believed as truth all this time. Detectives would keep digging, and they’d have more questions for Sam and Eric, questions she knew wouldn’t be good for either of them. Witnessing Meredith’s indifferent reaction when she heard Isaac was dead—there was something there, Sam knew it, and she would find out.

  Chapter 22: Sam, 1994

  Something was wrong with Sam’s head, her thoughts swimming amoebas, unformed, unnamed. She pressed the bruises on her inner thighs, the purple and green fading to a soft yellow the color of freshly churned butter. She liked pressing them, over and over, deep enough to steal her breath.

  Four weeks. Eleven times.

  She was learning fast how to be stronger, how to take the pain Isaac gave her, but he was an unforgiving teacher. If she ever tried to speak without permission or cried too much from the pain, he’d ignore her completely, sometimes for days. It became a game to her, to see how much she could take, to show him she was made of steel. She could take anything.

  But she quickly learned she wasn’t anything close to steel. She was a sponge, soaking up everything he did, tiny bits of her breaking away each time.