Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire

by Aleatha Romig

  I couldn’t stop thinking about that man. The hermit. He knew a good thing when he found it. Was that Hunter, living isolated in his truck? Or was I trying to romanticize something so it would sit easier with me? It didn’t really matter. In the end, Hunter did what he did. And like Jeremiah said, people would think what they wanted to think.

  In two more days I was strong enough to go outside. I took short walks but kept close to the cabin. I’d need to leave here soon, and that meant I needed money.

  I asked Jeremiah about it when he came to stand on the porch to smoke his pipe.

  “I know this is a long shot, but you wouldn’t know anyone around here who needs graphic design work, would you?” I sighed. “That’s pretty much the only marketable skill I have.”

  He seemed thoughtful. “Nope, can’t say that I do. I barely know what to do with those computer things, but I have one if you want to look around for a job or something.”

  I raised my eyebrow, doubtful. “You have a computer?”

  He grinned, showing off his missing tooth in the front. “Bet you thought I was just an old stupid hillbilly, didn’t you? Well, I am. But my daughter keeps trying to get me hooked into that stuff, so she got me set up. It’s in the kitchen cabinet underneath the sink.”

  Excited, I ran to the door. On a whim, I stopped and gave him a kiss on his cheek.

  “You’re not old or stupid.”

  His eyes danced. “But I am a hillbilly.”

  I laughed on my way inside. “And I love you for it.”

  I pulled out the laptop and cables, which were pretty new as far as I could tell, and thankfully not messed up from being in a damp, enclosed space for so long. There was a little router that pulled up a signal, though it was slow all the way out in the woods.

  The cursor waited patiently for me to type some search terms about a job nearby. Or maybe there would be some kind of assistance program for homeless people—which I basically was at this point. Or if I were really desperate, I could try to get in touch with my mother.

  Instead I typed in Hunter’s full name. Apparently there was a B-list actor of the same name so I had to scroll through a few pages of search results until I found the one I was looking for. A news site reporting on a conviction for aggravated assault.

  Nineteen year old parishioner…

  Spiritual advisor and close friend of the family…

  Abused his position of authority…

  Guilty and sentenced to five years in a medium security prison…

  A priest?

  Jesus Christ, Hunter had been a priest. No wonder Laura had been so sure of him. And yet, what I’d told her had been true. How had he come to this? Why had he done it?

  I went back to the search results and found a new article dated one year later.

  U.S. Federal Appeals court tossed out the conviction on Friday…

  New evidence brought forward by the victim’s friend…

  Had fabricated the story over a series of emails…

  Released on bond pending official exoneration…

  The conviction was overturned.

  My palms felt sweaty on the keyboard. A girl had lied about him. Lied to get attention or for whatever reasons, and he’d gone to jail for that. Where Hunter had gotten raped. The article didn’t say but I knew it with a certainty bone-deep. A priest who had raped a teenage girl would be exactly the kind of person targeted for assault by the other inmates. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against those men.

  The first article had a picture of him. I returned and studied it.

  The same features. The same man.

  But the younger Hunter had a smooth face and guileless eyes whereas the Hunter I knew always wore a certain level of scruff. And his eyes were haunted. The pain he held was more marked now that I had seen him before.

  Even though the picture had been taken from the shoulders up, I could see the changes in his whole body. His cheeks were more gaunt now, his shoulders broader and thicker. He’d gotten leaner while bulking up on muscle. He even held himself differently, more proud before, now defiant.

  I had once wondered who had broken him, and now I knew the answer. That girl had when she lied about him. The judge and jury had when they convicted and sentenced him. His fellow priests had turned against him. The inmates had attacked him.

  The whole world had turned against him and in a way, he had cracked. He wasn’t entirely right in the head. Even knowing this about him, caring for him, I had to admit that his actions at that motel had been inexcusable.

  But in another way, he wasn’t broken. He lived, he felt, he suffered like any person.

  More than other people.

  A clink sounded on the kitchen table beside the laptop. Car keys.

  I looked up at Jeremiah. “No way.”

  “Don’t give me a hard time about this, missy. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I can’t take your car.”

  “You take it and go where you want to go. Then if you still need a place to stay, you come back here. Ain’t no use for a man as old as me to be alive if he can’t help someone who needs it.”

  “Jeremiah. I don’t have a license. If I get caught—”

  He cackled. “Lord, girl. I don’t have a title for that car neither. You just don’t get caught.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Did you steal it?”

  “Grand theft auto, is that what you’re trying to charge me with?” He sat down opposite me and grew serious. “About four years ago I was wandering the country, hitching rides and doing what I had to in truck stations to earn money for food, if you know what I mean.”

  My heart clenched. “Oh, Jeremiah.”

  “Now, don’t go feeling sorry for me. I made my bed, and I never really regretted it neither. But this one day a guy met up with me in the stalls. We did our business and he handed me the money—along with the keys. I figured it was some kind of setup, but I took it anyway.

  “Drove straight to my daughter’s house even though I hadn’t spoken to her in a decade. She was real good to me. Put me up for a while, helped me access my VA benefits, and I finally could afford this house. Kept the car, though. Now it’s yours.”

  My heart felt overfull. “Okay. I’ll use it but I’ll bring it back.”

  He shook his head vehemently. “I don’t need it. I’m an old man with nowhere to go. I get groceries delivered twice a month. I figure that man at the truck stop saw that I needed the car more than he did, and that’s why I’m giving it to you. Just get where you need to go. That’s all that matters.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‡

  Rainbows appear almost every day as sunlight reflects off the mist from the falls.

  As I pulled the old blue Toyota next to a parking meter a mile away from the Niagara Falls State Park entrance, it occurred to me that there may be nothing here for me.

  Groups of people bustled by laden with strollers and diaper bags. Concessions were sold from street vendors. Signs announced that the Maiden of the Mist—this being the name of the ship—gave tours. Even the skyline was populated erratically with tall business buildings. It was all far more modern and commercial than any of the pictures in my book had been.

  But the falls fulfilled their prophecy and took my breath away on sight. Or rather, on sighting one of them, because the expanse of the three falls together was far more than I could have visualized before. It felt enormous—and considering it divided two large countries, I supposed that made sense. There were multiple rainbows arching over the falls, closer than I’d ever seen one but also see-through…rather ghostly, really.

  I went to an exhibit where I heard some of the same facts from the book, about the daredevils who went down the falls in barrels, about the tightrope walker. There was even a short segment on the Hermit of Niagara Falls, which I found gratifying in the extreme. After all, if Jeremiah hadn’t been stretching the truth about that, maybe all the other stories were true too. I hoped so. It was a full life. Some good,
some bad, but the man knew how to have adventures.

  I did go on the large boat to get up close and personal with the falls, getting drenched despite the poncho they gave us. There was an option to go into the tunnels behind the falls, though I found cave-dwelling far less interesting without Hunter there to float with me.

  By the time I had seen all there was to see, the day was waning. I counted the money Jeremiah had loaned me, feeling guilty all the while. Get where you need to go, he’d said. But I was here, and I still hadn’t found what I was looking for. It was becoming less clear what that really was.

  I fed the parking meter and walked over to the hostel that I’d found online before coming here. Thirty bucks got me a clean bed, even if I did have to share a room. The girl barely looked up from her book when I came in. I glanced at the cover and did a double take.

  Everything You Wanted to Know About Niagara Falls.

  “I read that,” I exclaimed.

  I knew I sounded like a moron, but I couldn’t help it. Alone in the world, it was nice to find common ground in even the smallest ways.

  “You going to work on the Maiden too?” At my puzzled look, she continued. “The Maiden of the Mist. I’m studying to pass the test so I can be one of their tour guides.” She rolled her eyes. “Sorry. Adventure guides.”

  “No. At least, I hadn’t planned to.”

  But there was a thought. I had most of the information memorized already. At least then I could earn back the money I’d borrowed from Jeremiah while I formulated a new plan. Still, I felt ambivalent about the falls. It wasn’t their fault I’d pinned so much on them. They couldn’t deliver me what I wanted, I knew that now. I’d probably always known.

  The girl shut the book and groaned. “The first person to map the Niagara Falls was a French priest in 1678.” She considered. “Well, except for the Native Americans. So I guess the book is wrong.”

  “Yeah,” I said wryly. “I’ve heard that.”

  She tossed it onto the bed. “Sometimes I think history isn’t really what happened. It’s how you look at it.”

  I grinned. “You and me are going to get along fine.”

  “You got a name?”

  “Evie. And you?”

  “Sarah. I moved here with my dumbass boyfriend. Well, I didn’t think he was a dumbass at the time. But we broke up because he is, in fact, a dumbass. And a cheater. Figure I might as well make some money while I sort this shit out.”

  “That sucks, and I understand completely.”

  “Wanna grab some dinner?”

  “Let’s.”

  We left the hostel room and returned to the darkened streets. The crowd seemed to have swelled as night hovered over the earth. It appeared the locals came here for the concessions and games along the strand.

  A tall Ferris wheel blinked bright in the sky. On the ground, everything felt mildly damp and chilly. It would only be worse at the top, and that decided me.

  “Have you been on that?”

  Sarah looked up, blinking against the mist. “Not yet, but I’m game.”

  We purchased our tickets and waited in line for thirty minutes before climbing in. It took another ten minutes before everyone else was loaded inside and the wheel began to turn in earnest.

  “So what’s your story?” she asked.

  I thought about that while we circled back down to the ground.

  “Kind of the same thing. Hooked up with a guy for a while. Left him. Now I’m trying to figure out what to do next.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Yeah. Except…I mean, yeah he really is. By anyone’s standards, he’s an asshole.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing.”

  “You’re in love.”

  “He’s a jerk. If I told you everything he’s done, you would totally agree.”

  “You haven’t even told me what he’s done and I already agree with you. But you love him.”

  “He’s a priest.”

  That gave her pause. Then she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, I think that matters. Plus other stuff. It’s just so frustrating. I want to go back to the way things were before I found him.”

  I frowned, thinking how terrified I’d been that first night. Now here I was making friends in a hostel, exploring a new place on my own. I didn’t have much of a plan or much money, but neither did I have any fear.

  My heart skipped a beat. No fear. That’s what I’d been looking for, and I’d found it.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now. I don’t know where he is, so even if I wanted to find him…”

  “Which you do.”

  “I can’t.”

  She sighed, looking out over the purple-and-blue-hued falls. “Well, I know exactly where my boyfriend is. At our apartment with my friend. Who I only let stay with us because she needed a place.”

  “That sucks. Big time.”

  “So screw them, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  The word sounded hollow, and judging by the look on her face, she knew it too. But she let me off the hook, and we chatted pleasantly as we grabbed a greasy hamburger from the strip and made fun of the wax statues in the window of the museum.

  “I’d better head back,” she said. “I’ve got that interview first thing in the morning.”

  “Sure thing. Let me just stop at my car to grab my bag.”

  We headed through the thinning crowds toward the hostel. I pulled the small bag of toiletries I’d packed out of the backpack. Something caught my eye. Standing in the open back door of the car, I looked up in the sky and saw an orange-ish light streaking across the sky, like a rainbow but brighter somehow.

  “Look at that.” I pointed.

  “Oh yeah, I saw that last night. I think it’s a lunar bow.”

  The book had mentioned those alongside rainbows but it didn’t have a picture. It was beautiful, more striking than all the colors, I thought. Just one. I felt a smile spread across my face. As silly as it was, I felt like this was what I’d come here to see. After all the official sites, the gorgeous views, just a swash of orange across the sky. Bold, brash. Everything that I wasn’t only a few weeks ago, but not anymore.

  I glanced to the side.

  There was a large overfill lot meant for people who visited with trailers and RVs. In that lot was a familiar truck, and leaning against the side was Hunter. I couldn’t be sure. His body was nondescript from this far away, his face in the shadows. But it was him.

  He didn’t move. He wouldn’t move.

  I turned to Sarah. “I have something kind of crazy to tell you. I’m going to leave now, but not in my car. Do you want it?”

  “Uh, what?”

  “It’s okay if you don’t, but it just sounded earlier like you might not have one. This car is old and not even strictly street legal but it can get you where you need to go.”

  “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Take it.”

  I tossed her the keys as I headed down the trip. “Nice meeting you, Sarah. Good luck.”

  She raised her hand in a tentative wave. “You too.”

  I wanted him to come to me. It wasn’t just a pride thing. I needed to know that he wanted this too. I needed him to need me too. Sure, I suspected, I hoped, but this was put-up or shut-up time. This was putting everything on the line just to see if it stuck. It was jumping off a cliff.

  The streets thinned out right away. Only the main strand had been crowded. I found the largest street that would take me to the highway and just kept walking.

  Twenty minutes later I saw headlights illuminate the road beside me. I put my thumb into the air like I was hitching a ride. The familiar squeak and rumble as the truck slowed to a stop beside me.

  The door opened and Hunter was there, a grave expression on his face.

  “Where you headed?” he asked, deceptively calm.

  “No place in particular.”
<
br />   “Isn’t that usually the point of hitching a ride, to get somewhere?”

  I grinned, repeating his previous sentiments back to him. “I like to travel. Sometimes I do jobs, but in between them, I keep travelling.”

  He paused, seeming to think that over.

  “Well, hop in then,” he said so softly I barely heard him.

  I climbed into the truck and tossed my bag in the back. Without looking at me, he started up the engine and took us forward. Though I didn’t have a destination in mind, I expected him to pull out onto the freeway. Instead he kept going down Main Street past the turnoff.

  “Where are we going?”

  He reached under his seat and handed me a book. “Got something for you.”

  I touched the familiar cardboard cover, traced the lettering. Niagara Falls.

  Once the mere thought of this had sustained me, small doses of hope. Now that I’d seen the real thing, I couldn’t regret any of it. The falls were both more beautiful than I could have imagined—and yet meant so much less. They were rock and water, not meant to be anyone’s salvation. Not like flesh and blood.

  There was more. A manila folder was tucked between the pages and sticking out from the sides. I opened it. My breath caught at what I read. A full confession written in Hunter’s hand detailing how he’d kidnapped me, the sexual acts we’d performed in clinical terms, and signed by him at the bottom.

  Even more shocking was the letters beneath them. Signed witness statement from Laura and James. A small pain stabbed my heart imagining Laura’s horror and confusion at learning the truth. And some man named Roger Wilbourne, proprietor of a diner and gas station, who had seen a girl call for help, who’d found three unconscious men on his property later that day. Hunter had collected statements from them that were both factual and damning.

  The truck slowed to a stop.

  I looked out the window. The sign on the old building read Niagara Falls NY Police Department. My stomach churned with revulsion. No.

  With an impassive expression, he nodded for me to get out of the truck. To go into the station and hand these documents over. The gesture took me back to that first day at the motel. The forced casualness, the banked desire. He’d claimed to want my body that night, but he’d really needed so much more.