Survive the Night by Riley Sager

INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT

“Mind if I turn the music back on?”

Josh’s voice cuts through Charlie’s thoughts, jerking her out of the deep mental well into which she’d fallen. She looks at Josh. She looks at his finger, poised above the stereo’s play button. She wonders if she just experienced another movie in her mind and that none of the past ten minutes actually happened.

“What was the last thing you said to me?”

“Mind if I turn the music back on,” Josh says, this time without the questioning inflection.

“Before that.”

“That we hadn’t played Twenty Questions.”

Charlie nods. Good. It wasn’t a movie in her mind. Unless it’s still going on. Thinking such things makes her feel simultaneously drunk and also in need of a strong drink. Part of her wants to tell Josh to pull off at the next exit, where she can put her fake ID to good use at the first bar they pass.

Instead, she’ll settle for a rest stop, which, according to a highway sign they’re just now passing, sits a mile up the road.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she says, eyeing the sign as it slides past the passenger window.

“Now?”

“Yes. Now. It was all that coffee,” she says, even though she hasn’t had a sip since first seeing Josh’s driver’s license.

What she really wants is to get out of the car and get away from Josh. Just for a moment. She needs to be alone with the crisp night air on her face, hoping that will bring some clarity. Because right now she has nothing. “I’ll be quick.”

“Fine,” Josh says, letting out a weary sigh exactly like the ones her dad would sometimes make during those long-ago road trips. “I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs myself.”

When the off-ramp comes into view, Josh hits the right turn signal and slides off the highway. Ahead of them, the building housing the restrooms sits squat and silent. It’s a sad, ungainly single-story rectangle of beige bricks with doors and a roof painted shit brown.

The parking lot is empty, save for a car driving away as they pull in, its taillights winking red. Charlie’s heart sinks as she watches it depart. She had hoped the place would be crowded, providing peace of mind while she stops to regroup. An empty rest stop provides no such comfort. Right now, Josh could slit her throat, yank her tooth, and drive away without anyone knowing.

If he’s the Campus Killer, that is.

Something else Charlie’s not completely certain about. She doubts the Campus Killer would park directly beneath one of the parking lot’s streetlamps, as Josh does now.

It could be a sign that she should trust him.

Or it could be him trying to trick her into giving him that trust.

Sitting in the parked car under the cone of light coming from the streetlamp, Charlie knows she needs to stop thinking this way. All this doubt—her mind veering wildly between two very different scenarios—will only get worse the longer the night goes on. She needs to pick a lane and act accordingly.

To help with that decision, Charlie does what she should have done the moment Josh pulled up to her dorm: check the Grand Am’s license plate. She gets out of the car and stands behind it, pretending to stretch. Rolling her head and swinging her arms, she sneaks a look at the license plate.

New Jersey.

That’s at least one check in the Trust Josh column.

“I’ll be right back,” Charlie tells him, even though it’s not a given. It’s entirely possible she might decide to never enter that car again. There’s also the possibility Josh might kill her before she gets the chance to make that decision.

Charlie quickens her pace as she walks to the restrooms. It’s unnervingly quiet here, not to mention secluded. Behind her, about a hundred yards from the parking lot, is the interstate. Up ahead, looming darkly behind the facilities, is a forest of unknown size and density.

Just outside the door to the restrooms is a pay phone. Charlie pauses in front of it, knowing it’s still not too late to call Robbie. Which is what she should have done at the 7-Eleven before they hit the highway. Charlie knows that now. She regrets, with an intensity that aches, not picking up the phone and saying those four magical words.

Things took a detour.

Charlie’s about to reach for the phone when she notices a piece of masking tape stuck over the coin slot. She grabs the receiver anyway, lifting it from its cradle. There’s no dial tone. Just her luck.

It isn’t until after she slams the phone back into place that Charlie realizes Josh could be watching her. She’s still outside the building, in full view of anyone in the parking lot. She shoots a quick, cautious glance toward the Grand Am. Josh is there, outside the car now, stretching his arms to the sky while rolling his neck. He hasn’t seen a thing.

Good.

Charlie steps into the building, finding the inside as depressing as the outside. The walls are gray. The floor is dirty. The lights overhead buzz out a wan, yellow glow. Vending machines line the wall to the left, offering three choices: snacks, sodas, hot beverages. To the right are the bathrooms, men’s room by the door, ladies’ room toward the back.

Hanging on the wall between them is a large map showing the state of Pennsylvania, with wide slices of New Jersey and Ohio on either side. Charlie’s entire route home is visible—the long red line of Interstate 80 slithering its way across the Keystone State. And they’ve barely made it past the border, as evidenced by a tiny white arrow marking their current location. On top of the arrow, in minuscule red letters, it reads you are here.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Charlie mutters, aware that she could still be in the Grand Am, lost in another mental movie.

Hell, why stop there? There’s nothing to keep her from thinking that the entire night’s all a movie in her mind. She could snap out of it and find herself back at Olyphant. Or, even better, back in September, waking up the morning after marching away from that bar and awful Cure cover band to see Maddy still asleep on the other side of the room, the past two months nothing but a horrible nightmare.

Charlie closes her eyes, hoping for that exact scenario. She waits, her body still, trying to will that version of events into existence. But when her eyes open, she’s in the same spot, facing the map and its white arrow, which now feels like a taunt.

YOU ARE HERE.

Fuck.

If the map says it, then it must be true. It’s about the only thing she can trust.