Survive the Night by Riley Sager

INT. REST STOP BATHROOM—NIGHT

Disheartened, Charlie pushes into the ladies’ room. It’s dim inside, thanks to the fact that only one row of lights seems to be working. The result is a rectangle of brightness centered near the sinks while the stalls on the other side of the bathroom sit in shadow. It also smells awful. A mix of urine and industrial cleaner that makes her gag.

Using a hand to cover her nose and mouth, Charlie retreats to one of the stalls on the dim side of the bathroom. The last one in the row, farthest away from the door. She backs herself inside and sits on the toilet, trying to think, trying to come up with some kind of plan.

She could wait. That’s certainly an option. She could stay in this bathroom, inside this stall, and not emerge until someone else arrives at the rest stop, which they’re bound to do soon. Another vehicle could be pulling into the parking lot this very second. Charlie could ask them for help and beg for a ride to the nearest police station. If they ask why, she could tell them the truth—that the man she’s with sort of, kind of, could be a serial killer.

Not a very convincing argument.

And that’s what has Charlie so on edge. If she knew with certainty that Josh was dangerous, she’d be barricading the bathroom door or running for the highway or hiding in the woods.

But nothing about the situation is certain. She could be wrong about Josh. It could all be a huge misunderstanding. Her fanciful imagination running at full gallop because her life has been a guilt-ridden train wreck for two months.

Someone knocks on the bathroom door. A single, sharp rap that startles Charlie so much that she gasps when she hears it.

Josh.

Charlie doesn’t think a woman would knock. It’s the ladies’ room. She would just walk right in. Which is exactly what happens next. Charlie hears the creak of the door opening, followed by the sound of footsteps on the sticky tile floor.

The bathroom’s lone working light starts to flicker, on the cusp of joining the others. There’s a moment of pure darkness, followed by staccato buzzes of light that continue in a strobe-like pattern.

Charlie hears a rap on the first stall in the row, as if Josh is checking to see if someone’s inside. After another quick rap, the door is opened with a rough shove. Rather than going in, he moves to the second stall, raps on the door, pushes it open.

He’s on the hunt.

For her.

Two stalls away, Charlie pulls her legs onto the toilet seat so Josh won’t be able to see them under the door. If she stays like this, completely silent and still, then maybe Josh will think she’s not in here, that she’s left without him noticing, that she simply disappeared.

Then he’ll go away.

Josh is at the third stall now. Right next to Charlie’s. The flickering lights splatter his shadow across the floor in uneven bursts that make it hard to track his precise location. It’s there for a slice of a second, then gone, then back again, only slightly closer this time.

Charlie stares at the floor, watching the stutter-start progress of the shadow as the door to the stall next door is thrown open. She clamps a hand over her mouth, trying to mute the sound of her breathing. A useless act. She fears her heartbeat alone will give her away, pounding like a drum in her chest.

Josh is now in front of her stall, his strobing shadow stretching under the door and into the stall itself, as if it’s trying to grab Charlie.

There’s a rap on the door.

Then another.

So hard it rattles the door and makes Charlie realize, with nerve-scalding horror, that she never turned the latch.

She makes a desperate grab for the lock, but it’s too late. The door swings inward, revealing Charlie crouched on top of the toilet, caught in the disco glow of the faulty lights. Standing on the other side of the now-open door is a woman. Mid-twenties. Too-tight stone-washed jeans. Bleached-blond hair with a strip of brown at the roots. She lets out a startled yelp as she jumps away from the stall.

“Shit,” the woman says. “I thought it was empty.”

Charlie remains crouched on the toilet like something feral. No wonder the woman scuttles to the sinks on the other side of the bathroom. The wide mirror above them reflects the strobing flash of the overhead fixture, making it look like she’s moving in slow motion.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Charlie says.

The woman locks eyes with her. “Looks like I scared you more.”

“I thought you were someone else.” Charlie steps down from the toilet, still uncertain. “Why were you checking all the stalls?”

“Because this is a rest stop late at night and I’m alone and I’m not an idiot.”

The woman pauses, leaving the harsh remainder of the sentence unspoken.

Like you.

The bathroom light continues to strobe. No wonder Charlie was frightened. It’s very slasher flick. Very Wes Craven. The result is that the woman is now scared of her, as if she’s the danger here. When Charlie steps out of the stall, the woman flinches.

“Did you see a guy out in the parking lot?” Charlie says. “Next to the Grand Am?”

“Yeah.” The woman, still backed against the sink, eyes the stall behind her. Charlie can tell she has to use it but is now wondering if she can wait until the next rest stop. “You with him?”

Charlie risks another step toward her. “I’m not sure I want to be. Is it possible— I mean, could you, please, give me a ride?”

“I’m only going to Bloomsburg,” the woman says.

Charlie doesn’t know where that is. She doesn’t care, as long as it’s not here.

“I don’t mind,” she says, trying to sound accommodating but edging closer to desperation. “You can drop me off somewhere and I’ll find a ride the rest of the way home.”

“Why can’t your boyfriend take you?”

“He’s not—”

My boyfriend.

That’s what Charlie wants to say.

But before she can get the words out, the bathroom door opens again and in saunters Maddy.

“Hello, darling,” she says.

Charlie watches her cross the room to the sinks, as clear and present and real as the woman in the stone-washed jeans. Maddy’s better dressed, of course. Fuchsia dress, black heels, a strand of pearls double-looped around her neck.

Maddy stands at the sinks, oblivious to the other woman in the room. Gazing at her reflection in the mirror, she puckers her lips before applying crimson lipstick.

“You look wretched,” she says to Charlie, smacking her lips, now red as blood. “But my coat looks fab on you.”

Charlie fingers the buttons on the coat. Big black ones that make her seem impossibly small. A little girl playing dress-up.

“What are you doing here?”

“Freshening up,” Maddy says, as if that’s a perfectly logical excuse to return from the dead. “Also, I needed to tell you something.”

Charlie doesn’t want to ask what that something is. But she does anyway. She needs to.

“Tell me what?”

“That you shouldn’t have abandoned me,” Maddy says.

Then she grabs Charlie by the hair and slams her face against the edge of the sink.