Survive the Night by Riley Sager

INT. DINER BATHROOM—NIGHT

Charlie shudders back to the present at the sound of her name. It’s Marge, who punctuates it with a rap on the door.

“Everything still okay in there?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Charlie says. “Just freshening up.”

She checks her reflection in the mirror. She’s still the pale, fragile wraith she was when she walked in. All the tough personas she wore in the movie in her mind have peeled off like snakeskin. The only similarity between that Charlie and the one she sees before her now is the understanding that she can’t let Josh leave.

Not alone.

She’s not sure if she actually thought that or if it was part of the mental movie. She assumes it doesn’t really matter, seeing how it came from her brain either way. A realization is still a realization, even if its delivery is unorthodox.

And the realization consuming Charlie is that Josh needs to be stopped. And she’s the one who must do it. She can’t rely on the hopeful notion that Robbie called the police and that any second now a cop will show up and arrest Josh.

Nor can she enlist kindhearted Marge for help. The waitress might be quick with a cup of scalding-hot tea, but that means nothing when Josh has a knife within reach.

Earlier, Charlie had toyed with the idea that fate is what led her into Josh’s car. She assumed it was punishment for how she’d treated Maddy. But now Charlie suspects that if fate did have a hand in creating the situation, it’s for an entirely different purpose.

Not punishment.

Redemption.

Right now, Charlie has a chance to clear her conscience. The guilt that’s consumed her for two months could be gone in an instant. Her slate thoroughly wiped clean. All she needs to do is make sure Josh doesn’t ride off alone.

She owes it to herself.

And to Maddy.

And to Maddy’s family. And to the other women Josh has killed. And to those he might kill in the future if she lets him get away.

But she’s not going to let that happen.

She’s going to leave this bathroom, then the diner, and get back into the car with Josh.

It’s not smart. It’s not careful. It’s probably not even brave. Right now, it doesn’t really matter. It’s what Charlie feels she must do. And at this point, she has nothing left to lose.

She takes one last look in the mirror, hoping to see that her eyes have hardened just like they did in the movie in her mind. On the contrary, they’re moist and red at the edges. No hardness there. Her whole body, in fact, feels soft and vulnerable. But that doesn’t keep Charlie from flinging open the bathroom door and stepping back out into the main part of the diner.

Josh is still at the table. He leans over his coffee cup, staring into it, waiting for her return as the jukebox plays the last notes of a Rolling Stones song.

“Sympathy for the Devil.”

Ironic, seeing how a devil currently occupies the corner booth. And he’s anything but sympathetic.

Charlie pauses at the jukebox and flips through the selections. Classic rock, mostly, but a few current songs by Bryan Adams, Mariah Carey, and, to Josh at least, the twin scourges of Amy Grant and Paula Abdul. Charlie considers playing the two of them back to back, just to irritate him. A different idea forms when she sees another song. One she absolutely has to play.

She drops one of the quarters Josh gave her for the pay phone into the jukebox and enters the record number. A second later, music fills the diner.

A guitar riff she’s heard twice before that night.

“Come as You Are.”

Josh lifts his head when he hears it. Slowly. Like a movie villain who knows he’s just been found out. Raymond Burr in Rear Window when he realizes he’s caught in Jimmy Stewart’s telephoto lens.

He turns his head a little bit, listening, making sure his ears aren’t deceiving him.

“Great song, isn’t it?” Charlie says as she slides back into the booth. “Do you want to wait until it’s over? Or should we leave now?”

“We?”

Charlie swallows, knowing she’s about to cross some invisible threshold that might forever change the course of her life. It might even end up getting her killed. But there’s no avoiding it.

She can’t wait for others to stop Josh.

She needs to do it herself.

Even though she has no idea how.

“Yeah,” she says. “As in you and me getting into your car and driving to Ohio like you agreed to do.”

“That’s not happening,” Josh says. “And I already explained why, Charlie.”

“And I’m explaining that you’re not going to get rid of me so easily.” Charlie’s body hums with fear as she talks. She’s doing this. She’s actually going ahead with it. “Here’s the way I see it. The situation hasn’t changed. I need to get home. You can get me there. Now, we can stop wasting time and leave or we can wait until the police get here.”

“What police?”

“The ones that my boyfriend called after I used that code you were so smart to pick up on,” Charlie says, even though she has no clue if Robbie did any such thing. She assumes that if he had, a cop would have shown up by now.

Josh goes quiet, no doubt replaying the conversation at the pay phone in his head. Charlie knows he was listening. It’s why she chose her words so carefully. Now Josh is wondering what, exactly, those words could have meant.

“You’re bluffing,” he says. “Besides, why would I need to be worried about the police?”

“You tell me, Jake.”

For the first time since they met, Josh looks worried. He tries to hide it by taking a swallow of coffee and leaning back in the booth, his arms crossed, but Charlie knows he’s concerned. She can see it in his eyes.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “You’re confused, Charlie. And kind of sad.”

Charlie shrugs. She’s been called worse.

“Then we’ll wait.”

They stay that way, staring each other down, until the song ends. Only then, when the diner is plunged into silence, does Josh decide that maybe Charlie’s tougher than she looks and that maybe—just maybe—she’s not bluffing. He waves to Marge, who’s been watching them from behind the counter.

“Could we get the check, please?”

“Sure thing,” Marge says, seeming surprised, probably because they barely touched their food. Charlie feels bad about that. All that work for nothing. Marge brings the check and places it on the table. To Charlie, she says, “I took your order off the bill. After what I did to your coat, it’s the least I can do.”

“You’ve done so much already,” Charlie says, meaning every word. Without Marge, she might not have realized what she needed to do. As far as she’s concerned, the waitress helped her realize this situation could be more blessing than curse.

“It was nothing,” Marge says, locking eyes with Charlie. “I help when I can.”

On the other side of the table, Josh reads the check and pulls out his wallet. Watching him count out bills, Charlie says, “Be sure to leave a big tip.”

Josh slaps twenty dollars onto the table. Satisfied that the tip is indeed big, Charlie says, “Shall we go?”

Josh doesn’t move. He’s preoccupied—looking past her, over her shoulder, out the front window. Charlie swivels in the booth until she sees what he’s looking at.

A cop car.

Local.

Pulling up to a stop in front of the diner.

Charlie can’t believe her eyes. Turns out she wasn’t bluffing, even though she certainly thought she was. But Robbie understood her message loud and clear and had indeed called the police, a fact that leaves her feeling proud and relieved and grateful.

Josh waves to Marge, who’s now behind the counter, dutifully cleaning the Formica even though no one’s probably sat there for hours.

“You’re working too hard, Marge,” he says, patting the space next to him. “Join us. Take a load off.”

“I don’t think the boss would like that very much,” she says.

“Is he here?”

“No.”

“Then you’re the boss.”

Charlie’s attention is split between the cop car outside and the waitress tittering behind the counter. Her head moves back and forth, like she’s at a tennis match, trying to take it all in.

The cop getting out of his patrol car.

Then Marge dropping her rag on the counter.

Then the cop ambling toward the front door, in no hurry at all.

Then Marge coming to their table, taking a seat next to Josh, and saying, “I suppose it won’t hurt to get off my feet for a second.”

By the time the cop enters the diner, Charlie’s hit with a third distraction.

The steak knife.

It’s no longer on the table.

Josh holds it again, gripping it the way a movie thug wields a switchblade, the tip vaguely aimed in Marge’s direction.

Charlie’s gaze hopscotches around the diner, going from the knife to Marge to the cop now standing at the counter. He’s tall and lanky and young. Face like a choirboy.

“Evening, Tom,” Marge says. “Didn’t think you’d be coming in tonight. I thought you hit the pizza place on Tuesdays.”

At first, Charlie wonders if the cop can see the steak knife in Josh’s hand and how in the past few seconds it seems to have moved a little closer in Marge’s direction. It’s not until she follows the cop’s gaze from the counter to their table that she realizes everything below Josh’s shoulders is blocked by the back of the booth.

“I’m here on business,” Officer Tom says, looking not at Marge but to Josh seated beside her. “We got a call about a possibly dangerous situation.”

“Here?” Marge says, incredulous. “Nothing happening here. Slow night as usual.”

“We’re just passing through, Officer,” Josh adds.

Officer Tom turns to Charlie. “Is that true, miss?”

“Me?”

Charlie turns her head in a way that lets her see both the cop and, in the edge of her vision, the knife in Josh’s hand, which seems to have gotten even closer to Marge. Then again, it might just be Charlie’s imagination. It’s steered her wrong before.

“Yes,” she says. “That’s the truth.”

Charlie eyes the holster on Officer Tom’s hip and the police-issued pistol strapped inside of it. She wonders how much experience a cop so young has had. If he’s ever had to face a man with a knife. Or defuse a hostage situation. Or shoot someone in the line of duty.

She gives the scene another all-encompassing glance, skipping from Officer Tom’s gun to Josh’s knife to Marge and then back to the cop, trying to gauge the distance between all of them.

She wonders if she should yell to Officer Tom that Josh is a killer.

She wonders if he’d be able to draw his weapon before Josh jammed the steak knife into Marge’s stomach.

She wonders if Officer Tom would then open fire on Josh.

Charlie pictures the immediate aftermath. Her cowering in the booth, her hands over her ears as Josh lies dead on the table and Marge bleeds on the floor and smoke still trickles from the barrel of Officer Tom’s gun.

She wonders if this, right now, is all just a movie in her mind. It doesn’t matter that Josh can see the cop and Marge can see him and that both spoke to him. All of that could also be part of the movie. A fever dream built out of hope and denial and wishful thinking.

It wouldn’t surprise her if it was. She’s experienced them enough to know the drill. They emerge when she’s stressed and scared and needs to be shielded from the harshness of reality, which describes her current mood in a nutshell.

Sitting in that booth, looking at a cop who may or may not exist, Charlie thirsts for a reality check the same way an alcoholic craves booze. An intense yearning that threatens to overwhelm her. But asking Officer Tom if he’s real isn’t a good idea. Charlie learned her lesson in the rest stop bathroom. She knows that saying what she’s thinking will only make her look crazy and, ultimately, untrustworthy.

Plus, there’s Marge to consider. Poor, innocent Marge, who has yet to realize that inches from her midriff is a knife sharp enough to take out her spleen. If Charlie says or does anything suspicious, Josh might hurt her. He might even kill her. Charlie can’t let that happen. Her conscience, already so burdened, wouldn’t be able to take it.

“So there’s no trouble here?” Officer Tom says.

Charlie forces a smile. “None at all.”

“You sure about that?” His gaze darts to Josh for a moment. “You feel safe in this man’s presence?”

“Of course she does,” Josh says.

“I was asking the lady,” Officer Tom says.

Across the table, Josh gives her an unnerving look. Cold smile, dark eyes, weighted stare. The knife in his hand continues to glisten.

“I feel absolutely safe,” Charlie says. “But thank you for your concern.”

Officer Tom studies her, his gaze surprisingly piercing as he decides whether to believe her.

“I’m sure it was a crank call,” Marge says, deciding for him. “Some bored kid trying to stir up trouble. Now if you stop bothering my customers, I’ll fix you a coffee for the road. On the house.”

She stands.

Josh sets the steak knife back on the table.

Charlie lets slip a tiny huff of relief.

Marge joins Officer Tom at the counter and pours coffee into a to-go cup. “Thanks for checking in on us, Tom. But we’re fine. Isn’t that right, folks?” She turns to Charlie and Josh, giving them an exaggerated wink.

“We’re fine,” Josh says.

“Yes, fine,” Charlie says, a weak echo. She looks to Josh. “In fact, we were just leaving. Weren’t we?”

Josh, surprised, takes a beat before replying. “Yes. We were.”

He slides out of the booth. Charlie does the same and follows him to the door, knowing that she’s about to lose her last chance at rescue.

It’s a risk she needs to take.

A couple of years ago, in one of her elective psych classes, she’d read about kidnap victims who stayed with their captors long after they could have escaped. Stockholm syndrome. The mind warping over time until the abducted came to sympathize with those who took them. At the time, Charlie judged those young women. And they were all young women. Weak, vulnerable, victimized women who didn’t have the good sense to flee at the first opportunity.

“I’d never let that happen to me,” she told Maddy.

But now she understands.

Those women didn’t stay because they were weak.

They stayed because they were scared.

Because they feared what would happen to them if their escape plan failed. That it would be worse than their current situation. And it could always get worse.

In this case, “worse” means Josh doing something rash and hurting not just her but also Marge and Officer Tom in the process. And this has nothing to do with them.

This is between her and Josh.

Because of that, it’s best to get out of the diner and back in the car, where she’s the only one in danger. Sometimes you can’t simultaneously be smart, brave, and careful. Sometimes you need to choose one.

By following Josh to the door, Charlie’s choosing bravery.

When she reaches the dessert case, still lit and lazily spinning, Officer Tom calls out to her from his spot at the counter.

“You forgot your backpack, miss.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Charlie says, hoping it sounds authentic. “Thank you.”

She returns to the booth and grabs the backpack she’d left there on purpose. Then, after an over-the-shoulder glance to make sure Marge and Officer Tom aren’t looking, she snatches the steak knife from the table and stuffs it into a pocket of her coat.