Survive the Night by Riley Sager
INT. CADILLAC—NIGHT
Charlie’s world is still blurred at the edges, even though the chloroform has all worn off. The blurriness now is caused by the Cadillac’s speed. Everything out the window—trees mostly, but also occasional clearings and empty lots—passes by in streaks of gray.
She doesn’t know where Marge is taking her. Nor does she know where they are anymore. Charlie thought they were headed for the highway, but Marge blew right through the interchange that would have taken them there, making it just another gray streak.
Now Charlie is left to fearfully wonder not only where they’re going but what will happen to her once they arrive. It’s the same feeling she got during her first time riding away from the diner. Terrified and confused and almost ill with unease. Torn between wanting to keep driving forever and just getting to the ending.
The main difference between the two situations, other than the person behind the wheel, is that then Charlie had a weapon. Now she has nothing.
Charlie looks at her hands, stained pink with blood. Yes, she’s aware that Josh might still be alive and that she had acted in self-defense. It doesn’t change the fact that she willingly drove a knife into another living person, and she fears the memory of that action will stay with her for the rest of her life.
Making it worse is knowing that a single flash of violence didn’t change a thing. She’s still being held captive, and Josh is still involved somehow. Marge never said more about that—and hasn’t said anything since getting into the car—leaving Charlie to wonder what that means. The scenarios she’s thought up are as plentiful as they are disturbing. Now she’s not sure which frightens her more: what’s already happened or what’s yet to come.
In the front seat, Marge continues to drive in silence. She seems to be lost in her own world as she grips the wheel and stares out at the dark road ahead. She doesn’t even sneak an occasional glance in the rearview mirror to check on Charlie.
Not that Charlie can go anywhere tied up like this with all the doors locked. All she can do is sit in fear, her arms and legs straining against their binds as she watches Marge drive them to only God knows where.
“Where are you taking me?” she says, angrier than Marge probably likes. She can’t help it. A stinging sense of betrayal streaks her fear. She had liked Marge. She trusted her. Charlie had thought of her as kind and grandmotherly—not too different from Nana Norma. As a result, Charlie had gone out of her way to protect her when she should have been focusing on her own safety.
When Marge doesn’t answer, Charlie tries again. “Tell me why you’re doing this!”
Still no answer. The only sign that Marge can even hear her is a mean look she flashes Charlie in the rearview mirror. A scowl, but angrier.
Another thing Charlie can see is a change in Marge’s hair. That high hairdo now sits slightly askew atop her skull.
A wig.
It shifts again when Marge abruptly cuts the wheel to the left, veering the Cadillac onto a side road half-hidden by trees. Up ahead, Charlie sees a large sign dominating the roadside. Two spotlights sit beneath it, both of them dark. Still, there’s enough moonlight for her to make out what it says.
Mountain Oasis Lodge.
Charlie recognizes the name. It’s the same lodge that was on the billboard they passed on the interstate. Like that ragged billboard, the sign has seen better days. The “O” in Oasis is missing, leaving only a phantom letter standing out against the sun-bleached paint around it.
Beyond the sign, a chain lies limp across the road. Attached to it, lying flat against the ground, is another sign.
NO TRESPASSING
Marge keeps driving, tires crunching over the chain.
The forest is thick here—a dense expanse of evergreens that climb the mountainside. Through the trees, Charlie gets glimpses of a large structure perched halfway up the mountainside. Accompanying them is the whoosh of rushing water from somewhere nearby. Soon the forest clears and the Mountain Oasis Lodge stands before them in all its decrepit glory.
The billboard on the interstate didn’t do it justice.
The lodge is big. An ungainly stack of windows, walls, and exposed timbers that stretches five stories from stone foundation to slate roof. It sits atop a ridge, balanced precariously, like a set of Lincoln Logs about to crumble. Next to it, a wide creek flows past the eastern side of the lodge before tumbling over a cliff into a ravine fifty feet below.
It was all probably beautiful once. Now it just looks eerie. Sitting dark and silent atop the ridge, pale in the moonlight, the lodge reminds Charlie of a mausoleum. One filled with ghosts.
During the approach, the car crosses a bridge spanning the ravine at the base of the waterfall. The bridge is narrow, with only a low wooden railing to prevent cars from crashing into the drink, and so close to the waterfall that spray from the cascade spatters the windshield as they pass. Charlie looks out the window and sees dark water swirling roughly ten feet below them.
On the other side of the bridge, the road begins its ascent, taking a path so twisted it might as well have been carved by an apple peeler. Taking turn after winding turn, the Cadillac slowly climbs the mountainside.
Instead of another wooden railing, one bend in the road that comes close to the waterfall is lined by a fieldstone wall that follows the curve. When Marge steers through it, more spray smacks the windows.
After two more sharp turns, the Caddy reaches the top of the ridge. There the road bends again, this time curving into a loop directly in front of the lodge. In its heyday, there must have been a constant stream of cars circling this roundabout. Now it’s just them, pulling under an entrance portico, where Marge slams the brakes and cuts the engine.
“Why are we here?” Charlie says.
“To talk.”
Marge scratches her scalp, two fingers burrowing beneath the wig, making it slip back and forth atop her head. Rather than straighten it again, she yanks off the wig and tosses it into the passenger seat, where it sits in a furry clump like a dead animal. Marge’s natural hair is bone white and sprouts from her scalp in thin, thistly patches a millimeter high.
“You’re sick,” Charlie says, shifting tones, hoping sympathy will soften Marge.
It doesn’t. Marge grunts out a single, bitter laugh and says, “No shit.”
“Cancer?”
“Stage four.”
“How long do you have?” Charlie says.
“The doctor says weeks, maybe. Two months, if I’m lucky. As if any of this is lucky.”
Despite being at what Charlie assumes to be their final destination, Marge makes no move to leave the car. Charlie hopes it means she’s having second thoughts about doing whatever it is she has planned, possibly because they’re engaged in conversation and not locked in silence. She takes it as a sign to keep talking.
“How long have you had it?”
“A long time, apparently,” Marge says. “When the doctors caught it is a different story.”
“Is that why you’re doing this? Because you know you don’t have much time left?”
“No,” Marge says. “I’m doing it because I know I can get away with it.”
She throws open the car door and steps outside, taking the satchel but leaving the wig. She then goes to the other side of the car and opens the rear door, aiming the pistol at Charlie’s temple as she slides out.
With the pistol again at Charlie’s back, Marge marches her to the lodge’s entrance—a tall set of mahogany doors inlaid with twin windows of stained glass.
“Nudge it open,” Marge instructs. “It’s already unlocked.”
Charlie uses her shoulder to push the doors open. Beyond them is total darkness.
“Step inside,” Marge says.
Again, Charlie does as she’s told. She knows not to try to put up a fight. Because Marge is right—she can get away with anything she wants. She’s terminally ill. Already sentenced to death.
And if Charlie’s learned anything from the movies, it’s that few things are more dangerous than someone with nothing to lose.
