Survive the Night by Riley Sager

INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT

Charlie keeps her gaze fixed on the highway ahead. There are other cars on it, but not many. Certainly not as many as she thought there’d be. Taillights glow red in the distance—too far away to provide any comfort. The same goes for headlights behind them. A quick glance in the side mirror reveals only one car on their tail. Charlie estimates it’s a quarter mile away. Maybe more.

It only reinforces the feeling that she’s alone.

In a car.

With a stranger.

“It’s quiet in here.”

Charlie’s so distracted by the highway and the license and the wallet sitting on the dashboard that at first she doesn’t hear Josh.

Or Jake.

Or whoever he is.

It’s only when he says her name—a curt, curious “Charlie?”—that she snaps out of it and turns his way.

“What did you say?” she says, studying Josh, double-checking to make sure it really is his picture on that driver’s license, even though there’s no reason he’d be carrying another man’s license. No good reason, that is. No legal one.

“I said it’s quiet in here.” Josh flashes his killer smile, inadvertently confirming for Charlie that, yes, he is the man pictured on that license. Few people have a smile like that. “Were you watching a movie?”

Charlie doesn’t know what to do. Once again, her film knowledge—a guidepost for most of her mundane actions—has failed her when she needs it most. She thinks about Shadow of a Doubt and that other Charlie, her namesake. What would she do in this situation?

She wouldn’t be stupid, that’s for sure.

She’d be smart. She’d be plucky.

That was good old Movie Charlie.

And being plucky means being brave and facing the situation head on. It doesn’t mean throwing open the passenger-side door and flinging herself out of the car, injuries be damned, which is Real Charlie’s first instinct. Her fingers have wrapped around the door handle, even though she doesn’t remember moving them there. She forces her hand into her lap.

Another thing Movie Charlie wouldn’t do is let Josh know she knows he might be lying to her, which goes against common sense. Most people, if stuck in this scenario, would just flat-out ask if his name is really Jake Collins.

That’s what Maddy would have done.

But Maddy’s dead now, maybe because she did exactly that. Called some guy out. Got him angry. Made him want to hurt her.

And not just any guy.

The Campus Killer.

So Charlie stays silent, even though the question is perched on the tip of her tongue, ready to springboard into the air. She starts to wash it away with a splash of coffee but decides against it before taking a sip. If Josh isn’t who he says he is, she’s certainly not going to drink more from the coffee cup he just handed her. Never accept a drink from someone suspicious. That’s Common Sense for Women 101.

“I’m just thinking,” she says.

It’s the truth. She is thinking. About the license in Josh’s wallet. About what it means. About why she hopes there’s a simple, rational, non-scary reason behind it.

“Is it the coffee?” Josh says. “Did I mess up? Too much sugar?”

“No, it’s fine. It’s great, actually.”

Charlie pretends to take a long, satisfied swig. As she does, a thought hits her.

Maybe Josh’s driver’s license is fake. There’s nothing suspicious about that. After all, Charlie herself has a fake ID, procured freshman year through the friend of a friend of a guy Maddy knew from one of her theater classes. It’s the one the police didn’t care about.

But unlike her, Josh doesn’t need a fake ID. He’s clearly over twenty-one, which makes Charlie wonder why he has it. Sentimental reasons, maybe. Yet that still doesn’t make sense. Even if she understood the idea of keeping a fake ID from your youth, which she doesn’t, it doesn’t explain why Josh carries it in the spot in his wallet reserved for his real driver’s license. Then there’s the date Charlie saw. It’s current. There’s no way a fake ID from five, maybe even ten years ago would sport that date. Also, Josh looked the same age in the license photo as he does now. Unless he’s a vampire, something else is going on here.

“Mind if I play some music?” Josh says.

“Yes.”

“So that’s a no on the music?”

“No. On the no, I mean.” Charlie hears the anxiety in her voice. She’s flustered. Knowing Movie Charlie never got that way, she takes a breath and says, “What I mean is yes, play some music. Whatever you want.”

“You’re my guest,” Josh says. “What do you like? And please don’t say Paula Abdul. Or, worse, Amy Grant.”

Charlie, who saves all her strong opinions for films, doesn’t know what music she likes. She always listened to whatever Maddy was playing, which meant moody alternative pop. The Cure, of course, but also New Order, Depeche Mode, a little R.E.M. Charlie stole one of Maddy’s mixtapes just before her stepfather arrived to collect her things from the dorm. She occasionally listened to it and pretended Maddy was in the room with her.

“I have no preference,” she says. “Truly.”

“Driver’s choice, then.”

Josh flips open the console separating them. When the lid bumps Charlie’s arm, she recoils, startled.

“Wow, you’re jumpy,” Josh says.

Yes. Yes, she is. And it’s showing, which needs to stop immediately. Charlie gives him a tight-lipped smile and says, “I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. My bad.”

“No worries.”

He pulls a plastic cassette case from the console. The cover sleeve shows a naked baby submerged in water, swimming toward a dollar bill on a fishhook. Charlie’s seen the image before. One of the RAs in her dorm has a poster of it on her wall.

Josh pops the cassette into the car’s tape deck and presses play. An aggressive guitar riff fills the car, followed by a blitz of drums and, hot on its heels, an explosion of sound. Then everything settles into a drumbeat as quick and steady as a runner’s post-sprint heart rate.

Charlie knows the song. “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” She’d heard it several times thumping through the wall of the dorm room next door. But now, unmuffled, it feels like a primal roar, urging her to scream along.

“I love these guys,” Josh says. “They’re awesome.”

While Charlie wouldn’t go that far, she appreciates how the music fills the car, eliminating the need to talk. Now she can just sit here and continue to think about Josh/Jake/Whoever and his driver’s license.

Sure enough, another theory presents itself: Josh isn’t a legal resident and needs a fake license to drive. That would explain the date. And the picture. And maybe even why it’s a Pennsylvania license and not from New Jersey or Ohio.

Charlie thinks back to an hour ago, when Josh picked her up. She didn’t look at the Grand Am’s license plate. It never occurred to her to do so. She was too focused on checking the rest of the car for signs she should turn around and leave. If she had and seen Pennsylvania plates, then she’d know for certain Josh is lying about his name.

But she didn’t look. Not then and not when he was inside the 7-Eleven. Until they stop again—which could be hours—the only way to find out where the car is registered is to check his insurance and registration cards.

Which, Charlie realizes, could be anywhere. Her parents kept theirs in the glove compartment. Nana Norma keeps hers in her purse. And Maddy, who drove an ugly orange Volkswagen Beetle she’d dubbed Pumpkin, stashed hers behind the driver’s-side visor.

Charlie eyes the closed door of the glove compartment, mere inches from her knees. She can’t open it. Not right now. Not without making Josh wonder why she felt compelled to start rifling through it. The same goes for his wallet, which now sits stubbornly on the dashboard, not moving a millimeter.

Right now, she has no other option but to sit quietly as Josh taps the steering wheel in time to the music. Watching him makes Charlie think back to the driving lessons with her father and how he’d toss out questions as she tried to parallel park or enact a three-point turn. What’s the speed limit in a school zone when students are arriving? When driving in fog, should your headlights be at high beam or low beam? Always come to a complete stop at a yield sign: true or false?

Charlie knew the answers. She’d all but memorized her driver’s ed manual. But with most of her brain concentrating on driving, the correct responses eluded her. She messed up. Or got flustered. Or tossed out an answer she knew was wrong just because she felt compelled to say something.

She knows Josh is lying to her. At least, she assumes he is. All she needs is proof. And while she might not be able to root around in his wallet and glove compartment, she can ask questions while he’s distracted and hope the truth emerges.

That sounds like something else Movie Charlie would do. Toss out a few innocent-sounding questions. Ones that won’t make Josh suspect her motives. They might lead to nothing. But they can’t hurt. It’s certainly better than just sitting here.

“I just realized something,” she says, talking over the music. “I don’t know your last name.”

“Really? I never told you?”

“Nope.”

Josh takes a sip of coffee, his eyes never leaving the road. Charlie wonders if not glancing her way is a sign of disinterest or a sign he knows what she’s thinking and doesn’t want to add fuel to her suspicion.

“I don’t think you ever told me yours,” he says.

“It’s Jordan,” Charlie says.

“Mine’s Baxter.”

Josh Baxter.

Charlie takes in the name, stoic, even as a small bubble of disappointment pops in her chest. She truly hoped he’d say Collins, which would then make her think that Josh was some sort of nickname. Maybe a middle name he preferred over his first one, like the girl in her dorm whose unfortunate first name was Bunny but demanded everyone use her middle name, Megan. It wouldn’t have explained everything, but at least it would have calmed her some. Now she’s the opposite of calm, simmering with dread that she’s really on to something.

“Did you always live in Akron?”

“I grew up in Toledo, remember?”

Damn. She’d hoped he would be easy to trip up. If Josh can be tripped up. Charlie remains aware that he might not be lying. That there might be a silly, simple explanation for why the license in his wallet says the complete opposite of what he’s telling her now.

“That’s right,” she says. “Toledo. Your uncle lives in Akron.”

“My aunt,” Josh says. “My uncle died five years ago.”

“Since you grew up in Ohio, what brought you to Olyphant?”

“I just ended up there. You know how it is. You get a job. Stay a while. Move on to something else. A couple years go by and you do it again.”

Charlie notes the vagueness of his answer, assumes it was that way on purpose, moves on.

“Did you like it there, though? Being a groundskeeper?”

“Janitor,” Josh says.

Charlie nods, disappointed that she again failed to trip him up. She needs to do better.

“Are you sad to be leaving?”

“I guess so,” Josh says. “I haven’t really thought about it. When your dad needs you, you go, right?”

“How long do you think you’ll be home?”

“I don’t know. It depends on how quickly he recovers. If that’s even possible.” Josh’s voice breaks. Just a little. A tiny crack in his otherwise smooth tone. “I was told he’s in pretty rough shape.”

Another vague answer, although this time Charlie’s not as quick to assume it’s intentional. Josh sounds sincere. Enough to give her a twinge of guilt for doubting everything he’s told her. She considers the possibility he’s telling the truth. If so, what does that make her? Paranoid? Heartless?

No, it makes her cautious. After what happened to Maddy, she has every right to be that way. Which is why she resumes her line of questioning.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “What happened to him again? Heart attack?”

“Stroke,” Josh says. “I just told you that, like, fifteen minutes ago. Boy, you have a terrible memory.”

He looks at Charlie for the first time since the conversation began, and she notices a shimmer of suspicion cross his face. He’s on to her.

Maybe.

He could also be wondering why she’s suddenly asking so many questions. Or why she can’t seem to remember any of his answers. It makes Charlie add another item to her list of things to do, joining “be smart” and “be brave.”

Be careful.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” ends, replaced with another song Charlie’s heard only through the dorm room wall. She waits a few beats before saying, “Sorry about all the questions. I’ll stop, if you want me to.”

“I don’t mind,” Josh says, a hollow ring in his voice telling Charlie that might not be the truth. He might mind quite a bit.

“I’m just curious,” she adds. “I’ve only seen Olyphant as a student. I think it’s interesting to get a picture of the place from the side of someone who worked there.”

“Even though you’re not going back?”

“I might be,” Charlie says. “At some point.”

“Well, I can’t say it’s all that interesting from the other side.”

“I don’t remember seeing a lot of janitors around,” she says. “What kind of hours did you work? Nights? Weekends?”

“Sometimes. Also days. My hours were all over the map.”

“And you worked in classrooms?”

“And offices. Everywhere, really.”

Josh turns away from the road again to give her another maybe-suspicious-maybe-not look. It’s more than just his answers that are vague, Charlie realizes. It’s his whole persona. Everything about Josh is hard to read.

Now she needs to use it to her advantage.

“What was your favorite building to work in?” she says.

“My favorite?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “Everyone has a favorite building on campus. Mine is Madison Hall.”

Josh squints, uncertain. “Is that the one—”

“With the thing on top?” Charlie says. “Yeah.”

“That’s right,” Josh says, nodding along. “I like that one, too.”

Charlie waits a beat. Considering her options. Weighing which is smarter, braver, more careful. Finally, she says, “There is no Madison Hall on campus. I was just messing with you.”

Josh rolls with it, as she hoped he would. Slapping a hand to his cheek, he smiles and says, “No wonder I was confused! You were so convincing, yet I kept thinking, Is she making this up? I’ve never heard of Madison Hall.”

And there it is. She tricked him at last, a fact that provides Charlie with no sense of happiness. The opposite happens. She feels worse knowing that her fears are if not proven, at least justified. Josh is lying to her. At least about working at Olyphant University. And probably about everything else as well.

Because there is a Madison Hall on campus. Right in the center of it. A massive, multicolumn structure that hosts graduations, concerts, and performances. Every student knows of its existence. Which means every employee would, too. Even a janitor.

This leads Charlie to an unnerving conclusion. One that creates the same lump of worry in her gut she got as soon as she saw his license.

Josh doesn’t work at Olyphant.

He never has.

And if he’s not a student and he’s not an employee, then who is he?

And why was he hanging around the ride board in the campus commons?

And—the biggest, scariest question—what, if anything, does he want with Charlie?