Page 38 of Survive the Night

“Charlie?”

INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT

Charlie hears music.

The opening chords of a song she thought they already started listening to.

Nirvana.

“Come as You Are.”

“That must have been one hell of a movie,” Josh says.

Shock stills Charlie’s hand. She finds herself turning to face Josh, even though she knows she should be doing the opposite.

Opening the door.

Running to safety.

But what Josh just said holds her in place, forcing her to ask, “What do you mean?”

“A movie in your mind,” Josh says. “You just had one. I could tell.”

He brings the Grand Am to a full stop at the tollbooth. He then reaches across the console, his arm invading Charlie’s side of the car, and for a split second she thinks he’s about to reveal his true nature.

One she started to suspect minutes and miles ago.

She flinches, waiting.

But all Josh does is retrieve his wallet from the dashboard. If he notices Charlie’s reaction—and how could he have missed it?—he doesn’t show it. He simply plucks a five-dollar bill from the wallet, rolls down the window, and nods to the toll collector, a stout woman stifling a yawn.

“You look as tired as I feel,” Josh says, oozing charm as he hands her the five and palms the change. “Hope you got some strong coffee on you.”

“I do,” the toll collector says. “I’m gonna need it.”

Josh stuffs the cash back into his wallet, arranging it. He then shoves the wallet into his back left pocket. Charlie watches him do it, her body buzzing with uncertainty. What was Josh talking about? There was no movie in her mind.

Right?

Charlie’s fingers flex against the door handle, urging the rest of her to just pull it, just get out, just get away. She can’t bring herself to do it. She needs to know what Josh meant.

“Shift just starting?” he asks the toll collector.

“Yeah. Long night ahead.”

“Hope it goes quick for you.”

As Josh rolls up the window, Charlie’s hit with a desperate need to yell to the toll collector for help. Her mouth drops open, but she doesn’t know what to say. Josh just said she experienced a movie in her mind, and she has no idea why or what it could mean. And now it’s too late, because the window is shut and the car’s in motion again. The Grand Am passes the gate and leaves the toll plaza, its lights receding in the rearview mirror as the car picks up speed.

Fifteen miles per hour. Twenty-five. Thirty-five.

It’s not until they hit fifty-five that curiosity gets the best of Charlie. She clears her throat, trying to rid the fear that coats her tongue like drying paint, and says, “What were you talking about back there?”

“You went to the movies,” Josh says. “Your eyes were open, but you were totally zoned out.”

But that doesn’t make any sense. When Charlie sees a movie in her mind, the second it’s over she understands it was all in her mind’s eye. That it wasn’t real, even though it felt like it. It feels like being nudged awake when you fall asleep in class. Disorienting only for the tiny sliver of time it takes to understand what happened.

She’s never, not once, thought that what she experienced was still real after the fact.

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