Page 42 of Survive the Night

Until now, Charlie had thought of the movies in her mind as brief moments. Small windows of time in which fantasy eclipses harsh reality. No different from the way cinematographers used to rub Vaseline on the camera’s lens to give the leading lady a gauzy glow.

And when one ends, Charlie knows it’s over. Her body snaps back to the present—the equivalent of the credits rolling and the theater lights coming up.

But the past hour was more like a fever dream. Real and surreal andalive.

The idea that some of her memories, her past, herlifemight not have occurred the way she assumes they did is almost as unnerving as thinking she’s in a car with a serial killer. It’s so concerning that she’s reluctant to believe it. Why should she trust Josh over her own mind?

So she’s back where she started. Wanting to believe Josh but also unwilling to. And as the Grand Am continues down the highway, heading farther into the uncertain night, Charlie is conscious of four things.

None of it might have happened. Or all of it might have happened.

One of them would make Josh completely harmless. The other might mean he’s the Campus Killer.

And Charlie has no idea which one is the truth.

INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT

“Mind if I turn the music back on?”

Josh’s voice cuts through Charlie’s thoughts, jerking her out of the deep mental well into which she’d fallen. She looks at Josh. She looks at his finger, poised above the stereo’s play button. She wonders if she just experienced another movie in her mind and that none of the past ten minutes actually happened.

“What was the last thing you said to me?”

“Mind if I turn the music back on,” Josh says, this time without the questioning inflection.

“Before that.”

“That we hadn’t played Twenty Questions.”

Charlie nods. Good. It wasn’t a movie in her mind. Unless it’s still going on. Thinking such things makes her feel simultaneously drunk and also in need of a strong drink. Part of her wants to tell Josh to pull off at the next exit, where she can put her fake ID to good use at the first bar they pass.

Instead, she’ll settle for a rest stop, which, according to a highway sign they’re just now passing, sits a mile up the road.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she says, eyeing the sign as it slides past the passenger window.

“Now?”

“Yes. Now. It was all that coffee,” she says, even though she hasn’t had a sip since first seeing Josh’s driver’s license.

What she really wants is to get out of the car and get away from Josh. Just for a moment. She needs to be alone with the crisp night air on her face, hoping that will bring some clarity. Because right now she has nothing. “I’ll be quick.”

“Fine,” Josh says, letting out a weary sigh exactly like the ones her dad would sometimes make during those long-ago road trips. “I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs myself.”

When the off-ramp comes into view, Josh hits the right turn signal and slides off the highway. Ahead of them, the building housing the restrooms sits squat and silent. It’s a sad, ungainly single-story rectangle of beige bricks with doors and a roof painted shit brown.

The parking lot is empty, save for a car driving away as they pull in, its taillights winking red. Charlie’s heart sinks as she watches it depart. She had hoped the place would be crowded, providing peace of mind while she stops to regroup. An empty rest stop provides no such comfort. Right now, Josh could slit her throat, yank her tooth, and drive away without anyone knowing.

If he’s the Campus Killer, that is.

Something else Charlie’s not completely certain about. She doubts the Campus Killer would park directly beneath one of the parking lot’s streetlamps, as Josh does now.

It could be a sign that she should trust him.

Or it could be him trying to trick her into giving him that trust.

Sitting in the parked car under the cone of light coming from the streetlamp, Charlie knows she needs to stop thinking this way. All this doubt—her mind veering wildly between two very differentscenarios—will only get worse the longer the night goes on. She needs to pick a lane and act accordingly.

To help with that decision, Charlie does what she should have done the moment Josh pulled up to her dorm: check the Grand Am’s license plate. She gets out of the car and stands behind it, pretending to stretch. Rolling her head and swinging her arms, she sneaks a look at the license plate.

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