Page 54 of Survive the Night

But fighting might be her only choice.

Hurt Josh before he can hurt her.

Charlie looks down at the backpack at her feet. Inside are things that would normally be found in a purse. Her wallet, spare change, tissues, and chewing gum. Gone is the pepper spray Nana Norma had given her when she left for Olyphant. Charlie lost that more than a year ago and never thought to replace it. All that leaves for self-defense is her keys, which jingle at the bottom of the backpack as Charlie picks it up.

She unzips the bag and reaches inside, feeling for the keys. They aren’t much. Certainly not as good as pepper spray. But if she holds them with the keys poking out from between her fingers, Freddy Krueger–style, she might be able to fight off an attack from Josh.

Not that Josh looks remotely close to attacking. Calm behind the wheel, he points to the horizon, where the sky is lightened by a softelectric glow. Within seconds, a diner comes into view. One so traditional Charlie thinks it could be mistaken for part of a film set.

Chrome siding runs below the diner’s wide front windows, beyond which are red booths and blue tables. A sign hangs on the front door—red-on-black letters telling them that, yes, they’re open. There’s another sign on the roof. Neon. It spells out the name of the place. The Skyline Grille. The “e” on the end flickers slightly, like even it knows it’s unnecessary.

“Told you there was a place open,” Josh says as he steers the Grand Am into the parking lot. “You need to trust people more, Charlie.”

Charlie gives a wary nod, knowing the opposite is true. Trust is what got her into this situation. A heaping dose of suspicion would have helped her avoid it entirely.

As Josh pulls into a parking spot, Charlie sizes up the situation. It leaves her stumped. For reasons Charlie can’t begin to understand, Josh brought her to a place where help is within reach.

“Ready to eat?” he says. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

They get out of the car, Josh a few feet ahead of her. As they cross the parking lot, Charlie cradles her backpack and ponders what to do next. It would make sense to end things immediately. Just burst into the diner and scream that Josh is trying to kill her, that he’s killed before, that he’ll keep doing it until someone stops him.

There are three other cars in the parking lot. A black Ford pickup, a boxy compact car, and a powder-blue Cadillac deVille with a dent in the driver’s-side door. She wonders if the driver of at least one of them is capable of restraining Josh. He’s a big guy. Strong. It’ll take someone equally as big and strong to subdue him, and Charlie doubts the drivers of the compact car and the Cadillac are up to the task. That leaves the pickup driver.

If he believes her.

Charlie knows full well that bursting into the diner shouting about serial killers will likely make people think she’s the troublesome one. They’ll assume she’s drunk or crazy or a combination of the two, just like the woman in the rest stop bathroom. Charlie remembers the way that woman looked at her. So skeptical, so unwilling to help. There’s nothing to suggest the staff and patrons of the Skyline Grille won’t be the same way. She’s sure she has the same desperate, deranged look she had at the rest stop. That might make it hard to convince someone to help. People don’t want to believe that a fellow human being is capable of such vicious cruelty. They want to think everyone they meet is just like them.

Nice.

That’s what Charlie thought about Josh when they met at the ride board. Hell, it’s what she thought at the rest stop, when he caught a snowflake on his tongue and she decided getting into the car with him—again—was the wisest course of action.

She was wrong.

Just like she could be wrong that someone in the diner won’t believe her.

But if no one does—if they look at her the same way the woman in the rest stop bathroom did—then all Charlie will have accomplished is tipping off Josh that she knows what kind of person he is.

Not nice. Even though he’s doing something nice right now by holding the diner’s front door open for her.

As she walks toward the door, she sees that a better option—a smarter, braver, more careful one—sits outside the diner, by the side of the building, a few feet from the front right corner.

A pay phone. Hopefully in working order.

Charlie can excuse herself, come outside, and call the police, who’ll have to believe her. That’s their job. Some cop will be dispatched to the diner, and Charlie will be outside waiting, ready to tell them everything she knows about Josh. If they still think she’slying and Josh fools them just like he fooled her, she’ll make a scene. Let them think she’s drunk or crazy. A jail cell and a drunk and disorderly charge are far better than what Josh has planned.

She’s made up her mind.

Pay phone it is.

All she needs to do now is get away from Josh long enough to use it.

INT. DINER—NIGHT

The diner is mostly empty. Just a waitress, an unseen cook in the back, and a couple in a booth by the window. The couple—a man and woman in their late twenties—have a boozy weariness to them, which won’t be much help to her.

Neither will the waitress, who looks to be well past sixty. She’s got high hair, coral lipstick, and age-spotted arms that poke like sticks from the sleeves of her mint-green uniform.

“Sit anywhere you want,” she says as she rearranges the pies inside a glass dessert case near the door. “I’ll be there in a jiff.”

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