Survive the Night

by Riley Sager

  At the ladder, Charlie struggles to climb its rungs. Her hands are too wet and the soles of her shoes too slippery. Adding to the trouble is her wool coat, sodden with rancid water. It’s heavier now, like lead, weighing her down as she scales the ladder.

  Still, she climbs.

  Feet slipping off a rung once.

  Hands screeching off the railing twice.

  She keeps climbing until her eyes breach the edge of the pool, revealing the same stone walkway that had dropped out from under her earlier.

  Charlie also sees smoke, drifting over the pool like lake mist.

  And in that smoke, right at the top of the ladder, is a pair of white sneakers.

  Although there’s no blood on them, like there was in her imagination, Charlie knows they belong to Marge and that this time it’s not a movie in her mind.

  A second later, she feels the barrel of a pistol cold against her forehead.

  “Keep climbing,” Marge says. “We’re not done yet.”

  She backs off, giving Charlie just enough room to crest the ladder and step onto the walkway. The two of them stare at each other, Charlie drenched and streaming dirty water, Marge’s face darkened by smoke.

  “Where’s Josh?” Charlie says.

  “He’s safe.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Marge’s shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t care.”

  Beside them, a low rumble rises from inside the lodge. Another chunk of roof—bigger than the first—crashes down. The walkway under their feet shakes. Smoke and sparks roll over them—a wave so dense it blots out Charlie’s vision and makes her head swim.

  When it clears, she sees Marge still across from her, the pistol now aimed at her chest.

  “And what about Maddy?” Charlie says, getting a flash of the most recent movie in her mind. Maddy in full glamour mode. “You care about her, right? She’d hate it if she saw us like this.”

  Marge starts to speak, changes her mind, goes silent again. She can’t argue with Charlie’s reasoning. Both of them know it’s true. If she were here, Maddy would be sickened by what she saw.

  “I can’t just let it go. I have to do something.” Marge keeps the pistol pointed at Charlie. “I swore—”

  “That you’d get revenge? Hurting me won’t do that. It won’t bring Maddy back. She’s gone, and I hate that fact. It makes me sad and angry, but most of all, I just miss her. I miss her so much. Just like you do.”

  “It hurts,” Marge says, her voice cracking. “Missing her—it hurts so bad.”

  “I know,” Charlie says. “It hurts me, too.”

  “And this uncertainty. I don’t know what to do with it. I need to know who killed my Maddy.”

  Charlie does, too. But she also knows life doesn’t always work that way. It’s not the movies, where plots are often tied up in a tidy bow. In the real world, you may never learn what caused the crash that killed your parents or who murdered your best friend. It’s hard and it hurts and it’s so unfair that sometimes it makes Charlie want to scream. But it’s life, and everyone must go on living it.

  “Let me go,” Charlie says. “Let me go and we can get through it together.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, sweetie. I need to learn as much as I can. That all depends on you now. You can tell me what you saw—who you saw—right now. Or we can do it the hard way.”

  Marge cocks the pistol.

  Behind her, Charlie sees something flitting through the smoke. A lightness amid the dark.

  Robbie.

  Creeping through the smoke, a tire iron clutched in his hand.

  Charlie’s eyes widen, tipping Marge off to the presence behind her.

  As Marge spins around, Robbie lifts the tire iron and brings it down hard against her shoulder.

  The gun goes off.

  A horrible bang.

  Robbie grunts and falters backward.

  Marge collapses outright, crumbling to the ground, the pistol falling from her grip and skittering across the walkway.

  Charlie swoops in, picks it up, thrusts it out in front of her. It’s the first time she’s ever held a gun, and she hates the feel of it in her hands. Her arms quake, the gun barrel unsteady as she points it at Marge.

  Behind her, Robbie sits on the walkway, his right hand pressed to his left shoulder. Blood trickles out from beneath his palm. Charlie gasps when she sees it.

  “Are you hit?”

  “Grazed,” Robbie says. He starts to let out a low, disbelieving chuckle but stops midway. Eyes widening, he gasps and says, “Charlie, watch out!”

  Charlie instantly understands what’s happening. Marge is on the move. At first, Charlie thinks she’s coming for the gun. She is, but not in the way Charlie expects.

  Marge crawls toward her, not stopping until the pistol is inches away from her forehead.

  “Do it,” she says, looking up at Charlie with a pained, pitiful expression. “Pull the trigger. Please. Put me out of my misery. I was going to do it anyway. Right here. Tonight.”

  Charlie steadies the gun and thinks about all the damage Marge has caused that night. She deserves to pay for what she’s done. Not just to her, but to Josh and to Robbie. All in a misguided quest for information.

  Then she thinks of Maddy and her habit of calling her mee-maw on the phone every Sunday. Charlie pictures her doing it. Sitting in the jade silk kimono she preferred over a bathrobe, the phone cord wound around her finger, laughing at something her grandmother had just said. The same woman who made her laugh now kneels in front of her, begging to die, and Charlie can’t bring herself to do it.

  “No,” she says. “Maddy wouldn’t want that.”

  Charlie tosses the pistol into the pool. It lands with a splash and disappears in the black water.

  Marge says nothing. She simply stares at the spot where the gun now rests, a vacant look in her eyes.

  Charlie moves past her, going to Robbie, who still has a hand pressed to his shoulder. Blood runs down his sleeve and drips from his elbow.

  “We need to get you to a hospital,” she says, helping him to his feet.

  “First, we need to get away from this place.”

  Another rumble erupts from inside the lodge, followed by the sound of timber cracking. Charlie knows what it means. The support beams holding up what’s left of the room are about to fall.

  And they don’t want to be here when it happens.

  The two of them hurry along the back of the building, leaving the walkway and entering the woods to put more distance between them and the lodge. When it comes time to round the corner of the building, Charlie pauses long enough to check on Marge.

  She sits next to the pool, watching the fire that will in all likelihood consume her should the lodge collapse.

  Which it’s about to do in a matter of minutes.

  But Marge doesn’t look scared. In fact, Charlie thinks she looks at peace, bathed in the orange glow of the flames. Maybe she’s thinking about Maddy. Maybe Marge even sees her. A movie in her own mind.

  Charlie hopes that’s true.

  She even wishes it as Robbie grabs her coat sleeve and tugs her until Marge fades from view.

  THREE A.M.

  EXT. LODGE—NIGHT

  It’s all so loud.

  That’s what Charlie thinks as they trudge out of the woods and head to Robbie’s Volvo.

  The roar of the fire. The roar of the falls. It’s deafening, those twin sounds, like a pair of beasts in the thick of battle. It even looks like they’re fighting. Charlie sees the burning lodge to her right, the frothing head of the falls to her left, and, in between, a spot where the rushing creek reflects the flames.

  Yet through that din, Charlie thinks of Josh.

  He’s here. Somewhere.

  “We need to get Josh.”

 
“Who?” Robbie says.

  “The guy I was riding with. He’s here.”

  “Where?”

  Charlie doesn’t know. Not where he is or even if he’s still alive. Marge could have been lying about that.

  “He was shot,” Charlie says.

  “So was I,” Robbie says, jerking his chin toward his wounded shoulder. “And we’re running out of time.”

  Charlie eyes the fiery lodge. Tall, fingerlike flames break through the roof and reach toward the sky, bringing with them sparks that pinwheel through the air and drift down around them like pulsing orange confetti.

  Robbie’s Volvo is parked right behind Marge’s Cadillac. Although the portico the cars sit under remains untouched by fire, it won’t really matter if the lodge collapses. Charlie knows Robbie is right.

  They need to leave.

  Now.

  At the car, Robbie leans against the hood.

  “Are you okay?” Charlie asks, when it’s obvious he isn’t.

  “I’m fine,” Robbie says as he hands her his car keys. “You’re going to have to drive, though.”

  Charlie had assumed that, even though she’s not in the best condition, either. She’s dizzy from the smoke and her chest is tight and the flames and waterfall are too loud and she thinks she’s going to faint.

  Still, she dutifully guides Robbie into the passenger seat before rounding the front of the Volvo and sliding behind the wheel. It’s not until she’s fully in the driver’s seat that the realization hits.

  She hasn’t driven since the day before her parents were killed.

  INT. VOLVO—NIGHT

  Four years.

  That’s how long it’s been since Charlie sat in the driver’s seat of a car.

  Four long years without turning a steering wheel or tapping a brake.

  That’s about to end right now.

  It has to.

  Charlie coughs. A sharp, stabbing hack that makes her double over. But she feels better afterward. Letting out that last bit of smoke and being in the car, where it’s calm and quiet, boosts her consciousness. She’s no longer dizzy, although the weakness remains.

  But she can do this.

  There’s nothing to be afraid of.

  Driving a car is just like riding a bike. Her father told her that.

  Charlie starts the car, flinching at the muffled roar created by the engine rumbling to life. At the same time, another deep rumble emanates from inside the lodge. Next to her, Robbie says, “Charlie, we need to get out of here.”

  She touches her foot to the gas pedal, hitting it too hard. The Volvo lurches forward and smacks into the Cadillac’s rear bumper. The car shudders.

  She slams down on the brakes, puts the Volvo in reverse, starts driving backward. Then it’s back to drive again. This time, when Charlie presses the gas pedal, it’s with more caution. The car eases forward, letting Charlie steer past the Cadillac and out from under the portico.

  “We need to get further away,” Robbie says.

  “I’m trying.”

  Charlie keeps the car moving, rounding the circular drive in front of the lodge and heading toward the twisting road that will take them to the bottom of the waterfall. After that, Charlie has no idea where to go.

  “I don’t know where we are.”

  She hits the brakes again, puts the car in park, and reaches for the glove compartment in front of Robbie, searching for a map. The glove compartment door drops open, and a small box tumbles out, almost landing in Robbie’s lap.

  He tries to catch it but is slowed by his gunshot wound. That leaves Charlie to grab it and pull it toward her.

  It’s a jewelry box.

  Black.

  Hinged.

  Big enough for a single engagement ring.

  Heat spreads in Charlie’s chest. She’d suspected, back in the recesses of her mind, that Robbie might try to propose before she left. When he didn’t, she was more relieved than disappointed. Guilty and depressed and lost in her own world, she wasn’t ready for such a commitment.

  But now—after this long, horrible night—Charlie wonders if she might have been wrong about that.

  “Robbie, I—”

  “Wait!” he says.

  But Charlie’s already opening the box, excitement blooming in spite of herself, the hinge sounding out a light creak as she lifts the lid and things start rolling out of it like dice. That’s what Charlie thinks they are as she cups her hand to catch them.

  Dice.

  Three startlingly small dice the color of ivory.

  It’s not until they’re rattling in her palm that she understands what they really are.

  Teeth.

  Angela Dunleavy’s tooth.

  Taylor Morrison’s tooth.

  Maddy’s tooth.

  “Robbie, why do you have these?”

  She knows the answer.

  Robbie took them after killing Angela.

  And Taylor.

  And Maddy.

  Staring at Robbie with her dead friend’s tooth still in her hand, Charlie feels something break loose inside her chest.

  Her heart.

  There’s now an empty space where it used to be. A void, inside of which the sound of her last heartbeat still echoes. Then it, too, is gone, and she feels nothing.

  Charlie thinks it means she’s dying. And wouldn’t that be a relief? Surely better than having to endure this.

  Yet she remains alive, her heart still gone but her head spinning and a stark ache in her gut that feels like the inside of her body trying to gnaw its way outside.

  The nausea, when it comes, is too fast to stop. The bile rushes up and out, and soon Charlie is bent forward, vomit dripping off the steering wheel.

  She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and says, “Why?”

  Charlie says it softly. Barely a mumble. So soft she’s not sure Robbie even heard her. So she says it again, shouting this time, the word smacking off the window and echoing through the entire car.

  “Why?”

  Robbie says nothing. He simply stares into the open glove compartment, looking at something else inside that Charlie had missed until that moment.

  A pair of pliers.

  Dried blood stains their tip.

  Seeing it conjures an image of that night outside the bar. Robbie approaching Maddy, who smiles because she recognizes a friendly face. He comes in close, his head lowered, hand cupped around her lighter. Seeing it is so terrible Charlie has to close her eyes and shake her head to make it go away.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t know it was you,” she says, still shocked and nauseous and waiting for her missing heart to finally stop its stubborn beating. “Did you know I was there? That I saw you?”

  “Not until later,” Robbie says, as if that will make it easier for her to bear. “But by then I knew that you also hadn’t really seen me. That something else was going on in that head of yours.”

  Charlie drops the teeth back into jewelry box and snaps the lid shut, unable to look at them any longer. The box itself slips from her hands as she wails, “Why Maddy?”

  “Because she was too brash,” Robbie says, spitting out the last word like it’s a curse. “Always loud. Always demanding attention.”

  “Is that why you killed the others, too?” she says. “Because they were too loud? Too brash?”

  “No. Because they thought they were special. They thought they deserved the attention they were constantly begging for. And they’re not special, Charlie. I’ve been waiting a year for you to figure it out. Most people are stupid and useless and pathetic. And those deluded enough to think they aren’t deserve whatever punishment they get.”

  Charlie recoils against the driver’s-side door, terrified. “You’re sick.”

  “No,” Robbie says. “I
truly am special. As are you. Remember the night we met? In the library?”

  Of course Charlie remembers. It was her own personal romantic comedy, which means it was likely different from how she remembers it. Now she looks at Robbie, trying to see if she recognizes any part of the man she encountered that night.

  She can’t.

  He’s a complete stranger to her now.

  “I thought I was going to kill you that night,” Robbie says. “Sitting with you at the library, then the diner, then walking you home. The whole time I kept thinking about what it was going to feel like to kill you.”

  The matter-of-fact way he says it feels like a punch to Charlie’s solar plexus. For a few seconds, she can barely breathe.

  “Why didn’t you?” she says.

  “Because there was something about you I was drawn to. You were so—”

  “Innocent?”

  Robbie shakes his head. “Clueless. You watch your movies and you think that makes you smart. Like you know the way the world works. But all it’s done is warp your brain. You have no idea what the world is like.”

  He’s wrong about that.

  Charlie knows what the world is like.

  Parents leave in the morning and never come back.

  You fight with your best friend and tell her to fuck off and then have to live with knowing that’s the last thing you ever said to her, when what you really should have done is thanked her for being by your side and understanding you and loving you for who you are.

  After seeing too much of this senseless, brutal, cruel world—far too much for someone her age—Charlie chose to retreat into other worlds. Ones that can’t hurt her.

  Life has failed her time and time again.

  The movies have never let her down.

  “But then there was a moment at the diner when you completely tuned out—just for a minute. That’s when I knew you were different from the others. Special. Like me.”

  “I’m nothing like you,” Charlie says, spitting the words.

  Something takes hold of her.

  Rage.

  The same kind Marge had talked about. White-hot and seething.