Unable to give her any of the information she desires as she has begun to hallucinate, Charlie is almost attacked by Marge but saved by the last minute by Josh. She hired him in order to bring Charlie to her and force her to give her details of the murder. Marge reveals that she is Maddy's grandmother and that Josh is a bounty hunter. She then stabs Josh and flees back to the diner, where she is captured by Marge and taken to an abandoned resort lodge. The two talk some more and Charlie admits that she tried killing herself. This surprises Josh, who assumed that she would have chosen to escape. She is briefly offered a chance to escape with Marge's help and even manages to call her boyfriend Robbie, but Charlie decides to keep traveling with Josh in order to get revenge and stop him from killing anyone else. The two stop at a diner, where Charlie meets a waitress named Marge. Josh also admits that he came to campus specifically to find Charlie. Their ride is initially pleasant and the two hit it off, however Charlie becomes convinced that he is the murderer when he mentions that the murderer took one of Maddy's teeth, something that the police did not reveal to the general public. She arranges for a ride home via a ride share, as she doesn't drive due to her parents dying in a car crash, and through this meets Josh. As she did not stop the murder and cannot provide many helpful details, Charlie is extremely guilt stricken.

These hallucinations typically appear as film scenes. At the time Charlie had assumed that the murder was one of her visual hallucinations, something she is prone to experiencing, especially in emotional situations. Dubbed 'The Campus Killer', the murderer had been picking off women on their campus. The book follows Charlie, a young woman who drops out of film college due to the trauma of witnessing the murder of her best friend Maddy by a serial killer. It was first published in the United States on Jthrough Dutton and centers upon a woman who realizes that she may be sharing a car ride with a murderer. Survive the Night is a 2021 thriller novel by American author Todd Ritter, under the penname Riley Sager.

Survive the night sager