DON'T STEP OUT

"Three minutes from now, the head goes out first. Floor 14." I was stuck in an elevator in the middle of the night.

The tarot reader on the livestream told me I'd be spread across three floors within ten minutes.

He looked at me in my video window and kept calling the cards. "Five minutes from now, the limbs go out. Floor 23." "Ten minutes from now, the body goes out.

Floor 30." Chapter 1 The chat erupted. [Holy shit, did we walk into the midnight horror block?

The head and the body going out separately, that's kind of interesting.] [NightShiftTarot's out of line.

She's already scared, stuck in an elevator, and he's messing with her on purpose.] [The guy above me doesn't get it.

How's he supposed to pull an audience if he doesn't talk like that?] Through all the noise, NightShiftTarot explained. "But that's what the cards say.

I'm only telling you what's there." "Three cards in a vertical line. The top one is the head, the middle and the bottom are the limbs and the body.

They really are on different floors." The second he said it, people jumped in to back him up. [I've followed NightShiftTarot forever.

He doesn't make things up.] [I've been here since his first stream. His cards are always right.] [No way.

If that's true, BiscuitBoo is about to get cut up?] [Holy shit, at this hour. My back just went cold, y'all.] It made me laugh, the angry kind.

People actually believed a streamer doing a smokeandmirrors act. I wanted to knock the legs out from under him, so I asked, "You're so good.

Go ahead, tell me which floor I'm stuck on." He shuffled, pulled one card, turned it over, and said nothing for a few seconds. "The card for you is a five. Clear as day.

You're on floor 5." That startled me. What are the odds? He'd guessed right. [No fucking way. He got that too?] [BiscuitBoo, say something.

You're not actually on 5, are you?] My silence set the chat off. [Is this for real? The guy's got the gift.] [Damn, seriously? He actually called it?

Okay, he knows what he's doing.] I was surprised too, but a second later it felt wrong. Nothing in this world is that mystical.

I turned and scanned the car, and there it was, a digital ad screen on the back wall. Something clicked. "You saw the floor number in the reflection off the ad screen, didn't you?

Who exactly are you fooling with the spooky act?" He said, annoyed, "Believe it or don't. You've walked into a ghost elevator.

Nobody can save you." I still didn't fully believe him, but I was nervous now. I didn't dare drop off the stream, so I called 911 on my backup phone.

They told me a crew was almost at my building, to stay calm and wait for them. I let out a breath. "I'm getting out any minute now.

Get ready to eat your words, you fraud." The guy still wouldn't back down. "It won't help.

They can't get into this elevator, and they can't get you out." More and more people crowded into the stream to watch, and the chat said every kind of thing.

I was about to fire back when my backup phone rang again.

It was the fire department. "Don't play games with 911." The voice on the other end was cold, with an edge of anger under it.

I was stunned, and the explanation came out of me in a rush. "That's not right. I'm in the elevator. It's stuck on 5 and it isn't moving.

I didn't make a false call." That only made him angrier. "We just finished checking. Both elevators are fine." Chapter 2 "You call 911 in the middle of the night for fun?

Is there something wrong with your head?" Now I was genuinely frantic. "Did you go to the wrong place? Emberlane Residences, Building 3, elevator 2.

I'm in the elevator." The second it was out of my mouth, he got angrier. "I just walked out of that car. There's nobody in it.

You keep making up reasons to harass dispatch and I'll hand this straight to the police." "A kid your age, and this is what you do.

Are you filming some kind of prank video?" Panic went through me and I scrambled to make him believe me. "No, I'm really in the elevator.

Are you sure you came to the right place?" He was out of patience. "You really won't quit until this lands on you. Look for yourself.

Is this the place or not?" He switched to video. I stared at the live picture, the front door of the building, then the elevator lobby, then the car.

It was Emberlane Residences, Building 3, elevator 2. No question about it. I was inside that elevator. But in the picture it sat still in the lobby, and the car was empty.

Nothing inside. Goosebumps came up all over me at once. I kept my eyes on that elevator, checking it.

The scuffs on the outside, the scratches on the inside wall, even the picture running on the ad screen, all of it matched exactly. It was the car I was standing in.

And this car was stuck on 5, not moving at all. "That's impossible. How can this be happening?" I cried out before I could stop myself.

His voice came back hard with anger. "Whatever you're after, your prank ends here. Or I really will call the police." Nothing I said got through to him.

There was a click, and he hung up. By then the stream had gone wild. [Holy shit, what did I just watch? That is the exact same car.

And there's nobody in it.] [So was NightShiftTarot telling the truth? Is it actually a ghost elevator?] [He said rescue wouldn't reach her.

This is what he meant.] [That's not an elevator breaking down. She's trapped in a space you can't see.] The chat scrolled faster, every line stranger than the last.

But under all the guessing there were other voices. [Are you people stupid? This is obviously a plant NightShiftTarot set up.

The two of them are running a bit.] Once one person said it, others fell in behind him. [I was about to say the same thing.

This is some new scheme to farm traffic.] [Obviously staged. If this is real I'll eat shit on stream.] [Influencers really put money into it these days.

He even hired an actor on location.] The mood in the chat flipped fast, and now everyone had NightShiftTarot and me working together.

Only one message didn't fit. [Is there a chance this is real… Have any of you heard of the Cardinal House dismemberment case?] Chapter 3 [A beautiful woman married an ordinary man.

When there's no money, everything in a marriage goes bad, and once the first heat wore off she started looking down on him for being a nobody.

To feed his pretty wife's vanity, he worked days and ran night delivery shifts, and she cheated on him anyway. She'd hooked up with three men in the building.

The three lovers lived on 14, 23, and 30.

Late one night the woman came out of one of their apartments and ran into her husband in the elevator, on his way home from his delivery shift.

In a rage he smashed the glass on the fire hose cabinet in the hallway, took out the fire axe, and cut her to pieces.

He gave the head to the man on 14, left the limbs outside the door of the man on 23, and saved the torso for the man on 30.] That one message landed like a rock in still water, and the chat detonated. [Oh damn, I've heard about this too.

That's got to be a good ten years ago.] [Yeah, now that you say it, I remember.

That was Building 9 at the Cardinal House.] [Right, right, and the day it happened was Valentine's Day.

He came home with a flower for her.] [I thought the guy killed the woman and then killed himself.] [That's right.

They say the Cardinal House had nothing but trouble after that, and a few years later a developer bought it and leveled it.] [But what does that have to do with BiscuitBoo?

Doesn't she live at Emberlane?] [The guy above me is obviously not from around here. Emberlane is built on the Cardinal House lot.] [Huh, you're not wrong.

I just pulled up the Emberlane site map.

BiscuitBoo's Building 3 is standing exactly where the Cardinal House's Building 9 was.] [The more you think about it the worse it gets, y'all. It's just past midnight.

Today is Valentine's Day.] [Ahhhhh, did BiscuitBoo wander into the same elevator from back then?] [They say that night delivery guy swore he'd kill every cheating woman on earth.

BiscuitBoo coming home this late, you don't think he's got his eye on her?] The chat packed itself solid, guess after guess, gasp after gasp. Reading it, I went cold in waves.

Right then the light in the car flickered twice. The elevator, which hadn't moved at all, suddenly started going up. I watched the up arrow blinking and blinking.

The floor indicator changed one number at a time. 6, 7, 8, 9… 14. Ding. The elevator really did stop on 14. [Holy shit, what's happening? It moved?] [It really is 14.

He was right.] [Three minutes, the head goes out first… that lines up exactly with floor 14.] [Ahhhhh! My scalp is crawling, y'all.

This is a horror novel walking into real life.] [Oh my god, I can't look.

She's not really going to get cut up, is she?] The chat boiled over, messages stacking on top of each other. My head was buzzing and I was cold with sweat.

Then the doors slid slowly open. The hallway was pitch black. I waved a hand. The motion light, always so quick to come on, stayed dark.

I looked at the 14 on the indicator and thought about how my place was on 19. Get out here, climb 5 floors, and I'd be home.

But looking out at all that darkness, I didn't dare step out. I took my water bottle out of my bag and threw it into the hallway.

Chapter 4 I watched the bottle go into the dark, and I never heard it land. Like I'd thrown it into something with no bottom. All the blood in me went cold at once.

It wasn't hard to picture what would have happened if I'd taken that step. Then the doors slammed shut. My legs had gone limp as wet noodles. [My back went cold, y'all.

If I'd been stuck that long, I'd have walked out the second those doors opened.] [Right? Good thing she's careful, testing it with the bottle.] [He read it perfectly.

The doors opened at exactly three minutes.] [If BiscuitBoo had gone out there, she'd already be gone.] I was too scared to think straight, and I grabbed the backup phone and called my boyfriend. "Aidan, come get me, I'm trapped in the elevator, it's stopped on 14." "It's pitch black out there and I don't dare get out.

I'm so scared." I was coming apart, and you could hear the crying in my voice. Aidan had obviously just been woken up.

His voice was thick. "Coco, weren't you out with your best friend? You're not back until the day after tomorrow." I was frantic, explaining through tears. "Today's Valentine's Day.

I wanted to surprise you, so I came back early. Come get me, I'm on 14." "Okay, babe, don't be scared.

I'm coming right now." I sat down on the floor of the car in a cold sweat, and thinking about those three cards sent the chill up my back again and again.

The chat was still coming down thick. [You think her boyfriend can find her?] [Not necessarily. Look at what happened with the fire department.

He might not even be able to see her.] [You guys think this is real? Why is it this creepy?] [She called her boyfriend, didn't she?

We'll know when we see whether he can find her.] The light in the car started flickering, and the car went bright, then dark, then bright.

The red 14 on the floor indicator got brighter and brighter. The elevator didn't move.

Then, bang, bang, bang, a knock came at the elevator doors. "Babe, are you in there?" It was Aidan's voice. I was on my feet at once, so overcome the tears ran down my face