After things had gone completely pear-shaped in whatever realm she'd reached via the elevator, Emily had every intention of quitting while she was ahead.

But then something even less probable than making contact with the spirit world happened...people at school started noticing her, talking to her. People she would've bet her trust fund didn't even know her name were inviting her to sit with them at lunch and waving to her in the hallways between classes.

After nearly a year and a half of being invisible to people her own age, suddenly being acknowledged was almost more disconcerting than angry ghosts. Nearly overnight, she'd been catapulted into instant celebrity.

It was nearly a week before she found out that John had been telling people about their visit with Charlotte. Emily didn't want to talk about Charlotte – something about that encounter seemed so personal, so private, and she didn't want to let other people inside the memory.

The call she'd made with the shoebox telephone was also something she couldn't share, but for very different reasons.

Instead, she told them about the Other Side. About the girl she'd met on the fifth floor, about the distant glowing red cross that had held her spellbound, about the blood-curdling fear upon reaching the lobby only to be met with the realization that she hadn't escaped afterall.

It was clear that not everyone she talked to believed her – several of them clearly only listened because they thought she was completely off her rocker. But most of them seemed to think her some kind of real-life horror movie badass and they hung on her every word.

And she lavished in their attention and admiration, feeling social acceptance for quite possibly the first time since preschool.

The biggest surprise came in the form of an invitation to JJ's annual cliche teenage rager. Emily didn't get invited to parties. It was one of the unwritten rules of high school. Emily was weird. Emily was a loner. Emily didn't fit in, the way local birds didn't fit in at the zoo.

She definitely didn't get invited to JJ's parties. JJ was petite and blonde and adorable. She was captain of the JV soccer team in the spring and head cheerleader in the fall, meaning she was one of the guys and one of the girls. She had it all...at least, in Emily's eyes.

Emily didn't even care that she'd only been invited as some kind of sideshow. She was invited and that was all that mattered.

Most of the student body had heard her elevator story by now, so she was making sure she had new material for the party.

Someone on a message board had suggested a way to summon a cab that would take her to the Other Side. It was more complicated and possibly more dangerous than getting there via an elevator, but the payoff, at least in terms of storytelling value, was much higher.

She'd had to wait until her mother got called away to a last-minute conference out of state before attempting the ritual. Her mother had an annoying habit of becoming interested in what she was doing at the least opportune moments and she didn't want to risk her mother waking up in the middle of the night to find her missing.

She'd had to make a special trip to some new-age store to find sage to burn to cleanse the house before she could summon the cab. The visit to the store was kind of unsettling; the moment she'd walked in, the woman behind the counter stopped talking, like she'd completely forgotten every word in the English language. The entire time she shopped, Emily felt the woman's eyes on her back with an unnerving intensity. And when she turned to leave after paying for the sage smudge stick, the woman had wrapped her fingers around Emily's wrist way too tightly and whispered with urgency, "You need to seek help before it's too late. You're in grave danger." Emily made a mental note to never set foot in that store again.

She burned the sage in every room of the house, which took quite some time, and once done, she scattered the ashes on the front steps.

When it was nearly completely dark outside, she sat herself in front of the old corded phone that her mother constantly complained about, but had somehow been permanently attached to the wall and continued to resist all attempts to remove it.

She counted to thirteen as instructed, then dialled the eight digit number. The phone wasn't plugged into anything – to her knowledge, they didn't even have a land-line anymore – so she was fairly sure she wasn't going to accidentally end up contacting a laundromat or some other random place.

Tying the black cord around the handset took some awkward maneuverings to get it tight enough to lift the receiver without coming loose. When it finally withstood the tugging, she lifted it out of the cradle by touching only the cord and dialled the second eight digit number.

After counting to thirteen a second time, she whispered into the receiver, "Hello? I need a cab," then hung up.

She was a little surprised that she wasn't nervous as she removed the first cord and replaced it with an identical one.

A glance out the window showed nothing different about the evening and no cab parked outside, so she pulled a cigarette and her beat up lighter out of her pocket. She felt the smooth surface of the black tourmaline stone she'd taken to carrying everywhere with her and remembered that she wasn't allowed any protection objects on this journey, so she dropped it beside the phone with the first cord so she would remember to burn it when she returned.

She stepped outside to smoke so the smell wouldn't get trapped inside the house for her mother to detect. That's when she spotted the black cab. She was entirely sure it hadn't been sitting there sixty seconds ago, but there it was, seeming as solid and real as any cab she'd ever seen in her life, if not a little more imposing. Oddly enough, all the houses on the block were now dark and decidedly less welcoming than they'd seemed earlier.

Pocketing the unlit cigarette, she crossed the street to examine the cab. It was empty, no passenger or driver. Other than that, it seemed normal enough, if a little tidier than most cabs she'd ridden in before. The back door was open, so she got in and lay down, as per the instructions.

She wasn't sure she'd be able to fall asleep and suddenly wished she'd had time for the cigarette, as that always calmed her down.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up, sprawled awkwardly across the backseat. She had no memory of falling asleep, of dreaming at all, she didn't even remember what had prompted her to wake. She took a few moments to check that she was still alone, that she didn't feel like she was being watched, that the street was empty before she was satisfied that it was safe to continue.

The odd orangish glow of the sky reflected off the face of her watch, reminding her to check the time. The rules had specified 3:30 and though her watch said 3:34, she decided there wasn't any urgent need to end the ritual, given that it had likely taken her a few minutes before she thought about the watch.

Feeling satisfied with how things were going, she rolled over to face the backs of the seats and returned to sleep easily.

When she woke up the second time – sitting up with her neck at a painful angle, head resting against the glass, even though she'd fallen asleep lying down – it was clear she wasn't in her world. It didn't look like the realm the elevator had taken her to either. There were fields and nothing else; they were growing something a sickly looking grey color, but other than that, they seemed normal enough.

She turned her attention instead to the being driving the cab. It had a vaguely humanoid shape, though she couldn't be entirely sure because of the heavy black hooded cloak that hid him from her view. The only part of him she could see well was his hands; neither aged nor smooth and young, neither bony nor fleshy, the only remarkable thing about that was that they seemed quite tan.

Outside the window, she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. A distant marching army was moving across the grey fields. They didn't seem to have a destination in mind, they were just marching, almost parade like. They all carried long poles leaning against their shoulders and there seemed to be something atop them, but she couldn't quite make out what it was.

The complete silence was broken by the sound of distant wailing quickly approaching and her attention was broken away from the oddly hypnotic marching. A sea of bodies had surrounded the cab and they threw their bodies up against the body of the vehicle, clawing at the windows as if trying to get it. They were screeching and wailing, sounds of agonizing pain. Some of them seemed to be pulling out their own hair.

The cab suddenly pulled to a stop and for the first time that night, Emily felt true fear. The instructions had warned that no one had ever survived to report what happened if they stayed in the cab long enough for it to reach it's final destination, but it was assumed that they were either killed or went completely insane.

The sea of bodies around them parted as if on command and then the door opened... She hadn't planned on this happening. A man (God, she hoped it was human) with too-long limbs wearing a too-dark suit climbed in next to her and the cab started moving again.

She stared directly forward and tried hard not to move a muscle. The rules said that if you looked directly at anything that got into the cab with you, it would kill you. The thing, whatever it was, seemed to have no such compunctions. It was looking directly at her and she found herself oddly compelled to turn and look at it, but she fought the urge with everything in her.

From the periphery, she could see the most unsettling smile spread across the man's face. It was too wide and showed too many teeth and was too fake to be anything normal.

Ice spread through her veins.

She turned to look out the window to try and take her mind off the thing. The marching army was much closer now and she was able to get a closer look at what was on the ends of their poles. What she had assumed to be banners of some kind were actually human heads. Their mouths were moving, but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Emily realized with alarm that none of the army had faces.

With a churning stomach, she leaned forward to whisper in the driver's ear, "I have reached my final destination."


A/N: So, I hadn't intended on including the whole team in this fic, but they wanted to be here, apparently, so they'll be in the next chapter. They probably won't be anything other than people on the periphery, she's not really friends with them at this point. Keep in mind, that this is Emily's story, so if things are said that don't seem in-character for any member of the team, it's because of Emily's jaded teenage POV and not mischaracterization.