Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Five

Exhausted, muddy, and soaked to the skin, Jack kicked the apartment door closed behind him and yelled out for his roommate. There was no answer, Tim must be out, he thought. Just as well. At that moment he didn't really feel like launching into a recap of his strange adventure in the park. The cold of the Lake still gripped his bones, even though he'd jogged the last few blocks home. It made his thought progress slow and sluggish.
Shivering hard enough that his teeth rattled, Jack shed clothing in a trailing heap on the floor, tugged the afghan off the back of the couch, and wrapped it around himself as he stumbled to the bathroom and turned the shower taps on, setting the temperature as hot as it would go. He knew that the only thing that was going to drive away impending hypothermia was the longest, hottest shower he'd ever taken, followed by a large mug of even hotter cocoa.
The shower was about as close to heaven as he could imagine. Steam billowed in clouds around him, and eventually the chattering of his teeth stopped and his muscles unclenched enough to let him stand upright. Once the heat had restored his mental faculties sufficiently, Jack allowed himself to mull over the evening's bizarre turn of events.
He'd come to his sences lying facedown on the lakeside path, retching out murky water, with the horse nuzzling at his shoulder. By the time he'd regained his bearings and struggled to his feet, the creature had vanished into the darkness, and Jack was left with nothing but a few strands of long, black horsehair clutched in his fist. Sodden and shivering, he had gathered up shoes and coat and all the stuff that spilled from his bag and headed for home.
That was what he remembered.
Only . . .
There was confusion in Jack's mind. He could recall, from the moments before he'd blacked out, a jumble of images. Fleeting impressions of lights and sound. Strange, beautiful music . . .
Or, to use the technical term, oxygen deprivation.
Jack leaned his head against the tiled wall. At least he hadn't actually drowned. What was the old cliché? Right: 'Fortune favors the foolish.' Stupid horse. He hoped it had found its way home. With the water starting to run lukewarm, Jack reluctantly turned off the taps and slid aside the shower curtain.
And screamed.
The "stupid horse," was standing right in front of him, filling almost every available inch of his tiny bathroom with its big, lanky frame. The horse's back feet, in fact its entire back half, was still outside, as of stood half in his bathroom, half out the landing of the fire escape. Jack could see steam rising up from the horse, dissipating into the cold night air. It whickered softly and pushed at his shoulder with its velvet muzzle.
Jack scrambled for something to cover himself and tried not to panic.
When Jed hoped that the creature had found its way home, Jack hadn't meant his home! He wrapped himself in a towel and edged around the horse, out of the little room. As soon as he could, he shut the door with a bang and leaned against it, his heart pounding.
This is impossible, he thought. This is not happening.
He was imagining things. He had a brain freeze. Über brain freeze. Not just the kind you got from drinking a Slurpee too fast. No. The kind that you got from jumping into a lake in late October. The kind that made you hallucinate wildly.
The horse whinnied softly.
"Stop that!" Jack clapped his hands over his ears. "You're not real! I can't hear you because you're not real!"
There was another little burble of equine noise from behind the door, followed by shuffling and thumping sounds. Then nothing. Jack sank down to the floor and sat with his back to the door. This really wasn't happening. Because if it was happening, Jack was in for a world of trouble.
His roommate was going to kill him. Or kick him out.
Oh, god. If Tim kicked him out, he might have to move back home! It wasn't as if his uncle Evan had wanted Jack to move to New York in the first place, and it was only the fact that Jack'd found such a great place to stay that made him agree. Tim Miles was a model, more than a little high strung, and Jack could recall the wording of his craigslist ad with absolute clarity: