With her screams, the door—an ordinary wooden door—opened, and a lanky, elderly black man came in holding a clipboard. He smiled at her, and for some reason, she felt that he was somehow familiar to her.
"I see you're awake," the doctor said. "We even made bets as to what you'd say when you woke up. Now, don't disappoint me, I've got twenty bucks riding on this."
She was silent for a while, trying to figure out why he looked so familiar.
"Where am I?" she finally asked.
Where's my Eddy?
"Damn, I guess I'm out twenty bucks," he said, chuckling. "You're at Saint Bernardine's Hospital."
"Saint..."
"You don't remember how you got here?"
She shook her head.
"Damnedest thing, some truck driver brought you in, claiming he saw a white light and then you were standing in the street, naked as the day you were born."
She looked down at herself, saw that she was wearing a hospital gown. Of course she’d come in naked.
"Now, at first I didn't quite believe the man, was tempted to call the police, but then you looked up, wrapped in a blanket, and said something that caused me to second-guess myself."
"What did I say?"
"You asked if it was gone, if the thing with the seven eyes was gone." His face became grim. "Normally, I'd just admit you to the psych ward, but...between you and me...what you said reminded me of a nightmare I'd had the other night, and I decided to admit you."
"Thank you..." she said.
"Now, for the other matter." His voice became serious again. "I ran your fingerprints through our systems and came up with something peculiar. Something you'll thank me later for not alerting the other staff members to."
He gave her the chart he was holding. She saw her name there, and something else, an age that didn't make sense to her. The chart said she was seventy-seven years old. The last name was also peculiar, and yet somehow familiar.
IRA RAMIREZ
"You're an old soul." He chuckled. That chuckle made her scan the sheet frantically for the doctor's name. When she found it, her heart seized in her throat.
DOCTOR MATHIAS BANNING
She looked up to the man who was not the madman she had known, but bore a striking resemblance to him.
The final experiment worked, she thought, shuddering. I passed through the mind's horizon into another world. And now I'm alone, faced with the reality that these ghosts are like the people I once knew, only they're not ghosts, they're old, and I'm the one who's a phantom.
Maybe Lena and her baby were still out there, maybe they were floating through the abyss between universes, crying out for her to help them? Maybe they had spilled through to other worlds, where they too were alone.
Part of her wanted to crawl back through that white light that she'd seen and find them. Even if it meant facing that thing with the pulsing green eye.
But that was probably impossible.
"Can I go now?" she found herself asking.
Doctor Mathias Banning nodded. "Of course. I've taken the liberty of paying your bill, you're in good shape, physically, but..."
"You worry about my mind?"
He nodded.
"I'll be fine," she lied. Not without Eddy, not without her family.
Their final, strange embrace, and that kiss that had promised of things that might have been, filled her mind, and she felt a rusty metal wire tighten around her heart and constrict.
"Give me a few minutes," he said, heading for the door. "I'll bring you some clothes."
She was glad when he left. Different Mathias or not, his presence still sent shivers crawling through her and reminded her of the things that lurked in the darkness, beyond the veil.
He came back and set some baggy clothes on the table. "A Jane Doe left these behind. I realize that's a little disturbing, but under the circumstances, I'm sure you won't mind.
She nodded. "It's fine."
She just wanted him to leave.
His dark brown eyes regarded her for a moment. His lips pursed, a question dangling at the edge. "Where did you come from?"
She didn't want to answer. She didn't want to give him any reason to go searching for those terrible things, that grimoire or the truth of the mind's horizon. She saw in the glint of his eye that he needed to know. Needed to hear something.
"I came from another world," she finally said.
He nodded, as if that's what he'd guessed too. "I see." Then the inevitable question came, and a hunger crept into his face, his posture. "How?"
"I don't remember."
"Curious." He scratched his head. "You must tell me if you ever remember, though."
She nodded. He retreated to the door and looked back at her suspiciously. As if he knew deep down that she had lied to him.
Ira did remember. She felt like she was living through that hellish reality, forced to replay the events in her head over and over again. Forced to watch Lena and her baby drift off into the blackness of the abyss, just out of reach of her grasp. Forced to leave the creature that had been Eddy behind to languish on the frozen corpse of the Earth.
She preferred the lie. At least in the lie she could be happy.
2
She'd taken longer to leave the hospital than she'd planned. And when she finally did dress herself in the baggy clothes left by Jane Doe, she found herself standing in the warm Southern California sunlight, basking in it and watching the clouds drift across the brilliant blue sky that was now completely alien to her.
"I'll teach you to appreciate this Southern California weather, even if it kills me." She heard Jennifer's words, the real Jennifer, in her mind, and, for the first time in years, she found herself missing her.
There was a light breeze in the warm air, and she marveled and relished every moment of it.
That painful rusty wire that had tightened around her heart squeezed once again, and she hoped that Lena had found a world where the sky was as brilliant as it was here.
A terrible feeling told her that she was writhing in agony, but it passed.
She hitched a ride to downtown Riverside and found herself digging through a phone book. She found her own name next to an address and tore it from the book.
In her time, phone books had been a thing of the past. This seemed to be a world that hadn't crawled past the 1990s in terms of digital technology. People weren't constantly absorbed in their cell phones or tablets, or anything else. The one time she saw someone talking on a cell phone it was the size of their forearm.
"Jesus," she said. "I've found my way to the digital dark ages."
She walked around for a while, clutching the torn page of the phone book, daring herself to seek the address out.
She wandered her way into the suburbs eventually, and sometime during sunset, when the sun was casting bands of red and orange light across the horizon and silhouetting the trees black in the distance, she stood before the house where her other self had lived the life she could only dream of.
Her feet were heavy. Each step was difficult. But she knocked on the door all the same, and found herself staring face-to-face with a seventy-year-old man, a man who looked strikingly familiar.
"Can I help you?" Then a wave of shock passed through his face, a knowing.
Maybe, maybe if she heard their story...
Maybe if she heard that she'd be able to find a reason to live.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric Malikyte was raised on a healthy diet of science fiction, fantasy, and a fear of the unknown. Thanks to shows like Sightings and The Art Bell Show, Eric developed a mixed interest in the sciences and the paranormal. He lives in Northern Virginia, where he spends time working odd hours and talking to his cat while he writes his novels.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The idea for this book came to me during a blizzard in 2015. My brother and I had run out of beer and decided that it would be a good idea to walk to the grocery store (which was a mile away
) to get more. For over an hour, we trudged through snow that came up to our knees. It was tiring to say the least. We got our beer, and many jokes were had about our lack of preparedness, as well as how stupid it was to march out into a blizzard like that (just for a 24 pack)—but I would do it again. I think that’s where the idea for a modern ice age came from. I thought about what it might be like to live in my old hometown of Riverside if an ice age were to hit. How would people survive?
The insane cosmic horror elements came shortly after.
I’d like to thank Michelle, James, Jenny, Kat, Max, Erin, Jacob, Philip, Frederick, Ashe, Aleah, Schinell, Leigh, and Clara for contributing to the gofundme. Without you, this book’s incredible cover would not have been made. And extra special thanks go out to Eric Lahti, for designing said cover.
I’d also like to thank Elise, Serena, Eric, and all of my patrons, (especially Lisa), for reading the pre-copy-edited version of the book.
And to Phoenix. Thanks for putting up with my madness. Your insights always prove to be invaluable.
A MESSAGE FROM ERIC
Thanks so much for reading Mind’s Horizon! If you’ve enjoyed this book, please be sure to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Authors live and die by their reviews. And be sure to check out ericmalikyte.com for updates on new books, short stories, appearances, and podcasts!
I also have a mailing list now! And you can get a free PDF of one of my Patron only stories by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/dHIjyf
Thank you so much for your support!
-Eric Malikyte
Other Works by Eric
Echoes of Olympus Mons
Eldritch Blasphemies and Technological Horrors Vol. 1
Into the Astral Lands
Mind's Horizon Page 32
