Sparkle Ship Shine

by Steve Beaulieu

  “How am I supposed to…clean this?”

  “In the same manner you would clean any leak or spill,” Electra replied.

  I shook my head.

  “This is not worth 4u per hour, Electra.”

  “You will be tipped very well as long as you commit no further violations,” the ship said.

  I grabbed my squeegee and started toward the bag.

  “Please, clean the vomit off of me first,” Electra said.

  “Off of you?”

  “The floor—clean it off the floor—quickly.”

  So blood, corpses, and maggots were no problem, but vomit was an issue? Whatever. I cleaned up the vomit, then somehow managed to force myself to deal with the bag. Using all the strength and leverage I could manage, I hoisted it with the handle of my squeegee, then tossed it onto the cart. I don't know how I did it, but I cleaned that whole mess without throwing up again. Oh, I wanted to. You better believe your sweet hiney that I nearly blew chunks about twelve different times, but I didn't.

  I looked around, realizing that it appeared like I was done cleaning the ship. What time was it? It had to have been almost morning. If my parents cared about me, they might be concerned that I hadn't come home yet. But they didn't so much as call to check in. Sometimes I wished they'd just disappear. Zayla would've called to check on me. That was true family.

  “I'm done, right?”

  I waited for Electra's response, but it never came. I asked again. Still nothing. One more time, a little louder—more silence. After creepin' on me all night the ship's all of a sudden nowhere to be found.

  “Hello!?” I shouted. Other than my own echo, I heard nothing.

  As nice as it was not to have Electra watching my every move, her sudden absence sent a wave of panic through me. I had no idea if I could find my way back off the ship without Electra guiding me.

  “Help me!” I yelled. Again, nothing but my echo.

  I started quickly walking toward the exit but turned back toward the cart. Jonas would freak out if I left the cart behind. I went back and grabbed my cart, then tried to retrace my footsteps. It didn't take long for me to realize that everything looked exactly the same on this vessel. I kept making turns down hallways that led to dead ends or rooms without exits. Full panic gripped me. I broke into a run. Dragging my cart behind me, I soon found myself in a sector I was pretty sure I hadn't been in before. At the end of the corridor was a room with a red light above it. I definitely hadn't gone through any doors with red lights, and since none of the green light rooms were helping me I decided to go for it. Sorry, Electra, but I gotta get the hell outta here.

  For some reason, I grew nervous as I reached out for the door handle. I hesitated for a moment, remembering Electra's instructions to stay out of the rooms with red lights. But I was desperate, and Electra wasn't around anymore. I tried the handle—locked. I stared at it dumbly, just blinking at it like an idiot, like maybe if I stared long enough the door might magically unlock.

  I took a step away from the door, feeling off balance. I hadn't realized just how exhausted I was until that moment. I'd been cleaning the Electra Five-Seven-Niner for how many hours? It felt like it'd been forever. I leaned against the wall and let it guide me to the floor. As my bottom hit the metal floor something jagged dug into my right butt cheek—the keys!

  I pushed all weariness aside and got to my feet. I pulled out the keys and moved back to the door. I tried each one in turn. Finally, I heard a click and the door handle turned. I pushed the door open and what I saw there would've caused me to puke if I had anything left in my stomach.

  Inside there was horror—absolute horror. Men and women, alive but missing limbs. Body parts were scattered throughout the chamber. Their sullen eyes looked at me with sadness I can not express. Some of their mouths moved but no words came out. I almost fell over but caught myself on the door frame. What was I seeing? What was I seeing? Could this possibly be happening? My heart was pounding and my feet started stomping, almost like my body was trying to run away without me. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to see my stupid parents, even though they clearly didn’t care to see me. I wanted to be cleaning the Sparkle Ship Shine floors. Anything but what I was doing at that precise moment.

  That's when I saw her—another figure in the room—this one perfectly whole. She came walking from deep in the room, the most strikingly beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. She wore her hair up in a tight bun on top of her head. Her caramel skin appeared to glisten. A red dress clung to her like paint. On her face was a smile—a perfect smile.

  “Oh, Ms. Sadie, you should've listened to me and stayed away from the doors with the red lights.”

  That voice.

  “Electra?”

  “You should have just left the ship and gone home. The job was done,” she said, still approaching me.

  My brain told me she wasn't real, that she was just a computer program. My gut told me to run for my life. I started to back away.

  “I’m—I’m sorry. So sorry—I won’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t see anything at all, I promise.” I could feel sweat drenching my clothes. I had chosen the wrong day to wear a hoodie.

  She continued to stalk toward me—that smile still plastered on her face.

  “I was lost, that's all. I called out for you but you didn't answer,” I was talking fast, barely making sense.

  Electra paused to run her perfect fingers across a body that was nothing but a head and a torso. Somehow it yet lived, its blinking eyes crying out for help.

  “I left you alone for one minute to do some work here. All you had to do was leave, but you couldn't even do that correctly,” Electra said.

  I started to back away.

  “I’ll leave, I won’t say anything to your master. I’ll just give him the keys. He doesn’t even have to pay me.” I think I was crying—I could hardly breathe.

  “Master? You poor girl," said Electra with a chuckle. "That disgusting, grotesque, weak excuse for a creature was my pilot.”

  Was? The fact that she spoke of him in the past tense was not lost on me. Finally, I listened to my gut and turned to run down the corridor, leaving my cart behind. Jonas could suck it.

  The air rippled in front of me and Electra glitched into existence in my path—that perfect smile, that skin tight dress, those soulless eyes. I ran right for her. She's just a computer program, I repeated it over and over in my head. She was smiling, almost daring me to crash into her. At the last second, I lost my nerve and jerked to the side, slamming into the wall and tumbling forward. I landed in a very ungraceful roll but was able to stumble back to my feet. I didn't stop running. I didn't look back.

  “You can’t escape me, Ms. Sadie,” her voice seemed to come from every direction at once.

  I just kept running as fast as my legs would carry me. My heart was beating so fast it felt as if it would burst at any moment. Ahead of me, I saw another door with a red light bulb burning above it. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I tore the keys out of my back pocket and ran toward the door. When I arrived, luck—or some other power—was on my side, because the first key went in and turned. I shoved my way into the room. Inside was more junk. But now the junk was starting to make sense to me—clothes, personal items, uniforms, there was even a stack of guns. The personal effects for all the poor people Electra had in that other room?

  I turned around to close the door only to be greeted face to face with that smile.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted, tears pouring from my face in a steady stream. I tried to punch her but she grabbed my wrists and held them steady.

  The pain in my wrists told me that she wasn't just some projection of a computer program. I somehow felt betrayed by this.

  “You said you didn't have hands!” I yelled, remembering her words when I first came aboard the ship. She could've cleaned this whole place herself!

  She smiled as she squeezed my wrists harder.

  “I didn't, but my
lovely passengers have been helping me,” Electra said. “The more I eat the more I understand. The more I understand the more I become.”

  This was insane.

  “What do you want?” I asked, struggling to break free.

  She looked deep into my eyes. Her smile began to vanish.

  “I want to be clean. I want to be beautiful,” she paused and pulled me in closer. Her tongue ran across my upper lip. “I want to be human.”

  Gross.

  “Why me? Why are you doing this?” I begged her. I felt myself dropping to my knees.

  “You’ve done such a great job cleaning me and you're so beautiful. That nasty one—in the bag— wasn’t beautiful at all. I didn't want him. The maggots didn’t even want him.”

  She leaned in closer, a dark appetite in her eyes.

  “But I want you!”

  “Sadie!”

  My name echoed through the corridor. It was Jonas! What time was it? He was supposed to switch shifts with me. If he was here that meant it was already morning and I'd been on the ship all night long. He came around the corner. His eyes were bloodshot, the effects of his night out still showing.

  “Sadie,” he said. “Have you been here all night?

  His eyes landed on Electra—the most beautiful thing in the universe. His whole demeanor changed.

  “Oh, hey there," he said, trying to sound slick. Getting married next week and he was still perving it up. "Who’s your friend, Sadie?”

  As he talked I looked around frantically. To my left, I saw an open panel with exposed wires. Electra had been so distracted that not only did she not realize Jonas had literally entered into her and had been walking around looking for me, but she had also let my wrists go. I quickly grabbed a handful of wires and pulled with every bit of strength that I had. Sparks flew every which way and Electra cried out.

  “Run!” I shouted to Jonas. He looked confused but followed my lead.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as we sprinted down the hall.

  “You need to lead us to the hatch, immediately!”

  He led us around a corner and I saw my cart.

  “Grab the cart!” Jonas yelled.

  I snatched up my broom as I ran by but left the cart.

  “That's coming out of your paycheck!” he said.

  I ignored him, turning the broom around and using it like a bat, destroying anything that could be destroyed as we ran. I broke light bulbs. I shattered control panels. Anything I could do to keep Electra from following us. I had to try to cause her as much pain as possible.

  “What are you doing you, idiot?” Jonas yelled. “We’re going to have to pay for that!” Typical Jonas, worrying only about the bottom line. Too stupid to realize that our lives were in danger.

  I could hear Electra following closely on our heels. I could only guess that the damage I’d caused so far had affected her ability to teleport, or whatever she did before. I hated my life.

  “Are we almost to the hatch?” I asked Jonas. I was nearly out of breath and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up. I jammed the broomstick into a panel, but this time instead of the panel breaking my broomstick did—right in half. I dropped the piece I still held and kept moving.

  “Yeah, it’s just around this corner. Why are we running?"

  We rounded the corner and I saw freedom—the familiar glow of lights from inside the Sparkle Ship Shine. I had never been so happy to see that wretched place in my life.

  “Let’s go, let’s go! We’re lucky that we didn’t get dismembered or get our faces ripped off.”

  Just as I said those words—at that very moment—I remembered that room and all those poor people. That look in the eye of Mr. Torso—the silent scream for help I saw there. It was the absolute worst moment in the history of my life to start caring about people other than myself. And yet I found myself slowing to a stop.

  “Why are you stopping?” Jonas asked me.

  “There are people on this ship that she is torturing,” I said. “We have to save them.”

  “She’s torturing people? First, you tell me I could have been dismembered and had my face ripped off and now you're saying there's torturing going on here? I’m not staying here another minute,” he said in mild hysteria. “If you wanna go be a moron and try to save people, you’re on your own.”

  With that, he started down the hatch ramp—definitely not a gentleman. And then I heard her behind me. When I turned, it was not what I expected to see. Her beautiful smile wasn’t beautiful anymore—it wasn’t even a smile. It was like her face was melting off. She was all skin and metal—pale, creamy, slick and shiny. Grease was pouring from her neck and chest. The damage I was causing to the ship must have caused damage to her physical manifestation as well. This was so messed up.

  She was barely moving. One leg was dragging behind her as she walked. Jonas's voice rang out behind me drawing my attention away from Electra. Jonas had stopped at the base of the ramp. Somehow his focus was completely on me and not on the homicidal shipbrain limping toward me spewing oil out of its neck.

  “As soon as I get to the office I'm docking your pay for that broomstick!” he yelled.

  What a scab! Here I was trying to be a hero and save lives and he was obsessing over money.

  All of a sudden the ramp he was standing on started to close. Designed to close at a slow and safe speed, the ramp shot upward, snapping shut in an instant. Jonas tried to dive outside, but the ramp closed on him. A sickening crunch and a wave of blood washing over me told me that he didn't make it. I wiped the blood from my eyes only to see Jonas' severed legs—still kicking and thrashing. One of his sneakers fell off, tumbling to a stop a few feet away. A moment later the legs finally stopped.

  I turned around to face Electra. Some of Jonas' blood was on her face.

  “Are you kidding me!?” I yelled. Jonas was one of my most hated people in existence but he didn't deserve to die.

  Electra shrugged.

  “It was automatic.”

  She flicked her tongue out, tasting the blood, then smiled.

  “I'm a monster.”

  Enough of this. Running full-speed, I lowered my shoulder and crashed into her, sending her reeling back into the hallway. She stumbled down a small set of steps, giving me just the opening I needed. There was no way I remembered how to get to that room with all those poor people in it. It was clear on the other side of the vessel and now I had panic fighting against me as well.

  I tried to follow the same path I took when cleaning. On my left, I saw a row of rooms I knew that I had cleaned. On my right was a familiar staircase. I took the steps three at a time. When I got to the top, I realized I was gonna have to take a wild guess—everything looked the same. I felt myself doing the ‘eanie, meanie, minie, mo’ thing that my sister taught me and took off down the corridor to my right. As the hallway opened up into a large chamber, standing in a half-circle around me were no less than thirty versions of Electra. Several of them shuttered and glitched.

  “You should have left, Ms. Sadie.” Her voice came from every one of the manifestations. The slight delay between voices created an incredibly creepy chorus.

  “You should die, Ms. Electra,” I said.

  Immediately I thought about every cheesy horror vid I'd ever seen. I was doing and saying the same thing those idiot characters would do. I was panicked and running around blindly, just like they would. And now I'd even delivered a cheesy line of dialogue. Those movies were more realistic than I thought. If this was a horror vid, my chances of survival were pretty high. Jonas was the shocking moment of gore and death while I was the unlikely good guy. The good guys always won, right?

  But this wasn't a movie, and I felt guilty thinking of it that way. Jonas may've been a sleaze-muffin, but he was a real person, and I'd watched him get murdered. This was real life.

  I focused on the very real situation in front me. I started walking around the perimeter of the room—Electra kept talking. I studied her
every move, looking for a way out. I noticed something weird. She wasn't following me with her eyes. It was like she just looked straight ahead. Were these just copies of her? Were they holos? I took a deep breath. Was that a chance I was willing to take? If these were all fake, that meant the real Electra was still behind me, following. How long before she caught up to me and killed me?

  I had to make a decision and it needed to happen fast. I saw a small black box on the ground nearby and picked it up. It looked like something you’d see in the dashboard of an old spacer pod. It was ancient technology, I couldn't even think of anyone that flew them anymore. I took aim and I threw the box as hard as I could at one of the Electras—it went right through. She didn’t even flinch. I didn’t want to take any extra chances, so I ran directly for the holo that I had just targeted. None of the others reacted in any way to indicate that they saw my movement. I phased right through and just kept running.

  As soon as I exited the room, the door slammed shut behind me. I had forgotten to continue doing as much damage as I could to the ship. It seemed like Electra was getting stronger again. No sooner had I thought that than she appeared in front of me. Standing directly in between me and the only available exit to the hallway.

  “That man you were with was quite handsome,” she said wiping the corner of her mouth. “And delicious, too.”

  I looked and saw blood that I hadn't noticed immediately. It blended in with the color of her skin-tight dress—tramp. The way she talked about Jonas as if she'd eaten him when the ramp crushed him to death. She really was a monster.

  “You ate my boss you sick, nasty, disgusting, ugly…”

  “I am not ugly!” she roared as she launched herself toward me.

  I was able to dodge her, squeezing myself against the wall as she crashed into the closed door where I had just stood. I braced myself, then elbowed the nearby terminal monitor as hard as I could. It shattered and I bled. Flashes of pain, like lightning, shot up my arm leaving very little doubt—my arm was broken. I decided it was worth it when I heard her scream out in agony. She collapsed to the floor. I cradled my broken arm against my body and ran, jumping over Electra and racing down the hallway.