Tevun-Krus #33 - Generation Ship

Space Crazy - A Short Story by @AngusEcrivain

Blood pooled upon the floor around her bare feet. Warm, sticky; it soothed her, calmed her. It was her safe place, her sanctuary.

She closed her eyes tight, breathing deep of the sickly sweet, bloody aroma.

Had she glanced at her hand she would have seen it turning white, such was the ferocity with which she gripped the blade, its wooden handle stippled with blood spatter.

It feels good, doesn't it?

"It feels..."

It feels good. It feels right. It feels like you're home.

"It feels..."

It feels like Christmas morning. It feels like rainbows and candy canes. It feels like...

She grinned, broadly, and opened her eyes as she stared directly into the face of the man who was not even there.

"It feels like this is the way it's always supposed to have been," she said, quietly, menacingly. "It feels like I was put here, on this ship, to do exactly what I've just done. It feels like I was destined to end the misery of those poor, innocent souls."

It feels...

"It feels... I feel, as though I've found my true self," she mused, cocking head as though she were a puppy awaiting a treat. "But come to think of it, there's something else. Something I don't simply feel but in the deepest, darkest reaches of my soul, I know..."

What do you know?

"I know that I no longer need you," she said, smiling almost manically as she drove the knife into the man who was not even there. She was unaware of his non-existence and as such, the effect was the same as it would have been had he held corporeal form and with wide, child-like eyes, she watched with an ever-growing grin upon her face as blood spilled from the wound and he dropped to his knees before her.

"Bullock!"

The yell came from behind her and it was accompanied by footsteps, an awful lot of them.

"Bullock!"

There it was again, the same yell in the same angry tone. But that was Finkle for you. He was an angry, angry man.

"Bullock! Put the fucking knife down and step away from the motherfucking airlock!"

Standing there with her arms by her sides, grasping the knife in her right hand, she had not even realised she was located directly before the airlock on the starboard side.

"I don't give a fuck what those fucking voices in your fucked up head are telling you the fuck to do. If you make so much as a motherfucking move, other than to drop that motherfucking knife to the motherfucking floor, I'll put a hole through the back of your fucking skull big enough to get my fucking fist through. Under-fucking-stood?"

"Oh I understand, Captain Finkle," she cooed, though as she did as the Captain bade her she simultaneously lunged for the airlock controls and succeeded in activating the door's emergency override.

"FUCK!" the Captain yelled, reaching for his communications device. "Everyone out, now! Starboard Level Seven is compromised! Get back behind the fucking bulkhead door! We've got fifteen fucking seconds!"

Seven of those seconds, Captain Finkle wasted shaking his head, staring at the array of corpses in the corridor, and at the blood from those corpses within which Bullock was wriggling her toes.

He remembered growing up with her, both of them born into the fourteenth generation. She had always been a bit of a screwed up kid, even back then, but whatever it was that was wrong with her had manifested itself by her late teens and come her early twenties, the voices in her head had been just as real and persuasive as the voices of other people.

For a time the medication worked but eventually her body rejected it and those voices came back even stronger than ever.

Space does funny things to people, even people who have spent their entire lives out in the Big Black.

Bullock was not the first to go Space Crazy and Finkle doubted she would be the last. He just hoped to fuck she was the last he would have to deal with.

"Captain Finkle! Behind the bulkhead door, Sir. Now!"

He made it, just, and turned in time to watch Bullock, along with those she had killed, be sucked from the vessel and out into the never-ending void of space and then, just as quickly as it had opened the airlock door slid closed, sealing tight and once more making Starboard Level Seven safe.

"Lieutenant."

"Aye, Sir."

"The families of those Bullock killed need to be properly compensated. I expect you to see to that, personally."

"Aye of course, Sir."

"And check the security logs from the medical bay. I want to know how the fuck that batshit crazy bitch got the fuck out of there without us knowing anything about it until it was too late."

"Aye, Sir."

The Lieutenant snapped off a smart salute and turned, hurrying off to carry out those tasks the Captain had assigned.

Finkle opened the bulkhead door, lighting a cigarette as he did so, and simply stared out into the corridor and at what remained of the blood upon the metallic floor. Much of it had been lost to the vacuum of space but the floor was still smeared with it, here and there.

"Crazy fucking bitch," he muttered beneath his breath as he inhaled deeply of the cigarette and turned, leaving the scene of the massacre behind him.