The Intergalactic Cleaning Crew

Henry Yang was roaring through space at 1.2 million miles per hour and sleeping soundly all the while. He was tucked into his bunk in the janitorial sleeping quarters aboard the Purifying Light, a class D9 space cruiser.

In the bunk above him slept “Old Man” Sutton Gentry and in the bunks to his left and right slept, respectively, “Functioning Alcoholic” Boshra Houdek and “New Guy” Guy Dent.

All four men were sound asleep when an Ogtak-Galaang, better known among space-faring folk as a “slithering star beast” or a “holy shit, what the fuck is that?” burst through the port-side wall and slammed into the floor, flinging rubble and pale dust everywhere.

Henry, Sutton,and Boshra jerked awake, sitting wide-eyed in their beds.

The Galaang thrashed and screeched, its seven serrated tails whipping wildly.

A man clad in red mechanized armor strode gallantly through the newly formed hole.

“Sorry about that, boys.” The armored man grabbed the hissing alien by the ridges on its oblong head and tossed it back through, out into the hallway.

“Gentlemen,” the armored man saluted and leapt after his prey.

The three men sat in stunned silence as the sounds of mechanized man and alien combat echoed from the hallway.

“Was that Roy?” Boshra finally asked.

“I think so,” Henry said.

They all looked at each other then down at the floor. A mangled bloodied hand was sticking up from the rubble, rigid as a flagpole.

“Is that Guy?” Boshra asked.

“I think so,” Henry said.

“Is he dead?” Boshra asked.

“I think so,” Henry said.

“Hey Guy, are you dead?” Boshra asked the bloodied hand.

It didn’t respond.

Old Man Sutton shook his head. “Damn shame.” He spoke in a labored southern accent.

“This is…this is…” Boshra trailed off.

“Poor guy,” Henry muttered.

“This is bullshit!” Boshra jumped up.

“I won’t stand for it.” Boshra stood on his bed, naked and defiant—his fists balled up, his balls hanging free, his overall body hair situation: yeti-like. “That idiot killed Guy!”

“Jesus, sit down.” Henry shielded his eyes from Boshra’s swinging coconuts. “You hated Guy.”

“That’s true,” Sutton said. “You been sqwaking from here to tarnation ever since he joined up.”

Henry rolled his eyes.

Sutton’s southern accent was one of those malformed chimeras —the kind of accent that starts in Texas, cuts across Tennessee, veers perilously close to Louisiana, only to crash and burn in New Jersery.

In Sutton’s defense, nobody, not even Henry, grasped how truly bad the accent was. There were no Texans, Lousianans, or Tennesseeans left to witness it first hand. None of those places existed anymore.

The earth had been dead and gone for ten thousand years. All that remained of ancient human culture was the movies.

Hollywood alone was eternal.

“It’s true.” Boshra said. “Guy never knew when to shut the hell up.”

“Damn man, you cant say that,” Henry said. “He just died.”

“And he smelt like a pile of dead pigs covered in gym socks.”

“Seriously, his body is right there.” Henry motioned to the hand.

“But he was my friend, god dammit, and he deserved to live.”

“Your friend?” Henry’s eyebrows drifted upwards.

“That’s right. He was the only person on this whole damn ship I could play poker with.”

Sutton and Henry looked at each other.

“You’ve played poker with both of us,” Henry said.

“Plenty of times,” Sutton said.

“But I can’t beat you two. You both cheat too much," Boshra huffed. “I could beat Guy every time.”

Sutton scratched his beard. “That’s cause you never explained the rules.”

“Or you make new ones up,” Henry ventured.

“Right,” Sutton said. “Who ever heard of an Omega Royal Star Flush?”

“You cretins might not care about justice and the rules of Interstellar Poker, but I do!"

Henry threw up his hands while Sutton snorted.

Boshra shot the bird then gingerly crawled over the rubble, taking care not to harm his unmentionables on the jagged debris.

“Bosh, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to make this right!” He went out into the hall, where the sounds of combat still echoed.

“Hey asshole,” Boshra screamed. “You got my poker partner killed!”

“What?” A voice called from down the way.

Boshra disappeared from sight. 

“Bosh you idiot, get back here!”

Sutton shook his head. “Boy aint got no sense no how.”

A blood curdling screamed pierced the air. Henry and Sutton sat once more in stunned wide-eyed silence. 

Boshra staggered back into view and collapsed onto the rubble, dead—his face half melted off.

Henry covered his mouth and turned away. He tried desperately not to vomit and promptly failed, puking into his cupped hands.

The man in the red power armor popped his head back into the room.

“I got ‘em!” Roy held up his kill. Verdant green blood dripped from the severed head, sizzling on the debris.

He surveyed the room. “What the hell happened in here?

“You did,” Sutton said.

Roy smiled. “I saved the day again, didn’t I? You can thank me later.” 

Roy disappeared. Then he popped his head back in. “Oh and the faster you guys clean all this up, the better. This shit is starting to eat through the floor.” 

Then he was gone for good.

Sutton sighed. “No rest for the wicked.”

Henry held his hands out over the side of the bed and dumped the bile.

“Well, looks like we got a head count to fill,” Sutton said. “I’ll let you handle the job listing and the resumes.”

Henry burped into his fist and nodded. “No problem.”

Sutton put on his pants, laced up his boots, and headed for the door. 

“I’ll get the BioGone gun and two body bags,” Sutton said. “Damn shame.”

A gurgling rose from Boshra’s slumped body.

Sutton leaned over. “You still alive Bosh?”

The gurgling rose in pitch, higher and higher, until Bosh’s head popped like a balloon and a hundred ravenous maggots on millipede legs burst forth.

“Sweet tarnanation!”

The millimaggots swarmed, climbing up the beds and walls.

Sutton danced around the cabin, stomping the skittering pests like he’d been possessed by Old Scratch’s fiddle.

“Get ’em!” he howled. “Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

Henry snatched his boots off the floor and wielded them as weapons, pummeling the tiny terrors with rapid, savage blows.

They didn’t have whackamole in the future—the human race had evolved beyond such trivialities, like the appendix and the concept of personal privacy—but Henry would’ve been a natural.

As the two men waged war, the horde quickly thinned.

“Watch your feet!” Sutton shouted.

“Gotch-Aaah!” Henry slipped on the body of a freshly felled foe, his head hitting the floor with a terrible WHOMP.

Dazed and disoriented, it took Henry a moment to notice the single millimaggot staring him down, not two feet from his face.

He opened his mouth to scream, but it was too late. Death charged.

An inch from his face, the boot of that southern angel, Sutton P. Gentry, struck Henry’s assailant, flinging it across the room. It hit the far wall with a satisfying SPLOTCH!

“You alright?” Sutton offered his hand.

“I’m good—shit!” Henry pointed.

On the far wall, above the door, a millimaggot b-lined for the ventilation duct.

“Dagnabit, if it gets in there, they’ll breed for wee—”

A shoe flew across the room and splattered the would-be escapee with a final THWACK!

Sutton pulled Henry up to his feet and slapped him on his back. “Good throw.”

Henry winced. “Thanks.” He hobbled forward on one foot. “Can you help me to the medbay?”

“Of course, partner.”

As the two men passed Boshra’s body, a high-pitched gurgling arose from his stomach, legs, and arms.

“Dagnabit,” Henry said. Ω