My ship, known lovingly as The Shed, crawls forward, the great vacuums in its sides sucking up discarded treasures and debris. I take a bite of pizza, feet propped on the center console of my flight controls. My heart leaps in excitement as the stars come fewer and further between. The blackest part of space. The best part of space.
Another important bit of knowledge? There is no better food combination than crispy yet soft dough, thick, stringy cheese, and crushed and spiced tomato sauce.
My last trip back to Earth, I scored a great deal on a stash of pizzas. Now when I’m hungry, I just need to throw one into the hyperspeed microwave that I’ve had installed on The Shed. That piece of kitchen machinery has revolutionized space cuisine. Just toss some pre-packaged food onto the conveyor belt there, and it comes out the other side, piping hot and ready for consumption.
Cheese and sauce oozes down my chin, so I brush my long, curly hair away from the food mess. The Shed bumbles along through empty space. I’m thankful for the calm ride, as it lets me enjoy my savory meal.
It’s taken awhile to reach this sector of the black ocean. Junkers don’t usually make it out here in one piece, but for years now, I’ve upgraded my ship with the bounties of previous trips so that I can.
With another slice of pizza in hand, I head towards the window. My boots feel especially heavy, as if weighed down by the gravity of the situation. I peer out the window, staring into the inky void around me. It’s so dark, almost as if stars themselves are afraid to shine here.
They did, though, once upon a time, shine right here, filling the night with just enough light to see for miles. Centuries ago, the stars used to illuminate this corner of space something brilliant. But the war had raged so heavily here that space itself had been wounded, and now the light of the stars is unable to pierce the scar tissue.
“Approaching Null Space,” my onboard artificial intelligence, Charlene, says in her deep Texan drawl. (What can I say? I have a soft spot for ranchers.) She continues, “Rhoda, I’m sensing some debris. Shall I open the gate?”
“Do it, darling,” I respond.
“You’ve got it.”
I hear the mechanical sounds of decompression as the gates unlock, and the vacuum powers on.
I have to be vigilant. The debris out here is known to tear the hulls off spacecrafts of every kind.
But space debris isn’t the only concern here. I felt afraid as soon as The Shed crossed what felt like some magical threshold guarding this place. Rumor has it that this little corner of Null Space is haunted. I’m prepared for the danger of space, no matter what form it takes. I’m afraid, but excited, as if I’ve just slammed a cocktail that sends your head dizzy in drunkenness.
I’ve spent a lifetime hauling debris from place to place, my ship sucking up and cleaning up after skirmishes and engine failures. I’ve collected flora and fauna, preserved by the oxygen-free environment. I’ve netted broken technology and scrap metal, and harvested energy from an abundance of sources.
But I’ve never caught a ghost.
I can only imagine a trapped soul will fetch a high price on the market. But money aside, the glory smells even sweeter.
The Shed shudders as I dip even further into the black. It’s an odd sensation, though. I’m used to the heavy rumble of machinery, but this time feels different, like the way it might feel to be squeezed rather than shook. I turn on the outside lights, but it’s still just darkness.
“There’s been an impact,” Charlene says, her voice echoing throughout the cabin of the ship.
“Any damage?”
“The Shed is intact upon initial scan.”
I glance at my watch and make a mental note to check the cameras later to make sure I didn’t hit anything. Wouldn’t want to get in trouble for a space hit-and-run, after all.
“How’s the haul coming?”
“We have reached a wreckage site. The debris on my radar is all around us now. Shall I drop an anchor?”
“Yeah, park her here, please.”
The whirring of the vacuum processor starts up, the telltale sign that the ship has found something floating in space and has sucked it in. I head to the room where the massive machine looms like an angry giant. The silver container that holds the scrap clanks and thumps as items are pulled into its maw, and I head to the computer to see what’s been taken in.
Some kind of flora, the readout suggests. Nothing immediately toxic, according to the safety scan, so it is released to the conveyor belt. The analysis continues as more thunks are heard in the container. I feel a trickle of excitement working its way through my chest, and my heart beats faster.
The screen populates the new readout. Fauna. Or at least…parts of something animal, something humanoid. The conveyor belt begins spitting those out as well once they’re cleared as safe.
I can’t wait for the rest of the report, overzealous to see what I’d caught.
I make it three steps to the belt before I gag.
The flora is a neon pink fuzz of a plant, and it isn’t singular in its biology, like I had assumed. My face scrunches together when I see that the plant is a fungus that is growing out of a fauna—shaping it—and that the humanoid structure—I can hardly believe my eyes—is a dozen identical legs—human legs—that now churn down the conveyer belt, covered in the pink sponge. They’re thighs down to the toes, naked of clothes, just fleshy and pink. No torso, no head, just legs.
At first, I think they’re connected, but realize that the legs have been ripped from one another, stringy flesh pulled from bones, reminding me of the pizza I’d just consumed, the long tendrils of cheese dripping down my face.
In all my years of trawling, I’ve never seen anything like this.
The container continues to creak and groan under the pressures of the items being sucked onto my ship from the vacuum. I hear more refuse sliding through the metal tubes, the pitch of the whirring changing with each piece it consumes. God, I hope they aren’t all thighs. I’m a leg girl, for sure, but I prefer them attached to the women I find.
Charlene crackles to life from the speakers.
“Did we strike gold, Rhoda?”
“We struck something, alright.” I creep closer to the conveyor belt. A sickly-sweet smell permeates the air, reminding me of the cotton candy I used to consume back on Earth with my family. My chest clenches as I think of my dad holding my hand at the carnival. The last I’d heard from him, he called me a space whore, no child of his—a no good junker, as filthy as the trash I took in.
Honestly, I was lucky I could escape to space to forget just how mad he was when I came out.
But now, looking at these identical legs—all left legs from what I could tell—covered in this bright, princess-colored pink, I felt a pang of regret that I wasn’t back on Earth, with two attached feet firmly on the ground.
“Charlene, can you double check the scan? This fungus isn’t toxic, is it?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s stagnant. No spores separating, and no dangerous elements detected.”
“And the legs?”
“Quite a bit of them, I reckon,” Charlene says, and I laugh at her bluntness.
“Sure is.”
“I count twenty-six legs in the container, ten on the belt.”
I sigh, unsure of how to proceed with this haul. “Well, as long as they aren’t alive and kicking.”
“Indeed,” Charlene says, annoyance in her voice.
Seems a good pun is less impressive to an AI system than I wagered.
After a beat, Charlene speaks again. “I suggest you call the proper authorities in regard to the humanoid refuse.”
“Good idea.”
“I will seal the door behind you.”
“You’re just full of good ideas. Wouldn’t want them to follow, right?”
“Just go, Rhoda.” I swear I can here Charlene sigh. Leave it to me to choose an AI that sounds just like my ex.
I head back to command, unnerved by the few dozen left legs covered in pink fungus I was leaving behind me. Maybe the authorities would know what it is.
I sit in my chair, wishing for once that I didn’t choose to travel solo. I always enjoyed the solitude—Charlene was all the company I needed anyway—but the haul sitting in my cargo bay…it was already haunting me.
“The Shed to Enforcers, The Shed to Enforcers,” I say over my comms.
Static crackles in my ear. “Enforcers here. Report.”
“I’ve picked up a load from Null that I think you might need to look at.”
“Report,” he says again.
“Well, I’ve picked up a bundle of humanoid waste. They’re legs, I think, covered in pink fuzz.”
He’s quiet, until his voice calmy asks me to repeat what I’ve said.
“Legs, sir. Three dozen of them, not attached to anything.”
“You said you’re in Null?”
“I am.”
“Get out of there.”
“Sir?”
“I said, get out of there. Dump your haul and get the hell–”
The line cuts out, and within a fraction of a second, a long, shrill shrieking emanates from everywhere at once. It’s outside the ship, coming through the speakers. It’s inside the ship, coming from down the corridor.
The cargo bay!
The screams are unlike anything I’ve ever heard, like autotuned babies wailing for their mothers through a shroud of cotton.
I race back to the cargo hold, my hands clamped over my ears. I stop suddenly, eyes widening as I gaze through the window in the door.
There are legs all over the floor. They’ve multiplied, exponentially it seems.
Through the shrieking, I hear Charlene attempting to reach me.
“Rho…sealing…don’t,” is all I can make out.
I watch in amazement as the legs multiply, growing from a small pile of limbs infected with pink mold to a mass large enough that it almost reaches the door. They aren’t just multiplying out of nothing, I notice. I squint my eyes, focusing on a single leg. From the stump of its thigh, a foot forms, just small toes at first, but then the arch and a heel, an ankle and calf. When the leg splits, the two legs it forms move together at a more acute angle until from the crease between them, a third leg begins to grow.
Over and over again, the legs split and grow until they pinwheel, feet pointed in the same direction.
A memory of a tidepool on Earth strikes me, the legs reminding me of a nightmarish version of a starfish regenerating.
As if reading my thoughts, a mouth opens in the center of the leg circle and…starts breathing. It spits out a glob of pink—slimy at first, but drying on the skin—mimicking the consistency of the substance that originally came through the vacuum.
Then comes the screaming. That same eerie wailing that only adds to the cacophony of its brethren’s cries. Seconds later, the creature’s center begins to pulsate before bursting like a volcano, pink foam shooting in all directions, the legs exploding outwards.
The fallen limbs begin the process all over again.
At this rate, the whole ship will be filled in less than an hour.
I retreat to the kitchen, unsure of how to proceed, but I hope that in here, maybe I can hear Charlene better.
“Char?” I ask, the nerves evident in my voice.
“Yes, Rhoda?”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“It appears we have sucked in a parasitic and regenerative specimen.”
“How did the scans miss that?”
“It seems it was activated by the oxygen level in the ship.”
“Well, ain’t that great.”
“It’s not.”
“I know Char, I know. What should we do?”
“I suggest you open the airlock in the container room. Reverse the vacuum and send it back to space.”
I hesitate, wishing we wouldn’t have to completely eject it from the ship. This has got to be an incredible find. “Can we do that?”
“We can. Everything should be bolted down enough. We can replace what isn’t.”
I wince as I calculate the risk.
“Okay, do it.”
“Commencing airlock exposure. Commencing purge.”
I walk over to my food stash, unpackage a pizza and toss it into the food processor. Eating always calms my nerves, and lord knows I’m buzzing with those right now.
I can still hear the screaming from the distance, can sense the ever-growing pile of limbs, can almost make out the sounds of flesh hitting the metal door, hitting the glass, breaking the–
Oh no, oh no, ohnononono, I repeat in my head, my feet beating against the ground as I race back to the cargo hold only to see a set of legs bursting out the other side of the window.
“Oh, my God,” I stutter out.
“Yes?” Charlene responds.
“Now’s not the time for jokes,” Char. I say, scrambling backwards as the legs, dozens and dozens of legs, spill through the window. They hobble and roll towards me, the neon pink fungus like a flashing warning sign to do everything I can to just get the fuck away from whatever horror is piling up towards me.
The hallway fills with legs, and I backtrack to the kitchen, hearing the ghastly wails of the legs behind me, growing, splitting, growing, splitting, exploding, and doing it all over again all down the corridor.
“Char, open the goddamn airlock! Now!”
“Already working on it. Bypassing the system that’s trying to keep you from getting sucked out too.”
“Faster,” I say through gritted teeth, pulling the heavy door to the cafeteria shut.
I retreat further into the room, away from the door, which is about to explode under the pressure of the legs. I can see bolts loosening, and I pray I’m not about to be drowned in limbs.
Within ten seconds, the door does burst inwards, and toes and legs flood the room. I’m knocked to my feet as the ship lurches.
“Processes booted. Opening airlock. Purging.”
I crabwalk backwards and hear the sounds of oxygen rushing through the ship from the cargo bay. The screaming is deafening. Louder than ever, my ears bleeding from a combination of the noise and the sudden change in pressure.
Despite the suction, the legs continue to multiply inwards, exploding pink mold everywhere. My skin crawls as the fungus lands on my exposed flesh.
The whooshing air gets louder. The cargo bay must be cleared now, but then I remember the broken cargo bay window and the busted door.
I almost sob as I start to see the limbs inhaled by the airlock, retreating through the air and back out into space. I imagine the black void sucking them all from my ship as if through a straw.
I feel the suction reaching my body, and I hold onto the sturdy food processing machine with as much strength as I have left in me. I hear the sounds of the legs zipping from the room. Loose items follow them: forks, plates, and glass drinkware that breaks against the walls.
My muscles strain, and I know I should be drenched in sweat, but the decompression steals that away, too. Just when I think I might just let go and die, I hear Charlene’s voice, barely audible over the cacophony caused by the hurricane winds.
“Purge complete.”
Almost immediately, the suction stops as the airlock slams closed. The ship shudders, almost as if it’s trying to catch its breath after vomiting the hundreds of detached legs back into space.
“Cargo bay is clear.”
I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.
“Thanks, darling,” I wheeze out. My chest aches.
I came to Null Space looking for ghosts. The stories were wrong. Null isn’t haunted by phantoms, but rather by some strange alien foam that imitates whatever human life it touches. I don’t want to know what corner of Hell it crawled out of, or who the original leg belonged to, or where the rest of them was.
I jump as the food processor behind me dings. My pizza is ready, and frankly, I can think of nothing better than stuffing my face full of doughy carbs.
I reach up without looking, grab a slice of cheesy goodness, and stuff my face, my eyes closed, savoring the moment. Alive. I’m alive.
It’s only after I swallow a few bites that I realize the pizza tastes wrong. Gummy. Sweet.
I slowly open my eyes, already knowing what I’ll find: my half-eaten slice of pizza, covered in neon pink.
My stomach revolts, and I vomit, spitting pink.
Too late. I can feel the gurgling in my stomach, my flesh expanding outwards, pregnant with—if the legs were any indication—myself. Fear floods my body, and I wonder which part of me was going to explode to give way to more of myself.
The rumbling moves upwards, and I know where it’s heading.
“Hey, Char,” I say, fear flooding my body. “You ever hear the one about the starfish girl?”
“No, Rhoda. I haven’t.”
I take another bite of pizza, knowing my fate is already sealed. I’d rather die happy than die hungry.
I begin to hallucinate images of my head in pinwheels, pizza gripped between my teeth. I hope whoever finds me—the many me’s—enjoys their starfish pizza party.
My vision goes dark. The blackest parts of space often hold the most colorful life. As black gives way to pink, I know death isn’t much different.
“They say…” my neck begins to strain, speech becomes slurred. “They say she could never get ahea–”
My skin screams, the pink mold froths from my pores.
Bright pink. Then nothing.
