Macbook+fruit punch = No bueno

Allright so my girlfriend accidentally spilled a drink on her macbook the other day. We thought we had cleaned it off and everything was fine. We were mistaken. During normal usage the computer crashed so we restarted it and are now greeted upon startup with a gray screen and a gray application folder with a question mark on it flashing repeatedly. What is the course of action guys? I'm not computer whiz and I'm wondering if we can fix this ourselves without having to take it in for repair. And FYI she does not have apple care 🙁