Melody Frey looked down at her hands. They still shook slightly. Sometimes. She picked up the mirror to look at herself again. Her red hair was cut short, about neck length, and no longer held back. A good portion of it was cut away from where Doc Mitchell had removed the bullet from her brain. The missing hair only slightly marred the softness of her round face and the sharpness of her pointed nose. Her lips hadn't seen lipstick nor had her eyes seen eyeliner in years, ever since she'd become a courier. Melody had found early on that the Mojave heat didn't do any favors to those who wore makeup.
Doc Mitchell had said that she could rest a few days there if she wanted to. Melody got the feeling that the old man was just worried about her. He'd told her that he'd never seen someone survive getting shot in the head before and recommend she take her luck to the Strip the first chance she got.
Three days of lying on a cot, trying to remember who it was that had shot her and trying not to throw up every time she sat up too fast had made her itchy to leave. She remembered a checkered suit, but that was it. The memory of what had been in the package she'd been delivering was a mystery to her as well, even though she knew she had probably looked in it. Melody had always been curious and so she ended up looking into every package she delivered.
A commotion from the door to Doc Mitchell's house drew her attention back to the present. Someone had slammed the door open and was yelling for Doc. The old man hurried toward the door and then reappeared moments later. He and someone else were carrying a woman who was bleeding from almost every inch of her body. Oddly, the woman was still gripping a small canteen.
"What happened, Sunny?" Doc asked.
"Geckos again, out by the wells," the woman responded. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that brushed against the rifle on her back.
"Geckos?" Doc asked with shock evident in his voice. "Usually its one or two bites. But, geckos did this…" His voice trailed off as they set the woman on the cot next to Melody's.
Melody instinctively pulled her legs up onto the cot and sat cross legged, looking at the badly injured woman. Blood was dripping everywhere and the woman, Sunny, was covered in it as well. Doc Mitchell moved away quickly to get his medical bag. The canteen fell from the woman's hand and rolled to a stop just below where Melody sat. In stark contrast to the woman, her canteen had no blood on it at all. Melody leaned forward to pick it up, not even realizing what she was doing. As soon as her fingers gripped the object and she began to lean back, the world spun and went black.
Melody was walking along a road, carrying two water buckets and a canteen. But this wasn't Melody. She became aware of the fact that this woman's name was Sasha. For some reason Melody was aware of the surroundings, but couldn't do anything. It was almost as though she was trapped in the woman's mind, though she didn't know why or how.
Sasha was humming to herself, thinking about Ringo, the man who had come into town yesterday. He was so handsome. None of the men in Goodsprings had his looks. But the frightened way he had talked about his caravan getting hit by Powder Gangers, made her worried that they might follow him here. Sash smiled, thinking that she would follow Ringo anywhere, if he asked her to. It was the scarf, she told herself, that made him look so daring and handsome.
Sash was still thinking about Ringo when she reached the wells. She filled the canteen first and then tucked it back into her belt. When the woman bent to fill the bucket, Melody could see her face in the reflection. Sasha wasn't pretty enough to be a call girl on the Strip, but she wasn't ugly either. The face looked disturbingly like that of the woman who'd been brought into Doc Mitchell's, only not clawed up and bloody.
Sasha had one bucket filled and was starting on the second when she heard a noise. It had sounded like a skittering, something moving quickly over the loose soil. Sasha turned around, thinking maybe Ringo had followed her to get water as well. She hoped the dress she had chosen to wear wasn't too dirty.
Melody knew what was running up behind the woman and tried to scream for her to run, but she made no sound at all.
Sasha's anticipation at being able to speak to Ringo changed to horror when she saw the three yellow skinned geckos charging her. She managed a scream and swung the half-filled bucket at the first creature. The bucket hit the gecko in the side of the head and sent the creature, which was about the size of a large cat, tumbling away. She tried to swing the bucket again, but the other two geckos were already on her.
Melody wanted to scream. She could feel each time one of the geckos racked its claws across Sasha's skin. She felt the geckos biting her legs, tearing skin and muscle from them. She could feel the horrified panic that had gripped Sasha's mind as she tried to hit the geckos with her hands, the bucket or anything else available.
Finally a shot rang out, though Sasha could barely hear it. By that time she was on the ground, barely able to move. The gecko that had just bitten her nose off disappeared in a bloody mess and the other turned toward the sound of the shot. That one took step and then a bullet destroyed its head.
Melody felt the blood leaving Sasha's body. The pain was almost gone, the woman's body going numb.
"Sasha! Sasha!" a woman's voice called. Sunny's worried face came into view and then Melody felt her picking Sasha off the ground. "Hang in there! I'll get ya to Doc Mitchell and everything will be okay." Sunny continued to talk to Sasha as she half carried, half drug her to Doc's house.
Melody had never felt such pain. Every inch of Sasha's body was mangled and Melody felt every bit of it. She tried many times to scream, just to see if it would release some of the pain, but nothing happened.
The world grew darker with every step Sunny took until Melody couldn't see anything. She heard Sunny bang a door open and yell for Doc Mitchell, but everything was fading.
Melody awoke with a start, sitting upright quickly enough to make her head spin. She could still remember the pain, feel the bites and tears of the geckos. She stood from the cot, holding the sides of her head and stumbled around.
"Whoa there!" Doc Mitchell's voice came from the other side of the room. The old man was out of his chair and next to Melody in a flash. He took hold of her, gently but firmly and guided her back to the bed. Melody's head swum as she sat down and she had to use every bit of her strength to keep from vomiting.
"You don't need to be standing up like that, not after what you went through." Doc Mitchell's voice was kind, but stern. He reminded Melody of her grandfather.
She opened her eyes and smiled at Doc. She was about to thank him when she looked past him and saw where the other cot had been. The cot was gone and so was Sasha, but the blood had stained the floor. Melody leaned to the side, trying her best to miss Doc Mitchell and vomited on the floor.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. Doc had already retrieved a bucket and handed it to her. For an old man he could sure move fast. It took a few moments for Melody to realize that she was crying.
"No need to apologize, this house has seen every kind of mess imaginable. I'd have moved you to another room if I'd realized you were that squeamish. I guess I should have known that after you fainted." Doc shook his head as he looked at the floor. "Poor Sasha," he whispered.
As Melody stared into the bucket, feeling like she needed to vomit again, her head spun. The woman's name was Sasha. Melody had never been to Goodsprings before and hadn't left Doc's house since he had taken the bullet out of her head. She'd never met Sasha, but she knew her. All the things she had seen, everything she had experienced ran through her mind and she wondered why it had happened. If that had been real, what she had seen, what had triggered it?
She felt dizzy and tired. Melody didn't even remember setting the bucket down and laying back on the cot, but sleep came for her and nightmares about Sasha filled it.