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Ulysses took his belt off; folding it a few times, then slide it into Ray’s mouth. Ray’s hands gripped the side of the table until his knuckles turned white.

Anne’s finger hovered over the bone. She pressed down. Ray’s body seized in tension on the table, his whole body shaking as the bone slid deeper into his leg until it disappeared. When the pressure from Anne’s finger stopped, Ray went limp on the table, passed out.

The crack of the bone resetting into place triggered an unconscious spasm from Ray. Anne grabbed a splint from another first aid bag.

“Get those straps at the top, Ulysses,” Anne instructed tying the splint firmly to Ray’s leg.

Anne cleaned the wound, wiping the blood away and dumping hydrogen peroxide over the cuts. She applied fresh bandages and checked Ray’s pulse.

“We’ll have to watch him through the night, make sure there wasn’t any internal bleeding,” Anne said.

She placed the back of her hand to Ray’s forehead, checking his temperature. She took a rag and wiped the sweat from his face, padding him gently.

“If his temperature spikes within the next twenty-four hours it means he has an infection. We should keep him down here tonight and move him as little as possible,” Anne said.

Anne knew that Ray wouldn’t be able to walk without assistance for the rest of his life. She did what she could, but without professional medical help the bone wouldn’t set right. If Ray got an infection though it wouldn’t matter, they didn’t have any antibiotics in their medical stash to fight it.

* * *

When Ulysses walked around the cabin the next morning he could see the full devastation from the storm. Multiple trees had toppled over throughout the forest. The tree that landed on the roof of the cabin was a thick pine.

Ulysses spent most of the morning clearing out the smaller branches on the roof. He chopped them down and tossed them to the ground to be used as firewood for later. Trimming the tree would also make it easier to move. With one of the support beams from the roof already damaged he wasn’t sure how well the roof would hold, or if the tree would come crashing through at any moment.

The afternoon heat was getting worse. Ulysses shirt was drenched in sweat. He swung the axe high, digging deeper into the thick trunk of the pine. He felt the wood handle of the axe slide through his hands with each blow. The strain on his face, the tightening of his back, his muscles fatigued from the exertion and hot summer sun. Finally, the massive trunk snapped in half.

With half the tree now leaning at a more easily leveraged angle, Ulysses climbed up on the roof and crept around the area where the rest of the tree still remained. His knees cracked as he bent low trying to put his body behind the lift. He strained, pushing the log from the roof to the ground.

Just like the tree, Ulysses collapsed after the encounter. He lay on his back, sucking in air. His chest heaved up and down, the heat from the sun barreling down on him. He focused on slowing his breath to a steady rhythm and letting his heart rate come down.

Once Ulysses’ felt he had controlled his breathing, he pushed himself up and took a look where the tree had crashed into the roof.

It wasn’t as bad as he thought. Only one of the logs on the roof had been cracked from the weight of the pine and the only hole it created didn’t penetrate all the way through the roof.

Ulysses climbed down the ladder and headed to the front of the cabin to grab some water. When he entered Anne was coming up from the basement, her bloody hands holding dirty gauze.

“How’s he doing?” Ulysses asked.

Anne tossed the old bandages into the waste bucket. The dark bags under her eyes dragged her face down.

“He’s getting a little warm. I’ve been giving him Ibuprofen to help with the fever and I’ve been redoing the dressings on his wound, but it’s still too soon to tell. How’s the roof?”

“Not as bad as I thought.”

Ulysses walked into the kitchen with a slight limp. He tried to play it off, but Anne noticed.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Anne asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, here, sit down,” she said pulling a chair out for him.

Anne helped him into the chair and grabbed a bottle of water out of the cabinet. Ulysses gulped it down. She disappeared into the basement and came back holding two pills and extended her hand to him.

Ulysses popped the pills into his mouth and leaned back in the chair gingerly.

“Your back?” Anne asked.

“Just tired,” Ulysses said.

“Ulysses, now’s not the time to be a hero. I can’t have two seriously injured men to take care of. I need you to be careful.”

Ulysses’ twirled the gold band around his finger. He smiled to himself.

“You’re just like her you know.”

“Like who?”

“My late wife Margaret.”

The chair creaked as Ulysses leaned forward. He rubbed his fingers along the callouses covering his palms, the flesh still pink from the friction of the wooden handle on the axe.

“She was the strongest woman I ever met. I remember the first time I saw her. I had just started engineering school. The farm next to her family’s needed a new barn and called the construction company I worked for. We went on our first date that night. Sandwiches by the river.”

Ulysses could still smell the mud on the riverbank. He could feel his bare feet, squishing into the mud. His hand finding hers for the first time and remembering how warm her skin was. The moonlight danced off her hair and her green eyes glowed in darkness.

“I wish I could have met her,” Anne said.

“She would have liked you,” Ulysses answered.

Freddy came into the kitchen, yawning.

“Who would have liked you, Mom?” Freddy asked.

“Grandma,” Anne said lifting Freddy into her arms and kissing his temple.

“Do you think she would have liked me?” Freddy asked.

“She would have loved you,” Ulysses replied.

“Well, I would love some breakfast,” Freddy said.

Anne set him down and he rushed over to the table behind Ulysses.

“I think we all would. Ulysses?” Anne asked.

“I’d love some,” Ulysses replied.

Day 6 (Biker Gang)

The motorcycles flew down the highway, scattered randomly along the road. Jake road in front, leading his men to whatever town came next. They’d left Cleveland behind to rot. They’d been riding for forty miles before they came across Carrollton, a small town just west of Pennsylvania in the middle of nowhere.

Whatever cars the town had were parked right where they were when the EMP blast hit. Jake led the Diablos onto Carrollton’s Main Street, past some of their local stores, and the Sheriff’s office, to the motel. The bikers pulled into the motel’s parking lot side by side. The locals came out of their shops. The sight of working transportation caused a lot of jaws to drop.

Jake cut the engine off and set the kickstand out, leaning the bike to the side. His face was red from the wind and his hair was blown back. His dark sunglasses reflected the townspeople moving toward him.

“Afternoon, folks,” Hank Murth said.

Hank Murth was an elderly man. He had walked out of the grocery store that bore his name. He had his apron on and the pistol hanging at his hip seemed out of place. He extended his hand to Jake, who ignored it.

The crowd around them grew. None of Jake’s men moved until he did, so they followed his lead, just waiting. Questions flooded the air:

“How did you guys get the bikes to work?”

“Is the rest of the country in trouble?”

“Where did you come from?”