Broken Roads: A Tale of Survival in a Powerless World (Broken Lines Book 2) by James Hunt Read Free Book Online

the table.
     
    “Don’t look at it,” she said.
     
    “What do you need?” Ulysses asked.
     
    “Scissors,” Anne said.
     
    Ray’s breathing accelerated. His body was shaking. The muscle in his jaw flexed from grinding his teeth together.

              “You got anything for the pain?” Ray asked.
     
    “Are you allergic to anything?” Anne asked.
     
    “No.”
     
    Ulysses handed Anne a pair of scissors. She hurried over to one of the medicine shelves and she opened the box and pulled out a bottle of oxycodone. She tore a bottle of water out of the package holding it and fed Ray the pill. He choked a little bit, but managed to get it down.
     
    Anne ran the scissors across Ray’s jeans and ripped them apart from his knee to his ankle, exposing the wound. Bits of bone poked out through the skin, which was a deep shade of black and blue.
     
    “Ray, I’m going to have to push some of the bone back in and then try and set it. I don’t know if it’s a clean break or not, but the wound will get worse if I don’t try,” Anne said.
     
    “Give me… More drugs,” Ray said.
     
    “I can’t. You’ve lost a lot of blood and if you have too much oxy it could drop your blood pressure even further and put you in cardiac arrest. Ulysses, give him something to bite on.”
     
    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