Name: Ted Brady
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Class: Govvy
Occupation: Former United States Secretary of Commerce

Personality: After his precious daughter became a ‘Potterhead,’ she labeled him a ‘Slytherin,’ Although, he had little no knowledge of what that really meant until he had to sit through more than one of the Harry Potter movies during obligatory Family Night in the Brady Household, which was mainly some political get-up to make Ted look more like a ‘Family Man.’ He did love his family, though, but he loved his work more—power, control, and a little bit more than a little manipulation. So, maybe he did come off as a little cold to the one’s close to him, but the public said he loved them—so, who was going to question the media?

Background: Ted came from the typical American family with the typical American values of ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ He has one brother, but honestly, due to the all the limelight shining on Ted, he can’t say he really knows his brother too well. In fact, it’s probably true that it’s not just Ted who’s out of date with his family, but his family is also out of date with him. He’d always been a smooth-talking jock of a guy. Hell, he was the guy who managed to run a 100 meter dash in about 10.50 seconds and debate his way out of almost any corner (is that why he loved being on the debate team?). He wasn’t perfect, of course, which was why he tried not to back himself into too many corners. It was better that way; so, when he began his political career (outside of school and his memorable High School Student Council position), there were no skeletons for the media or public to pick apart.

He married his college sweetheart, Anne Walsh. They met in a political science class. Anne wasn’t the least bit interested in politics until Ted came charming his way around the subject. She actually found herself getting interested in politics, herself. Anne wasn’t Ted’s first conquest, but she would be his last in regards to women—at least, he thought. Anne and Ted married fresh out of college, and after several years of marriage, Sarah was born. If Ted thought he understood the other sex by the way Anne doted on him, he was wrong. Sarah was a new adventure altogether. Maybe she was too much of an adventure because Anne didn’t bare Ted another child.

All the same, Ted was busy with campaigning and working his way into the Executive threshold of the American government. It seemed perfect as he climbed up that ladder. Each string was perfectly placed; he knew exactly what to say; he knew what they all wanted to hear. He never really stopped to ‘congratulate’ himself, but the real reason for never stopping was because he ‘wanted more.’ And, more he got – especially when the Epidemic happened. He was the fucking Secretary of Commerce, after all! What the Hell was he supposed to do? Save people and shit, of course.

Survival is survival; and he made plans for his family first. He wasn’t a saint, and even if his backstory didn’t make any hints about his intentions, the very fact his family was to be escorted to a ‘Top Secret Safety House’ wouldn’t be a surprise. Unfortunately, when it rained, it poured. Shit hit the roof. Sarah, sixteen at the time, admitted she was pregnant. Maybe it was Ted’s rage that caused the roof to fall on the entire escape plan, or maybe it was just ‘dumb luck.’ Sarah, his Goddamn beautiful, beloved daughter, had always been difficult, a hell-raiser, but this? Every scenario crossed Ted’s mind like it did in those debates, those meetings, those long hours of contemplation and chewing the fat with other political heads. Maybe he had bit his tongue too many times during his political career because the sharp words that hissed from his mouth when he found out caused more drama than the sticks and stones that could break bones.

In short, Sarah and Anne never made it to the ‘Top Secret Safety House.’ Ted arrived by himself and neither his daughter nor his wife followed suit. They had both managed to die amongst the Lurkers. It wasn’t foul play by any means. Ted wouldn’t hurt his own family. He only used words, after all. Sarah tried to go find her boyfriend; and Anne tried to stop her. It was a mess. It was all a mess; and Ted was supposed to clean it up; but he was without a family, now. If he wasn’t cold before this all happened; his was chillingly austere, now.

Goal: Restore America
Equipment: Ammo, Tool Kit, Cleaning Kit, First Aid Kit, Notebook, Pen, Handkerchief, Communication Device, Bullet Proof Vest, Wallet w/ Picture of Anne and Sarah
Weapons: Colt .380 Mustang (specialized), Chain Whip (secondary), Beretta ARX 100 Semi-Auto Rifle (secondary)
Skills: Diplomacy (Expert); Oratory (advanced); Intimidate (advanced); Firearms (novice); First Aid (novice)
Family: Anne Brady – Wife (deceased); Sarah Brady – Daughter (deceased)
Miscellaneous:

Name: Theodore Lawson
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Class: Survivor
Occupation: Loader

Personality: He had always been a quiet and reserved kid growing up, but the change of environment forced him to speak up more and bolden his personality in order to keep from being cast aside with the weak ones. Although life was rough, Theodore usually seems to be on the verge of being a hopeful idealist, who could be incorrectly categorized as ‘Happy-Go-Lucky.’ Of course, he does have a serious side. It would be almost insane if he truly was happy all the time, and as time has proven, he only rolls so far with the punches and pushing off of the bruises with an acceptance for self-deprecating, goofy or corny humor as he has been known to snap or wake up on the wrong side of the cot.

Background: Theodore grew up in some inner city of Danville, Virginia. Life had always been a bit confusing for Theodore. Although, he couldn’t have said it was bad. Not a lot of kids in the neighborhood knew or lived with their fathers, either, but it always bothered Theodore that his mother worked the night shifts. He remembered staying up late at night watching the shit-box television in her room while he tried to fall asleep at night without her. He knew he was a big boy, being six years old, but he still missed the presence of his mother at nights. It wasn’t until he got a bit older when he learned that he wasn’t supposed to legally be staying home alone. He didn’t really care, though. He never got into any trouble, and no one ever minded him. In fact, Theodore was generally a quiet kid and was never had a reason to look for any trouble. He had this weird need to stay away from everyone. Maybe he was an introvert. Whatever the case, he never had the energy to talk to people, but by no means was Theodore trouble free. He got into several fights from time to time for things like other kids calling his mother a ‘Whore.’ He knew what a whore was, and his mother was far from being one. She was just gone a lot.

And yeah, sometimes she let her friends come into the small apartment. But, they were nice and usually didn’t stay too long. Sometimes they gave him things like toys and a pat on the head or shoulder. Theodore wasn’t supposed to be around them, but he never cared to be. Except, one time he heard his mom call for help because her friend was trying to hurt her. It was confusing being scolded while his mother tried to mend the large bruise on his cheek because ‘He wasn’t supposed to be around them.’ It wasn’t like he wanted to get hit, it was just that he was pretty sure a man wasn’t supposed to treat a lady like that. Plus, he loved his mother. He didn’t want her to get hurt.

Around the age of ten, Theodore’s mother gave birth to a little girl, Isabel. It was a big adjustment, and school seemed to get harder during that time frame. He found himself bringing notes to school with weird excuses he knew weren’t true for why he had missed a day or two. It didn’t matter, though. He trusted his mother and knew she was doing the right thing. Besides, he was tired most of the time, anyways, and he found himself sleeping during class a lot. Child Protective Services showed up once, but the program was such a shit stain, all he had to do was smile with his sister at the two men before they made their apologies and left.

One of his pet peeves was when one of his mother’s friends started coming around more than the others. It was about when Isabel was two, and he was twelve. He always asked about Isabel and never looked once at Theodore except to scold him for being a ‘perverted teenage boy who better keep his hands to himself.’ It made sense to Theodore now, though. His mom was a ‘Whore,’ and the kids down the street hadn’t been lying. And maybe, if he hadn’t been so loyal and good to his mother, he would have defended himself in front of her ‘client.’ He never did, though, and sometimes, he wished he had.

Sure, life was shitty, but everywhere Theodore looked, life was shitty. Yeah, he may have been passive with the assholes his mother brought into her bedroom, but he had Isabel to mind, especially when their mother wouldn’t wake up in the afternoons like she usually did. He couldn’t scold his mother for the life choices she had made. She was doing the best she could, and as far as Theodore was concerned, they hadn’t gotten into any legal trouble, yet. Kind of like how no one got in trouble for him staying home alone when he was younger. ‘It didn’t happen if you didn’t get caught.’ This quote was often the reasons he turned a blind eye to the things his mother did. Besides, he loved her too much to get mad.

Theodore had one good friend growing up. His name was Josh, and he stopped coming around after Isabel was born. ‘Babies weren’t his thing.’ Josh did have a lot of siblings, being Roman Catholic or poor or whatever excuse he felt like using when explaining his family dynamics. Theodore understood, though, and it might have been for the best because Josh was getting into the drug scene, mostly just ‘weed,’ for the moment. Josh’s dad was like that. Theodore had kind of been jealous that Josh lived with his mom and dad, still, but Josh was always complaining about something. Sometimes, Theodore thought Josh only complained to keep him from getting jealous. Whatever the case, Theodore still saw him at school, and Josh would tell him about all these weird conspiracies the government was conducting, like the string of weird ‘isolated incidences’ of a virus occurring nationally.

If it hadn’t been for Josh, Theodore might not have known what to do when the huge outbreak plagued the neighborhood and town. Theodore had debated going to school that morning, but he did that every morning. Something seemed wrong, but didn’t it always? It was obvious he had made the wrong choice before he even got to the school. Something really was wrong. Everything was a fucking mess, and if he wanted to remember even half of it, he couldn’t. Adrenalin set in like fire. He had to go home, but the scenario wasn’t even close to how Theodore had pictured it—the one where he saves his mother, and they live happily ever after. It was a terrifying experience with his mother locked in the bedroom while her own daughter had been left for dead with a hideous monster, the ‘Lurkafied’ version of Isabel’s supposed father, and by the time he convinced his mother she could come out, the only clear memory he had was the hesitation in his muscles before he bashed his three year old sister’s head open.

Somehow, Theodore’s mother was able to beg a ‘client’ for mercy inside one of those rich Washington D.C. houses. The guy was oldish and cold and somehow, Theodore saw less of his mother than when she was selling herself on the streets. It didn’t matter much. He spent most of his time groveling over everything, like he had expected this kind of shit to happen any day, now, just not the part where he’d have to murder his baby sister while his mother left her completely defenseless like a fucking coward. She never held it against him, though, and she was weirdly happier, until they were eventually shuffled into a Safety Shelter.

His mother being roughly thirty years old allowed Theodore and her to cut through some of the red tape by lying and saying they were siblings. The sob story of parents dying during the attack made authorities take more sympathy on them. Of course, as history repeats itself, Theodore watched as his mother slipped back into old habits—even after she almost died during some withdrawal (apparently, she and the rich, D.C. guy were unsurprisingly hopping up together). It was weird, but it was normal. This shit was all Theodore knew. He knew it wasn’t good. It was far from it, really, but his whole life had been some fucked up lie with crumbs of hope he’d desperately pick up because he had nothing better to do or maybe he just wanted to believe there was something better out there. So, eight years later, and he is still picking up those crumbs of hope. He sure as Hell isn’t a saint, though.

Goal: Survive and find a better future
Equipment: +9 mm 115 Grain (46 Rounds - stolen), Three (3) Single Edge Razor Blades, scavenged business card holder (used as a mirror and hard edge), bandana
Weapons: Smith & Wesson Model 59 (specialized), Steel Switchblade Knife (secondary)
Skills: Firearms (expert); Stamina (advanced); Brawl (advanced); Stealth (novice); Mechanics (novice)
Family: Mother - Claire Lawson (alive); Sister - Isabel Lawson (deceased)
Miscellaneous: After being able to get a job as a Loader for transportation, Theodore has been able to steal various things for survival.

Name: Hunter
Age: 8
Gender: Male
Class: Greaser
Occupation: N/A

Personality: As a brazen, out-spoken boy with a tendency to bite off more than he can actually chew, Hunter can be quite the trouble maker. He’s proud about it, too. He’s also still on the short side, but he doesn’t mind the jeers or comments. He uses the insults about his age and height as fuel for the fire. He’ll even whip-up a lie about the one time he took out a horde of Lurkers all by himself. He doesn’t care if he gets called out on it, either. He’s in it for the long run and doesn’t have time for nitty, gritty details of truth. All that matters is people think he’s tough as shit (even if he is a bit on the puny side). Sure, his bark might be worse than his bite, but that doesn’t mean his bite is worthless. He’s brave and ruthless and to hell doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.

Background: ‘I killed my own fucking mom,’ is one of Hunters’s favorite backstories, ‘When I was a mother fuckin’ baby, too!’ It’s a bit of a stretch, obviously, but he’s not all that wrong. His mother died giving birth to him in a Safety Shelter. It was probably her death that sparked the initiative for his father to get the hell out of the military compound. It was a suicide mission to do something so drastic. A single father and his prone-to-crying baby. The starvation helped in that way; a dying baby is less ruckus. However, Lurkers have keen noses. If it weren’t for a Grease Gang doing its usual rounds, Hunter and his father would have been as good as devoured.

There was something about that, though—the whole bravery part that Hunter’s father made sure to instill into his son. Maybe, he went a little too far, because by the looks of Hunter he sure has a big ego and too tough of an attitude for a child his age, but considering the circumstances, the eight year old has a better chance at survival during an apocalypse than any of the eight year olds did back in his father’s day. The Greaser Gang isn’t too large, but it’s sustainable. There’s a mixture of humans—for better or for worse. There aren’t many children in the Gang, but Hunter’s still under the massive impression he needs to stand-out.

He’s known to sneak out with the ‘Big Boys’ during raids and hunting and other such tasks. He’s proven himself, but that’s not saying he’s the most capable. His unruly behavior has warranted much unnecessary attention, but in Hunter’s eyes, all attention is good attention, unless it’s coming from the Lurkers or the evil Govvies. Hunter’s determined to ‘be a legend.’ With that said, it’s presumably safe to assume the boy is missing a bit more than a few kinks in his brain.

Hunter isn’t too good at sympathizing or empathizing, but he’s not a pure cold hearted child. He’s just naive to the brutality he’s being raised in, and if anyone tried to scold him for any such trait, he’d merely brush it off as one of his superior traits—the ability to survive a little bullshit when everyone else is being a stick in the mud. His father is aware that Hunter’s personality can be more than annoying, but guilt keeps him from being too hard on the boy. A child needs some sort of outlet for happiness, right?

Goal: Die a legend
Equipment: Cloister GQ-50X Dirt Bike, Moto Goggles, Whistle, JanSport Backpack: Handy Gloves, Leather Hat, Half-Used First Aid Kit, 50ish Rounds of 40gr LN .22 LR Ammo, Makeshift Mask, Spare Cloth, Canteen of Water, Flare gun, nail clippers, Mentholatum.
Weapons: Ruger 10/22 Rifle (specialized), Survivor Hatchet (secondary), Scout Knife (Secondary)
Skills:  Bluff (expert); Firearms (advanced); Axemanship (advanced); Survival (adept); Riding (adept); Craftsmanship (novice); First Aid (novice)
Family: Father - Jonathan Brown (alive); Mother - Natalie Brown (deceased)
Miscellaneous: Hunter's father decided not to give him a last name. Last names were a 'Thing of the Past' in his eyes; the idea was a middle finger to the government--letting his wife 'die like that.'

Appearance:
Name: Liselotte "Letty" Lindström
Age: 23 (3 minutes younger than Leo)
Gender: F
Class: Greaser
Occupation: Jill of All Trades
Personality: Reckless ... When the world goes to heck, who needs self preservation skills anyway? Letty doesn't do forward- planning, she lives in the "NOW". Stubborn as heck, he has a genius level intellect, is competitive and determined. She's a tough chick as well and hates being a "pussy", and if she catches you "cryin' like a pussy", expect to get called out on it because she will!
Shes not all bite-and-no-bark though, beneath the rough edges, theres a shy, nerdy girl who has her doubts, her regrets, her fears, she'll just not open up that easily.

Background: Letty and her twin brother were born in Norway and moved to the States when they were 17. Her family lived in a rural part of Norway and although a city was within driving distance, their parents were a bit edgy and wanted to be self-sufficient, living off the grid, growing their own crops, using geothermal energy to heat their home, they did have electricity and can-you-believe-it, WIFI, but the family lived pretty close to nature. Letty used to help her mother maintain the garden and cook while her brother and father went to hunt wild deer and game ... but Letty was a rough and tumble girl and insisted she go hunting too ... turns out she's a better shot than her brother. Soon, she spent all her time out hunting, she was a good shot and could skin a deer with terrifying proficiency. She quickly took her brothers place on all of the hunts, and he began only joining Letty and her father occasionally, instead he helped out at home and dedicated his time to studying.
When she was 13, disaster struck. Out hunting with Leo, their father was in town purchasing parts to repair the backup generator during a particularly harsh winter, Letty was attacked by one of the few wild wolves in Norway, suffering severe damage to her left arm before Leo managed to pull the creature off her and kill it. Despite their mothers best efforts to keep the wound clean until their father could return and drive her to the nearest mainroad where she could get an ambulance to get to a hospital, it was too late to save all of her arm. She lost her arm from the elbow down, but despite having to get her arm amputated, she remained upbeat and determined. Once she came around from surgery, her first words to her worried brother were.
"I'm gonna have to learn to shoot with one hand now".

Leo excelled in science, while Letty was athletic. He promised he'd find a way to fix her arm and so the twins began researching the kinds of advances in prosthetic technology while she underwent rehabilitation after the accident. Eventually, she was fitted with fiberglass prosthetic.

She learned to shoot using one arm and also using the prosthetic with special attachments to help hold the gun steady, while she couldn't hunt, she tinkered with technology, taking apart cars and machines and gadgets and putting them back together. She even experimented making small-scale bombs, though her parents discouraged this behaviour once they discovered it.

Letty and Leo's mother passed away from pneumonia during a particularly harsh winter and the twins moved with their father to the States for a fresh start. They lived a simple life in a trailer, unable to afford much more than the trailer and patch of dirt they rented. He worked several dead-end jobs to keep a roof over their head. They went to school for the first time, after growing up homeschooled in Norway, and the twins excelled in their own ways. Letty was sociable and athletic and joined several sports teams, Judo was one of her favourites. Despite her disability, she was able to adapt and fight well with just one arm. Leo was interested in science and signed up for lots of advanced classes, eventually getting to work on a cybernetic prosthetic project he developed to help his sister. Leo earned a scholarship to university where he finished working on Letty's prosthetic. Letty earned a sports scholarship but turned it down in favour of working to help Leo and her father, with her new arm, she was much more productive.

Leo's studies took him across the country to South Carolina, Letty went with him and then ... It happened. THey never heard from their father again. Leo was quickly appointed to a Medic and Engineer role by the Govvies they joined up with and rose through the ranks, Letty got general engineering and maintenance jobs, and the pair, with their hunting experience, went on patrols together to kill Lurkers.

Despite the apocalypse, the twins stuck together adn thigns generally went well, all things considered. Until...
A Lurker hunt went wrong. People were trapped in an abandoned building, the Govvies were called back, let the people perish, protect your own ... Leo pulled her back to the compound and their relationship became permanently fractured by their differing opinions. Letty disagreed with the order to abandon those people, Leo played by the rules ... The building was torched to the ground, killing civvies and lurkers indiscriminately.

After a few months Letty grew increasingly upset and ran away to join the first group of Greasers who didn't mind her sticking around. She proved to be a valuable asset, with expertise in weapons, scavenging, hunting and survival. She fit right in, they didn't mind she was an ex-govvy because she talked so much shit about Govvies ... deep down, she bore resentment for her brother for being so cowardly and self-preserving that he let all those people die, but the other half of her missed him terribly. She never mentioned family when she joined the Greasers and they simply don't ask.

She hopes that maybe theres still hope for Leo, maybe she'll run into him on a hunt and he'll see the light and join her.

Goal: "Blow 'em all to Hell!"
Equipment: Sniper Rifle (She calls him Noodle), Sawn-off Shotgun (Boom), a pistol (Trixie), and a combat knife (Lisa).
Skills: Hunting, Scavenging, Gardening, Marksmanship, Hand-to-hand combat, engineering.
Miscellaneous:
Identifying Marks: Cybernetic arm

Family: Leo - Twin Brother [alive]
Father - [unknown]
Mother - [deceased]

Appearance:
Name: Leo Lindström
Age: 23 (3 minutes older than Letty)
Gender: Male
Class: Govvy
Occupation: Medic/Engineer
Personality: Stoic, law abiding, quiet and serious. He's Letty's polar opposite but extremely protective of her.
Background: Same as Letty, except he liked science instead of sports, he was more introverted.
Goal: Engineer a cure for the outbreak or find a way to develop immunity ... bring the world back from the brink and find his sister out there somewhere.
Equipment: Most of his equipment is in one of the medical/science facilities, on excursions he carries a pistol sidearm, a semi-automatic rifle, swiss army knife and emergency first aid pack.
Skills: First aid/medicine, science/engineering, firearms.
Miscellaneous:
Identifying Marks:
Family: Letty and father (missing presumed dead)

Name: Victoria Lyons
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Class: Loner
Occupation: Mercenary

Appearance: In the old world, Victoria would almost certainly be a beauty:Long light auburn hair with piercing green eyes, pale freckled skin, and a tall and slender frame. That's not the world we're living in anymore, though. While she maintains more than a modicum of vanity, it's not exactly easy these days to keep clean and moisturizing shampoo isn't even useful enough to be considered a luxury, and living in a armored car doesn't leave you with much opportunity to install plumbing for a bath. She her hair is usually dirty on a good day, downright filthy and tangled on a bad one, and while she takes pains to at least keep grime off her face, the same can't be said about the rest of her skin(her hands in particular often have gun oil from cleaning her smg and a few healed burns from smelting down metal for bullets or maintaining her machete and hatchet). She has a couple outfits worth of clothes but practically speaking only ever wears one thing-her self-made "armor" of plastic plates, duct tape, and Kevlar to stop an errant bite all placed over a grey long-sleeved shirt and pair of once-stretchy blue jeans. She only ever really wears anything else(with the exception of jackets during the colder/wetter months, but she can just wear that over the rest) on the odd occasion she takes the risk to clean and repair her usual armor-otherwise, she's even learned to sleep in it.

Personality: Coming off as greedy is one of the nigh-inevitable great hazards of living as a mercenary(that and horrible, painful death, but the greed thing is clearly the more important), and Victoria isn't quite an exception there. She definitely likes the finer things in life, like partly-charged AA batteries and a lukewarm meal, and she isn't one to forgo these when she has the opportunity to make a good bit of money. Of course, if that was all there was to her, she'd live as a marauder and try her hand at robbing people. She does like helping people, and she'll risk her life to help the other survivor groups make it just a bit longer(although, well, nothing's for free). She's one of the very rare sociable Loners out there-going it alone not because of an inherent distrust in other people, but because she just doesn't feel safe sticking in one place for too long.
Well. That's the reason she admits to herself, anyways. But lets all be honest here, if it was just about survival and safety, she could have found a safer marketable skill when she comes across other survivors. Sell her talent as a doctor, or fix electronic doohickeys for some supplies and a place to stay the night. In truth, the truth she doesn't fully accept about herself even, she revels in this new world. In this world of chaos and danger, where the only way to be sure you'll see the next day is by making sure to leave a trail of dead Lurkers in your wake, where you'll never have to waste away your life in a dead-end job like retail or as a pencil-pusher unless you just can't take it living out here. One of the most unnerving things most other survivors(in the broader sense) find out about her is that she almost never seems to be scared or frightened. Not quite manic or anything, she does lapse into pensive or solemn moods thinking about the finer trappings of the old world and the people lost in the collapse, and she isn't suicidally brave or anything. But she can't help but manage a a giddy smile, whether its the thought of running for her life from a veritable horde of Lurkers to saving people's lives. Is it really so wrong that she never wants this nightmare to end?

Background:
In a sane world, Victoria wouldn't have survived.

...Well, yes, in a sane world, the dead wouldn't be eating the living. But lets play along, alright?

...Anyways, in a sane-er world, Victoria wouldn't be one of the survivors of the end of the world. It'd be a mechanic, or another soldier, or a scientist or something that'd have taken her spot on the cosmic list-of-people-who-survive-apocalypses. Y'know, someone with something practical to contribute. Victoria was a fifteen-year-old highschooler with poor grades who played a couple-too-many video games and spent more time gossiping than giving a damn about class. So by all rights, Victoria's story should have come to an end the moment she heard a banging noise from the front of the house and the sound of breaking glass. Even with the news reports, she was almost certain all that was a practical joke, so she figured there was a robber in the house. Naturally, she did what any normal, rational fifteen-year-old girl would do:she got up from her computer, grabbed the nearest blunt object, and hide in the closet. She didn't hear much in the half-hour after that...what she interpreted as labored breathing interspersed with stuff falling over or being thrown about downstairs. She was scared, of course, but did what she could to stay quiet; hopefully whoever was robbing them would lose interest at the meager belongings downstairs.

Then she heard a step on the stairs. A loud step, not even concerned with staying quiet, but strangely...a slow one. The next step hadn't come until a couple seconds later, and the next few were irregular and just as slow, and the labored breathing continued. Once the intruder must have been about halfway up the stairs, though, the worst came to pass:despite her success at remaining quiet so far, her computer made a loud DOCK sound as her instant messenger of choice helpfully told her that she had a message from one of her friends. The next second seemed to stretch before the intruder picked up the pace, racing up the stairs and practically roaring before slamming into her door. The second time it smashed into the door, the wood splintered, Victoria shrieked, and the new sound just invigorated the attacker even more. After the fourth slam, the wood finally gave way entirely, and the assailant finally came into Victoria's view-a large man, bleeding from various wounds-some with glass in them, she noted-and with a twisted, broken ankle. The...creature...wasn't even walking on the foot, instead more dragging the foot along as it unsteadily balanced on a jut of bone that pierced through the flesh like a macabre parody of a peg leg.

The next few seconds went by in a blur, and Victoria's vision went black. The next thing she remembered from her fear-frenzied haze was beating the intruder with the dented, broken, bloody flashlight she'd been holding as he laid on the ground, hearing the snapping of bone as she crushed his ribs and limbs in an adrenaline-fueled fight response, but the damned thing just. Wouldn't. Stop. Moving. She kept away from its already-bloody, slobbering face as she utterly wailed on it, and eventually scored a lucky hit to its cranium just as it got her leg in the grip of its remaining good hand-even that didn't kill it, the skull is a damn tough bone, but the force to its brain dazed it just long enough for her to wrench her leg free and start running. It wasn't until she made it to the door, opened it, and shut it right back that rational thought came back from its lunch break:She saw more of the things roaming outside. She only had a glimpse-not even a full second before she slammed the door-so she didn't know just exactly what was going on, but the sight of a veritable horde of bloody people lurching through the street was enough that she figured they weren't just going on a evening stroll. Now that she'd started thinking...somewhat clearly again, she realized(with luck, for her at least) that everything was very loud outside right now-if not for that, slamming the door might have drawn attention to her, but there was already the sound of crashing cars and splintering wood coming from the broken window in the room next to her entryway. First things first, she hurried to close the curtain there-maybe if they couldn't see anything inside they might not realize the window was already broken. After that, she found an old duffel gym bag her parents had used like once, emptied it out of the clothes and everything already in it, before filling it up with food some basic antiseptic from the bathroom, and found a more practical weapon than the flashlight she'd been using-a baseball bat this time.

With that in hand, she made her way upstairs, heart racing, and took a quick glance into her room. Call her sentimental, but she did have a few things she wanted to take with her, wherever it was she did go. Besides which, having a few changes of clean clothes would always be important-even if whatever this was wasn't a bloodborn infection, there's no telling what else they were carrying, and mundane infection is a serious risk even with fully functional hospitals to fall back on. The creature was still there on the floor, groaning and struggling impotently-the damage she'd already inflicted was more than enough to render its legs useless, although its right arm was fully functional and its left one was only broken at the forearm. The thought occurred that she might be able to skirt around it, but she chased that idea out of her head-better not to risk it, and besides, a bat had a better reach than a flashlight. She knelt down a small distance away from it, raised the bat, and brought it down on the monster's skull once, twice, three times...on, and on, until the corpse stopped even twitching, and a couple more times even then. It wasn't until she finished changing and packing up her things that she realized that by the end of it, she'd had a smile on her face.

It's the weirdest thing...The initial pandemonium stopped just as quickly as it started. Either you got it in your head just what you were dealing with, or enough of a gist in order to find somewhere to hole up and survive, or you found yourself one of the victims of the first wave of the local outbreak. Obviously order and the rule of law wouldn't be restored so quickly...but by the end of the first day even, the bodycount of your local area stabilizes. You don't have deaths numbering in the thousands, the tens of thousands after the first wave, and things quiet down within a week or two as people find relatively safe havens to hole up in until they need to head on out. Victoria took to squatting in various houses, moving quickly onward at the first hint of trouble in those first few months. She did find a Greaser gang to hole up with for just under a year, and make no mistake it was definitely a good one(she got her SMG in a lucky raid with them, and has treasured it ever since for the fond memories and just downright usefulness of it), but one bad siege and the hideout was overrun. She was lucky to have gotten out of there alive, and it served to cement her viewpoint of keeping on the move at all costs.

But after that point, it was a lot harder than those first months-this was going on year two of the apocalypse, and most stores of food or supplies had either been looted or were being used as safehouses by other survivors. It wasn't as simple anymore as picking a house to sleep in and raiding its fridge; even if it hadn't been picked clean, the lights went out a while ago and rotten food would only serve to keep you weak. But the one thing absolutely everyone has...Is a Problem. And that means that getting in the industry of Problem Solving is getting into an industry with absolutely inelastic demand. Of course, having those pesky morals and standards, she does limit precisely which Problems she chooses to solve(no, she won't kill your cheating boyfriend for you, nor will she bomb a rival safehouse or draw Lurkers to them), which has resulted in a couple lean days in the past...but a bit of travel usually brings her somewhere that people are clamoring for someone to help purge a hive of Lurkers or escort a survivor tired of living in fear to a Shelter. There's more than a couple fond memories in particular of course; the Bank Job of '26(turns out that nobody actually uses paper currency much since anybody can rob an empty bank and inflate a local economy, but the good news is, free armored trucks! ...even if most of them use diesel), the Firebombing of '23(burning, rotten flesh smells even worse than burning human flesh, incidentally), and who could forget the Great Charlotte Siege!(nevermind that the entire idea of holing up the downtown of a major city was a godawful idea and that the Lurkers broke the lines, but she was there on the barricades buying time for the evacuation. Always felt proud of that one, and the bonus was nice)

All in all, despite having lived as a borderline child soldier, Victoria has few regrets in this life. Lot of people need a helping hand(carrying a semi-automatic gun) in this life, and Victoria? She's more than happy to provide.

Goals:
Priority One:Survival-Even with all the valuables of the world, you can't take it with you.
Priority Two:Help Other People-Money(well, resources anyways, old currency isn't as valuable anymore) might be important, but if she abandoned her compassion for others she might as well just turn to raiding.
Priority Three:Always Get Paid-Even so, she's far from a saint, and in a world like this she'll be damned if she's working for free.
Equipment:
"Armor"(Made up of salvaged plastic plates on forearms and calf; duct tape wrapped lightly around biceps and upper leg and pretty much everywhere she can get away with without restricting mobility too much; elbowpads and kneepads, otherwise joints left mostly be; and a old expired kevlar vest for torso protection-hey, even if it doesn't stop a bullet anymore, it'll stop a bite. Focus is less on impenetrability and more on toughness of materials balanced with lightness-she doesn't fight humans if she doesn't have to, so her priority is materials that are really hard to bite through or otherwise tear. Has a few ideas for a plastic chain or ring mail, but doesn't have the skills necessary to make anything like that, so this'll have to do for now)
Medical Pack(half-stocked, disinfectants and gauze prioritized)
Weapons(Specifics below, of course)
Armored Bank Car(Used as mobile house/valuables hoard, Annoying Logo spray-painted out, acquired third year into apocalypse; you'd be surprised just what gets left behind when the goddamn living dead start coming out of the woodwork)
Keepsakes(While she doesn't pine away for the old world, there's a few things she's kept all these years that she can't bring herself to part from)
Food(Nonperishables preferred obviously, but more and more difficult to acquire)
Weapons: Suppressed Modern Sub Machine Carbine(hereafter and prior referred to as 'MSMC', Specialized), Machete(Secondary), Hatchet(Secondary)
Skills:
1. Handloading(Expert-She's had to learn to make the most of every bit of metal and ammo she can get her hands on, especially when not all of the ammo she's paid in is the right chamber)
2. Metalworking(Advanced-Same reasoning, since she'll need to be able to melt the metal down and then get it the right shape to be loaded, but also to keep her other metal gear sharp and in good shape)
3. First Aid(Advanced-both to keep her and her clients and potential-clients alive, self-explanatory)
4. Firearms(Adept-While she likes to think she isn't absolutely terrible with her gun, the fact does remain that despite having a good seven-eight years to practice, even a suppressed gun is loud and if possible she's going to try to complete her work without attracting undue attention)
5. Melee(Adept-Again, in this case practice is dangerous, possibly moreso than with her gun though since it requires getting up close and personal with a Lurk. While she is...good enough, she's still wary about putting it to the test more than she needs to)
6. Repair(Novice-Parts can be harder to find than ammo these days, and all things honest she doesn't take care of her gun or the like as much as she should. Her other weapons are easier to keep in good shape and I'm assuming fall under metalworking. All things frank, she's lucky she figured out how to put her gun back together after cleaning it and has that much memorized)
7. Barricading(Novice-Life these past eight years has taught her that staying put is what gets people killed more than anything else. Lurkers are tireless, unwavering predators, and even the best-made wall will fall to a sustained attack eventually. She piles things against doors or windows to slow down and divert pursuers, not to stop them entirely)
Family: She's heard a cousin of hers going by the name of Samael Yuto's still kicking somewhere over in the Maine area, but for obvious reasons she hasn't been particularly able to confirm. Otherwise, no surviving family that she's aware of.
Miscellaneous: Will warn here and now that while I'm not new to RPing, I'm not particularly great at writing long detailed posts. I'll make a good effort, but I do apologize in advance if some of my posts are more lacking than others. ALSO if Charlotte is gonna be used as one of the Shelters of Zone B or something, just tell me and I can choose another city for the Great [Place] Siege to have taken place as or remove it entirely. I'd like to detail each of the mentioned incidents later on as more of a noodle incident but. Don't want her backstory to drag on way too much, and as things are right now any of them can just be snipped entirely(although I only feel like the 'Siege even might need to).

Appearance:



Name: Hunter Monroe (Two)
Age: Two is roughly thirty four years old, though due to his limited information he understands there is a give or take factor of about a year.

Gender: Male

Class: Two is a loner, though he understands it's testing his sanity he is more scared of people then what he might become.

Occupation: Though to him it does not mean much now, when he entered his little hiding hole it was his job to keep the Bunker in working order. He was the engineer for it.

Personality: At first glance people will notice a few things about Two. The most noticeable is he is scared of everything that moves, and anyone he can see. Though when not around other people he is relatively laid back when it comes to handling his every day life. When things do not go as planned or things go different then how they should normally go he stresses out, making mistakes, he gets careless. He gets paranoid. If he was ever to get use to being around people again he would still be very concerned that he would be double crossed by anyone around him so they could survive. Beyond that, Two would normally try to be a caring and understanding person, despite his fears of everyone and everything.

Background: Two at one point in life was known as Hunter Monroe. He was an only child with no real cares in the world. His family growing up was not necessarily poor, but they were not rolling in it either. Things were okay most of his life until the economy started to collapse, both of his parents worked jobs which at the time seemed pretty important, but after unemployment went up their jobs started to get cut as well. After that Hunter pieced it together that he had to figure things out for himself he did what ever he could to make himself useful. He studied carpentry mostly but soon advanced himself in school into electrical and industrial engineering fields. He was in no way perfect, but by the end of his school career he was deemed good enough.

Before the infection got really bad Hunter landed a job helping a friend of a friend build a simple bunker in the middle of the woods. He wasn't paid a lot for his work, but the deal was if things got really bad he had a ticket to enter. Seeing on the TV how bad things were getting, and how paranoid he was, he took the pay he got and helped piece together the structure the size of two medium storage containers, which at first seemed pretty big, until all the storage and long term systems were added in the mix. Then the bunker seemed pretty small for the amount of people it was intended for.

The day the bunker was sealed Hunter was actually in the process of finishing the ventilation systems. Technically the bunker wasn't made for a nuclear fall out, but his paranoid employer figured better safe then sorry. He was stopped on his way home by his Employer who he now refers to as One, and was pulled into the Bunker, being told Hunter could not be risked being lost as no one else entering would know enough about the bunker to keep it going when something broke down. He was pulled in before he could object to his parents still being home, having no idea how bad things were only a few miles away. Soon after him and his employer entered the bunker, his friend Ted, Ted's girlfriend, and Ted's own parents entered the bunker. Both Hunter and his employer knew things were going to be rough, but it was too late to turn them away.

The Bunker with now six people on the inside seemed crammed, originally it was designed to hold four people, and even that it would still be tight. There was enough food for four people to last five years with a mixed diet of canned goods for about two and a half years, and enough MRS for the remaining two and a half. With two additional people that time was reduced to a sliver over three. That time was extended as Ted's father had a heart attack. Fearing what he may turn into Hunter's employer shot him at point blank with one of the Bunker's few firearms and dragged the body as far as he could from the Bunker.

As time went on Ted's girlfriend had a child with in the walls of the Bunker, Ted's mother suffered a similar fate to her husband as she passed away in her sleep, only hours after the birth of her grand daughter. At first everyone thought it was her will to live that gave way, but as Ted's girlfriend passed soon after it did not take long to realize the generator was releasing carbon monoxide into the living area of the bunker. Hunter, Ted, The Employer, and the new born child spent the next two days outside while Hunter and the Employer attempted to figure out how to fix the generator and the ventilation systems.

Due to the death of Ted's girlfriend the new born child was on the verge of starving, so ted took one of the Bunker's firearms and went out to find supplies. Taking his truck he promised to bring back what ever supplies he could find while out. The young child died less then an hour after he left, The Employer left just long enough to deal with the body, Hunter didn't come this time.

Ted came back with enough supplies to buy some more time to hold out, though the Employer soon put it together that he was infected, and he only came back to make sure his daughter had a chance. Upon learning of his daughters death, Ted lost it, and attempted to kill the Employer convinced he wanted to thin the population to make the supplies last longer. It was at this point Hunter locked himself inside the Bunker to avoid the fighting, while leaving he was injured do to a stray bullet. He has walked with a limp since. When he came out a week later The Employer was dead, and Ted was no where to be seen. Hunter spent the better part of the next year looking for any motivation to stay alive. Eventually he just shut out any emotions, other then fear.

In his process to cope with the deaths of everyone he has known since he was sealed up, he stopped seeing everyone else as people, only numbers. The Employer as One, himself as Two, And everyone else in the order they came into the Bunker. The Numbers ending with Seven, at the new born child. Despite having enough supplies to hold up for a while, and the know how to keep the bunker functioning, once he was able to deal with his current situation Hunter decided to leave in hopes to find his parents, despite it has been years since he has entered the Bunker.

Most of the cars everyone took to the Bunker have broken down over time, and their fuel has diluted to a point of borderline uselessness. The truck still worked though, and despite the fuel getting terrible mileage combined with being so diluted and the truck's original mileage, he drove at a steady 30 miles per hour to reach his old home. Needless to say, he didn't find them. Due to the amount of time it took to get home, he spent the night in his old home. The place looked like it had been lived in for a while, but not by his family, there were elements of children living there. The most noticeable things were the new toys laying about. What was really noticeable was the smell. Something had died here. Recently enough that the smell was still strong.

By morning he had a lot of trouble leaving, he had spent most of his life in this house, through the good, the bad, and now, nothing. He again, tried to debate what was worth fighting for. It wasn't until he found a little toy dog, next to a small torn apart body. Seeing the toy plush dog next to the remains of this child set something off in his mind. He took the small dog, and slowly drove the truck back to the bunker, reassuring the Bunker's newest member that everything was going to be okay. He would spend the next few years attempting to make the Bunker and the surrounding area as livable as possible. He was going to make a life for Himself and Eight.

Goal: Two has one major goal in his mind, to find the will to survive.

Equipment: The bunker had all sorts of tools when it was first sealed, but as time went on a lot of them either broke down or just plain broke. Currently he has odds and ends of electrical tools, some basic carpentry tools, and a few odds and ends of things to maintain the small bunker, which is now falling apart.

What he tends to carry when he is out:
-A pocket knife
-A hatchet if he feels there may be a need for it
-Binoculars
-Goggles
-Other small tools

Weapons:
-The one he tends to use most, A sawed off pump action shotgun. Short effective range, but it will stop anything dead in it's tracks. Even if it doesn't kill them, it will slow them down.
-Am old 1911 pistol (.45 caliber pistol) is what he tends to carry on him as a back up. The bunker had a couple of them, but as time went on this is the only one that works.
-A 30-06 rifle, despite not being a great shot, the option for range is nice. Though he rarely carries it out with him when he goes out for supplies due to it's size compared to the shotgun.

Skills: (Medical, Firearms, etc. Limited to Seven, One Expert; Two Advanced; Two Adept, Two Novice)
-Carpentry: The skill he is best at *Expert*
-Electrical: *Advanced*
-Industrial: *Advanced*
-Firearms (Shotguns and rifles mostly, though limited with hand guns): *Adept*
-Agricultural: Not perfect, but enough that those potatoes look amazing after years of expired canned goods. *Adept*
-Medical: He likes to claim he can do some medical stuff, but what he does know he picked up from Hunter education courses. *Novice*
-Hunting: Hunter education courses did not go great with Two. *Novice*

Family:
-Both of Two's parents were missing by the time he went out to look for them, it is safe to say they have both died during the chaos. As for the rest of his family, he would have no idea what to think, or where to even look at this point in time.

Miscellaneous: Eight is Two's closest friend, if anything were to happen to the toy dog, that may be the end of his own will to live. Due to an injury from his time in the Bunker he walks with a semi noticeable limp. Many times he is able to keep it under control but even then, if someone where paying attention they would see it.

Appearance:



Name: Hank Miller

Age: Sixty three (63)

Gender: Male

Class: Survivor

Occupation: Former Marine, Former Security officer, Current smuggler.

Personality: Hank in basics does not give two shits about any ones problems, primarily due to him having to fend for himself when things got bad. Hank is a stubborn man who thinks a show of force is the best way to go about things. And if that doesn't work, using said force. For the most part he is able to keep a level head in several situations, the exception when people bring up topics he would rather leave int he dark. Once those buttons are pushed faces are fair games. When pretending to be in a positive mood, he becomes a sarcastic asshole, ignoring the consequences of his choices.

Background:
Hank joined the Marine Corps at a young age, at first just so he could get a good education and get a decent job. That never happened. Eventually he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant, and the way he say it was he was earning nice money, he was in a respected position, and he was in a great situation to make a life for himself. He eventually married his girlfriend Mariam and between them had five children, the oldest daughter taking officer training to follow in her father's footsteps, His other children still in various levels of grade school.

When things started to get really bad Hanks Unit was mobilized to attempt to handle the situation near Savanna. They didn't even finish the trip there before the unit was overrun and was forced to pull away before suffering a complete loss of life. Hank's unit after going through failed deployment after failed deployment was unofficially disbanded, leaving Hank in a desperate position to try to defend his family.

As luck would have it, one of his former officers was tasked with recruiting a security force to protect some rich guys assets within the new safe zones. Due to Hanks great history with his former Colonel he was able to land a job that got him, and his family into the security zone. With the exception of his oldest child who's unit was deployed in the north, too far to risk the rest of his family to make. He would have to hope she knew enough to survive on her own. Two of his kids became ill on the trip, and were denied access into the safe zones, Hank sent the rest of his family in while he attempted to take care of his two children as they passed on.

After they passed he entered the safe zone and went into quarantine for two weeks. Upon entering his new home he started to get the idea that conditions may not be much better on the inside then the outside, with the exception of the infected on the outside. There was a completely different kind of infection on the inside though, Greed and power. IN an attempt to provide additional food Hank's oldest son attempted to join one of the local gangs, in the process getting himself, and Hank's other son killed when they tried to pull out of the crime ring.

When the word spread of what happened Hank lost his job as he was deemed a security risk. Due to his work since entering the safe zone he was allowed to stay, but he was no longer allowed to work in a position where he could be too much of a risk. When food became short, and depression took over, Mariam took her own life. Leaving Hank alone with his youngest, his daughter Kathryn. Who at this point in time wasn't even ten. Hank took what ever job he could get in hopes to keep the both of them fed, the longest he was able to hold down was factory work. Making things like truck parts, ammunition, batteries, etc.

Due to the poor living conditions Hank's daughter became ill, this is where Hank eventually enters the smuggling business in hopes of obtaining medicine to save his only surviving child. Before he was able to gain the needed medicine, Kathryn passes away at the age of nine. Hank has since worked to trying to make the leaders of his safe zone suffer as much as he has. With his limited abilities though, that mostly means making sure that they do not get to enjoy as many nice things as they would normally.

Goal: Hank's main goal is to make those in power above him hurt, any way he can. Mainly that is just stealing supplies or forcing counterfeits into the supply to throw everything off.

Equipment: Not a lot, he owns a pocket saw, has some string, and the wits from his years of experience.

Weapons:
-Hank owns one gun, the .357 he owned before shit hit the fan. The old six shooter works, but due to poor conditions and the lack of available parts it has a slight tendency to jam. Ammunition is a different story, he's able to gain some every now and again through smuggling, but he rarely has more then a few rounds at a time.
-Hank has a pocket saw, which in his hands is an extremely deadly weapon. despite being for cutting loose branches.
-Hank keeps a small multi-tool handy for those rare occasions where something needs to be broken or fixed. Or stabbed, stabbed works too.

Skills:
Expert skill:
-Firearms: Hank can handle most anything that shoots, anything from assault rifles, handguns, shotguns, to belt fed weaponry.

Advanced Skills:
-Strategy: Hank's time as an officer has helped him understand how to turn a bad situation into a manageable one. if he had to, he could turn a crew of basic workers into a force that could hold their ground in a good position (Assuming they do not break and run for their lives).

-Poker face: Hank is able to keep his thoughts to himself when he really wants to. This is useful for when he is being interrogated, when he needs to make up stories on the fly, etc.

Adept skills:
-Hand to hand combat: Despite Hank's age, he is still able to put up a decent fight if forced into hand to hand combat.

-Medical: Hank has some medical training, and even some practice. Nothing that would qualify him to be a doctor or a medic, but hopefully enough to keep someone stable until they could get to someone who knew a lot more what they were doing.

Novice skills:
-Basic mechanical: Despite having no real education in this field, he is able to figure out how basic moving parts go together and is able to in theory figure out how to get them to work correctly.

-Psychology: Hank does not have direct training when it comes to psychology, but his time as an officer he has been able to understand motives, actions, and people better because of it. This comes in handy when he needs to ask people questions, how to get an idea when they are lying, and when he needs to figure out information about people with out saying a thing. He is in no way a professional, but in a simple investigation he should be able to piece together some pieces.

Family:
-Wife: Deceased
-Oldest child: Missing, assumed deceased
-Four remaining children: Deceased

Miscellaneous: If someone were to pay attention they may notice some of the scars hank has at various places from his last few deployments. When he starts getting aggressive they may notice despite the weight he has lost he still has a lot of muscle left on him.

Age: 43
Gender: Male
Class: Loner
Occupation: Wandering Priest

Personality: Amos is a somber and sullen man. He’s a man who’s lost much and it’s changed him in ways that most people today can relate to. Amos is a serious type, he has few words but he chooses them carefully and never wastes them. Amos appears to fear little and feel little. Those who have travelled with him for a while however tell tales about a man who always knows what to say. A man who, despite everything, holds out hope for the future. He’s a man of unshakeable faith, he trusts in his God to provide everything he needs to survive and thus far, He has provided.

Amos, however, seems cold and distant to many and travelling with him might not seem like the most exciting. He has a penchant for not planning ahead, relying more on impromptu revelations which have kept him alive thus far. Amos is a man seemingly unconcerned with his own life; however, in the pursuit of his calling he has been known to rush headlong into danger. One of the few times Amos is emotive is when someone is in trouble.

Background: Very few people know anything about Amos. He’s been a loner since the beginning – a long eight years – during that time many people have met him but very few have gotten to know the man personally. Those who have met Amos will tell you many things. That he had a large family and lost them all to the end of the world and now he wanders the wastelands awaiting his own death only he can never seem to find it. Others might tell you that he came from far the west bringing a message of hope and salvation for a new generation born after the collapse. But the truth is much less glamorous.

Amos was born on the banks of the Mississippi River in a small town in rural Louisiana. His mother had seven children, of which he was the youngest. As a single mother, she worked two jobs to support her burgeoning household. She worked as a seamstress and also as a receptionist at an old motel. She worked hard her whole life and if you asked her it was well worth it to see her seven sons and daughters grow up to have their own families.

Amos, as the youngest child, was also the most-often picked upon. From a young age he learned that to get anywhere he had to take what was his and never let it go. Whether it was food at the dinner table or the journal he kept his most private thoughts in, Amos never let go. As the youngest child, he was also the one who got stuck with the hand-me-downs. His first day of school he went into the classroom wearing pair of blue jeans with a patch sewn on the seat of them. The kids in his classroom teased him so hard that he went home to momma crying about it.

The next day he went to school wearing a brand-new pair of blue jeans bought for him by his eldest brother, Marquise. Marquise as the eldest brother grew up with a great deal of responsibility, but he took special pity on young Amos. As luck would have it, Marquise was exactly the kind of male role model Amos needed. Marquise made his living crawfishing in the Mississippi River and when Amos was out of school and old enough to go out on his own, Marquise would bring him on-board to help with the fishing.

When he was in school, however, Amos didn’t do too well. His school was poorly funded because it was in the middle of a poor, rural district. On top of that, Amos was never all that bright in the first place. When he was sixteen years old he dropped out of high school to work full time on his brother’s fishing boat. For many years he and his brother pulled in pot after pot teeming with crawdads.

However, after about five years, Marquise’s health started to go south. In the middle of August, he finally succumbed to a bad case of influenza. It would be years before Amos realized that his brother had been HIV positive and that’s eventually what killed him. At his funeral, Amos wept and wailed, mourning the death of his beloved brother. His neighborhood preacher knelt down beside him, laid his hand on his back, and told him, “Now son, ain’t no reason to cry. Your brother, he’s in a much better place now. A place where he is free of suffering. A glorious mansion in the sky,” and he patted his back and stood back up to console the other members of Marquise’s grieving family.

When he got home, Amos did something he had rarely had done before. He dusted off his momma’s old leather-bound bible and he sat down to read it and he took notes. He memorized the scriptures and he read through the book so many times that the leather got a long crease down the middle. He kept on working on the crawfish boat and saving up money until one day he sat down beside his momma and told her that he was going back to school. “I’m gonna be a preacher,” he said. His momma broke down into tears, tears of joy, mind you. She gave him a big, long hug and said, “You’ll make me so proud.”

Amos got his GED and he got into seminary school. It was hard at first but well worth it. Amos applied himself and when he was 28 years old he graduated magna cum laude with his bachelor’s degree in biblical studies and at long last his vision of becoming a preacher came true. He moved up river to Tennessee to pursue a position at a Baptist church in the western part of the state. That’s where he was when the End came.

Like many people when our society began to collapse, the first thing they did was try to locate their loved ones. For Amos, however, that meant travelling many, many miles to his momma’s house in rural Louisiana with his pregnant wife and two kids in-tow. Unfortunately, there was little he could do in his situation. So, he and his family and several members of his congregation met in the Baptist church to ride out the worst of it. Only, the worst of it never passed.

They didn’t have much food beyond what was left in the kitchen of the fellowship hall and once the communion wafers and grape juice were gone, the church was totally out of food within a week. Amos left the church to try and find food, the stores were closed and the streets were empty, he snuck in and filled a backpack full of food and pain relievers for his wife. By the time he returned it was too late.

The half-hour it took him to leave the church and come back was time enough for the infection to spread into the church and take everyone inside with it. Amos tried to reconcile with his wife but she was gone. He changed after that, he travelled down the Mississippi on an old boat to find his momma’s house and maybe what was left of his family. He found nothing.

The house was empty, a note taped to the glass storm door. It said, “Amos, we love you, we’re sorry we can’t stay no longer. We have to go now, we’re taking the old crawfish boat, we’re gonna sail south until we hit land. Love, your sister Dee.”

Amos was changed after that. No longer the goofball family man he used to be. He turned, empty. A husk of what he once was. He had nowhere to go from there. He made due in old family house for a while but he ran out of supplies, he had to keep moving. He prayed and he prayed and he came to a realization.

He came to realize that, perhaps, him leaving the church when he did or him not making it to the old family house before they left, maybe those weren’t mistakes. Maybe he was being saved so he could serve a purpose. So, he wanders, searching for that purpose. Searching for a meaning to all this. He doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from but he’s certain that he won’t die until he fulfills that purpose he’s been called to.

I suppose in a way he is searching for his own death, a release. But he sure as Hell ain’t found it yet.

Goal: To fulfill his purpose in this life and finally find rest.
Equipment: A sturdy and straight walking stick, a tattered leather jacket, a journal, two pencils, a hunting knife, a leather-bound Bible, a .22 rifle, 18 .22 rounds, an internal frame hiking pack, a fire-starter, two hard plastic water bottles, several re-sealable plastic bags (filled with cooked meat, foraged nuts and berries), aluminum cookware
Weapons: Staff (specialized): No matter what the threat is, Amos’ go-to weapon is his trusty walking stick. Always by his side and ready to go.

Rifle (secondary): Admittedly, the .22 rifle is weak as a defense weapon, but for hunting small game it gets the job done.

Knife (secondary): As a last resort. His knife isn’t built for fighting, but in a pinch it could come in handy.

Skills: Expert Staff, Advanced Survival, Advanced Persuasion, Adept Cooking, Adept Long guns, Novice First Aid, Novice Knifes

Family: Wife, Annabelle: Deceased

Daughter, Jessica: Deceased

Son, Adam: Deceased

Brother, Marquise: Deceased

Other siblings: Unknown

Mother: Unknown

Miscellaneous:

Appearance:

Name: Willam The Bastard

Age: 36

Gender: Male

Class: Greaser

Occupation: Leader

Personality: William was not given the nickname Bastard because of his parentage, he was given it because he is a cunning, ruthless, merciless and intimidating man. The name was given to him as an insult by one of his opponents for leadership, he took the name with pride, that was of course after he killed the man who gave it. He rules his gang with an iron fist, using fear and his tenacity to keep everyone in check. He cannot be intimidated or scared off, and is protective of his crew, providing they are loyal.

Background: It is rare for William to talk of his past, usually it only happens when his crew scavengers bring back some booze, but when he does he seems to talk with a tone of arrogance and disgust. Hell for all anyone knows it could all be bullshit, but the stories he tells are all anyone has to go on.

To put it simply, his family were a group of fairly rich doomsayer survivalists, believing that the apocalypse would come at any moment. So when Doomsday did finally happen, it was if all their pain and suffering wasn't pointless. However, despite all their planning, despite all their high tech equipment and skills they had learned, their plans didn't amount to anything. The rest of his family were killed on their way home when it first started, or at least they never turned up by the time William left the family bunker, three years after it all started.

After spending three years alone without any contact with the outside except a few radio transmissions that all ended abruptly due to operator failure from the people he talked with. Three years with only his thoughts and a few books to keep him sane, he left the bunker and took as many supplies as he could before concealing the bunker entrance.

After that he wandered around for a bit. He met many other people, some ignored him or him them, others who he allied with for a time, and others who attacked him. He even was allowed into one of the Govvy camps, however he didn't get along well with them and left. After a while he ended up with a group of Greasers controlled by someone who was even more of a tyrant than he is now. He and the leader ended up fighting for dominace with a majority of the group siding with William. When William won, he had the previous leader torn limb from limb and kept his skull as a trophy.

Goal: Rule.

Equipment: Scavenged metal armour. Water canteen. Ammo pouches. Hip holster. Wrapped jerky. Rag bandages. Sun goggles. Steel helmet. Respirator mask.

Weapons: AK47 (Specialized Weapon). Colt .45 semi auto pistol. Machete.

Skills:
Intimidation-Expert.
Melee-Advanced.
Firearmes-Advanced.
Unarmed-Adept.
Scavenger-Adept.
Hunting-Novice.
Scavenging-Novice.

Family: Mother-Dead? Father-Dead? Brother-Dead? Sister-Dead?

Miscellaneous: His gang is known as Death Knights.

Name: Geoff 'Fleas' Wickwyr
Appearance:

Age: "Twenty-five? No, Twenty-four." (15 at the time of the Infection -ed.)
Gender: male
Class: Loner
Occupation: "worked at a few stupid jobs before... you know. Fucking dish washer... changed tires and did oil changes at a local auto shop. Did 'landscaping' one summer, fuck ever that means. Occupation now? **blank, vaguely murderous stare**
Personality: (I have spent a little over four days in Geoff's company, during which time he has never once spoken without being spoken to. Twice in that time, if I dared speak at a moment he didn't expressly deem 'safe-safe,' he has come close, in my opinion, to killing me. His level of paranoia in anything approaching a 'social' situation -- conversation, food preparation, travel, the minutiae of existence -- is off the charts. I suspect he suffers from several affective disorders, as well as being on the OCD spectrum. As a survivalist and scavenger, his methodology is as finely crafted as any I have seen. As guide, he is deadly-proficient, if aloof and detached. How he has survived out here is anybody's best guess. He won't discuss it. Not with me at least. On my second day with Geoff, we met a group of Greasers, and his interactions with that group were as brief and as cold as any I have witnessed. He had been tasked with getting me from Brunswick, to just outside Jacksonville, and after seeing him dispatch a small group of Lurkers, I have every faith that he will do it. I only hope I can glean more about his life before I am safely delivered. -ed.)

Background: (Geoff mentioned that he was from just outside Norfolk, originally. Mentioned that his father was in the service. I have been unsuccessful in getting information on his past, and about most events from prior to the Infection, save this: he had a girlfriend, once -- Jessi. He mentions her with some regularity, and occasionally talks to himself, as if he is speaking to her. I pressed him about his past once, after he had spoken about Jessi, and he held a knife to my throat. I thought I had breathed my last. -ed.)

Goal: "Live. Fuck you think?" (Find Jessi -ed.)
Equipment: (Geoff carries a backpack with, it would seem, everything his stripped-down version of 'life' requires. It is truly not a lot. I have seen thread and needle, a compass, a pill bottle of some sort, some sort of thick black cord, several pieces of cloth of varying sizes -- one of which contains a whetstone and oil. He will not let anyone touch his pack.)
Weapons: (Geoff carries a rifle I was unfamiliar with, prior to asking him about it -- thankfully one of the few subjects he was content to discuss. It is an M1 carbine, with a folding 'paratroop' stock. He also carries a pistol and a folding knife. There may be more in the bag... but I was not allowed to look. -ed.)
Skills: "Land Nav. Survival. Pickin'. (scavenging -ed.) Lurkers. Know about 'em. Map readin'. Some mechanics. Guns. Tactics. Some cookin'."
Family: deceased.

The partial transcript of Marsha Heburn's (the 'editor') time living amongst 'Loners' was discovered outside Savannah, in a pile of bloody rags. It is estimated the manuscript had been there two years when it was discovered by Government forces 11/8/28