My name is Brendan Flaherty, I'm engaged to be married to the most beautiful and intelligent woman on Earth. She was so happy that morning on the New Year's Eve, to be transferring from Elizabethtown to Louisville, it was a big pay bump and a much better job.

She really wanted to snag that holiday pay, despite me asking to stay home, but she insisted, hoped to make a good impression. I get that. So, we agreed to have dinner together after her shift in the big city. I didn't want her to get out of bed, she was so warm and beautiful, I just wanted that morning to last forever. But if you know Angie, you know how she can be.

We had breakfast together, we made our favorite French Toast with bacon and cheddar, a glass of milk, a cup of coffee to go, I gave her a kiss, and off she went.

I made reservations to this fancy restaurant in Louisville, The Vincenzo, with enough advance to give her enough time to change and doll up, to celebrate the New Year and the New Job. I made the bed, went to the gym, took a shower, packed up a few more things for our big move, half of our condo was already packed into boxes. Then I went to wash the car and pick out some nice flowers for our date. Imagine my surprise when Missis Garfield from Flower Flourish tried to eat my face instead of showing me her new roses. I'm a fit guy, but I'm no Bruce Lee, my first instinct for some reason was to hit her in the throat with the edge of my cell phone. Living with Angie you learn to avoid touching things that look infected with your bare hands. Unfortunately, this buried my cell phone inside Missis Garfield's neck, then more infected came and I had to run before reclaiming it. And just like that, that evening, on the New Years, the world ended. All I had to go on was knowing she's north up the highway. It was a journey along the path of fear and violence. Eventually I happened upon a recorded message from West Point that Angie is safe and sound, looking for me, more over, that she was immune, and, I guess, so was I. With doubled vigor, I pressed on, until I finally traded most of my supplies for a high quality radio with a hermit trader. Now I can talk back. Now I can find my Angela. How do I plan to do that? I'm a marine geologist. Nothing will stand in my way.

Christopher Burt, once a starry eyed idealist who volunteered with the peacekeepers, became a husk of the man he was those 7 months prior. He sacrificed his humanity for survival, and only stopped to regret it when reality came crushing down on him. In exchange for never taking physical injury, he suffered extreme and irreparable damage to his psyche, forever to be haunted by those 7 months.

In the end, he waited weeks to extract Patient Zero. But learning that she wasn't coming, and mistaking a fellow survivor breaking into his home as the military finally finding him, he chose to finally cut off what had been causing his stress. He loaded supplies onto the helicopter he painstakingly reconstructed after downing it from the sky, and took to the skies once again. He left everyone within the purgatory of the Knox Exclusion Zone, and only took himself and precious supplies out. Where exactly he went, and what exactly he will do, is still to be learnt.

----

Chris Burt was originally a member of a UN Peacekeeping unit sent to oversee and perform peacekeeping missions in and around the city of Louisville, Kentucky during the initial outbreak. As unrest and infection spread through the city, and remaining military forces in the city dwindled, Sgt. Burt was forced to move deeper into Knox County and away from the mindless infected that swarmed Louisville. Although he now lacks any government support for his mission, Sgt. Burt continues to attempt to assist survivors in the area, and aims to eventually consolidate enough people to properly fight back against the infection however possible.

The tips quickly dry up as a bartender in the apocalypse. Battling out of Bowling Green in a survivors' caravan before taking up shelter in the outskirts of Elizabethtown, David learned to always keep one eye open on the surroundings as the days ticked by.

As the summer months arrived, a series of explosions in the vicinity of Muldraugh and the accompanying pillars of smoke went off like a beacon to the south, drawing David closer into Knox County to investigate just what the hell was going on and if there are any signs of life left to be recovered.

USMC Colonel Irvin Conway Gray is a shrewd and manipulative looming presence, appearing to be in charge of Patient Zero project, and instrumental in overthrowing and division of the USA after the 1993 Apocalypse. His alleged known appearances are: Maryland, Miramar Florida, New Orleans Louisiana, Atlantic City, NJ, and Pentagon.

He is the every day colonel, the antagonistic colonel, the "you can't handle the truth" guy, the "get it done" guy, the "let's burn the forest down" guy, the "I have the hostages" guy. He "does whatever it takes", hates negotiating with terrorists, and loves "the smell of napalm in the morning".

Morally gray, just like his last name suggests, he is not above lying, cheating, and exploiting people to accomplish his goals, but there is definitely a grain of honesty, decency, humanity, and honor in his code of conduct. If hypocrisy is your cup of tea, that is.

Japanese Salaryman Street Racer. Ishida Tatsuya is the model Japanese citizen- a wealthy salaryman working for one of the largest automotive companies in the world. He was born, as far as he is concerned, in the wrong time- too soon to enjoy the limitless expanse of humanity to the stars. He was born too late to enjoy the incredible car and racing culture that permeated the Tokyo highways and rural mountainsides of the early 1990's. But he was born just in time to come to America and sample its roads, muscle-cars, and long silent stretches of highway where speeding tickets are few and everything in the country is excessive. If he could not enjoy car-culture in Japan, he would try to do so in America. When the initial medical lockdowns occurred, he was stuck in the bible-belt of America. Ishida took it as an opportunity to drive faster cars on even emptier roads. He travelled to all the States with the lowest rates of traffic-tickets, paying his fines from near-limitless corporate finance accounts. Then he hit Kentucky, celebrated New Years in a sports bar, and stumbled back to his hotel. When he awoke, the city was dead. His limitless wealth became worthless. His car had been stolen. All he was equipped with was a poor grasp of the English language, a suitcase of clothes, half a bottle of strawberry blond hair-dye, and his lucky wrench. Now Tatsuya optimistically hopes that if he can just survive the current crisis, he can head West back to the Rising Sun- but not before testing out his drifting skills around the many car-wrecks that dot the otherwise empty highways of Knox County.

In the past, Ishida was a Corporate Raider for Zaibatsu Automotive Industries- a rapidly growing conglomerate bordering on a monopoly of Japanese business.

As long as she can remember Leticia was in love with classy cars. As she grew older she started working at the Westpoint chop shop “American tire” although she regularly ran into trouble with her boss. With time she developed some decent mechanical skills. According to rumors she was involved in illegal gun trades to get closer to her dream of owning her own chop shop one day. Maybe the apocalypse is just the right opportunity to make this dream come true.

17 years old. Supposedly immune to the virus. Hardly any memories of her past life.

Lisa was found stranded near the drop site of one of the parachutes that emerged from the shot down USMC helicopter. Although she could not tell anyone why she was with the marines and where they were taking her, it rapidly became clear that Lisa had been kept captive and under heavy sedation for a long time.

Lisa remembers her mother, with key moments usually coming back to her during times of similar experiences she can recall. She has not expressed any memories of a father, although there is one Colonel Irvin Gray, working with the military, who claims to have been her caretaker since she was 10 years old.

Now, Lisa lives at the Manor, thriving under Penny's and Ishida's care. Several attempts made by USMC to recover their lost test subject have already been foiled, be it through words and persuasion, or missiles and shotgun shells. Lisa is important to the survivors, as she may hold the missing key to a cure. To them, there is no effort too great for keeping her safe.

Maiwen is a Taiwanese medical doctor specializing in emergency medicine and intensive care who found herself in Kentucky when her and her closest friend and colleague Dr. Saphira Tsui flew in from Europe for a medical convention. They managed to make it through the first few days of the convention, attending different research panels, but being sure to spend part of their days exploring the city, treating part of the convention as a mini-vacation in America.

During a break for a new year's celebration, Mai and Saphira decided to rent a car and drove towards Fort Knox, when something exploded, flipping the car and knocking both women unconscious. Mai woke up hung inside the car by her seatbelt in time to see two canisters bounce on the pavement close by, emitting a thick gas, quickly rending her unconscious once again. The next day or so, Mai was in and out of consciousness; heavily sedated. Each time, she woke to blackness; struggling to breathe in the black bag that had been fastened to her head, her hands bound in front of her. She could hear the thumping of a helicopter, the sound of rain hitting a car's windshield, and men talking through radios. During her time imprisoned and under control of the military, Maiwen was transferred to various remote military bases where she was held captive and forced to do research relating to the virus along with many familiar faces from the convention, including her friend Saphira.

Maiwen is soft spoken and shy to those she is not familiar with, but as she gets to know people, a sarcastic, funny, and fun loving girl who loves to dance breaks out of the shell of the previously restrained girl. Trusting by nature, she struggles in this new world as she discovered there are more people out to kill or imprison her rather than help her.

Oswald 'Oz' Stanton did not lose his son to the Apocalypse. He lost him in '85 to a tragic fishing accident. He didn't lose his wife to the Apocalypse either. She left him in '88 for another man, unable to cope with grief. Oswald's house didn't burn and the zombies didn't wreck it. It got foreclosed in '89 for countless debts. So he took whatever he could get out of the deal and put it into buying a sleeping boat, in credit, of course, to live out the only goal he's got left, his life's obsession: The Big One. He's sworn an oath to avenge his son Lewis's death and mount The Big One on his boat cabin wall. Truth be told, Oswald lost everything long before the infection, to his all consuming lust for fishing. Now that every banker in the world has turned into a zombie, he didn't have to pay off his credit anymore. And with property laws eradicated, Oz can now wander the shores of Ohio river, stalking his hated, coveted eight finned adversary, and the apocalypse be damned!

A plucky law student from a wealthy family, Penny was vacationing for the holidays with her fiance, Harry, in Kentucky. They had returned from NY to celebrate with old friends and family back home. After a drunken bender with friends at a New Year's Eve house party in West Point where everything was right with the world, she jolted awake with the worst fucking hangover, only to find Harry chewing on her childhood friend's face. The place was trashed, but not like after a wild party. More like after someone had thrown everybody else into a woodchipper. Before it sank in what was really happening, Harry lunged at her, and she ran. Didn't even feel the pain when the glass broke and cut her flesh. And she ran, and ran, and ran. She only stopped running when the sound of snow crunching underfoot drowned out the beating of her heart, and the frozen tears staining her face with the running mascara had dried up.

Height: 5'7" / 170 cm Weight: 151 lbs. / 68 kg D.o.b.: August 29th, 1966 (27 y.o.) Blood type: A negative

"She is an optimist on the outside, and a pessimist on the inside." —Tatsuya Ishida