#journal link

URL or Real name: justjasper/Jasper

Time Zone: GMT

Character you’re applying for: Malachi Jones

Character bio: Malachi grew up in Detroit, the middle of three sons to a black Haitian mother and white Irish father. He joined the army at 18, doing several tours of duty, and later training various troops and completing a college degree. At 28 he moved back to his home neighbourhood to be a community leader and teach part time. He led several community initiatives, and became a well known figure of the community. When the virus spread, inner city areas suffered badly, and were usually last to receive aid. Mal’s neighbourhood couldn’t withstand the growing unrest, and succumbed to rioting, violence and exodus.

Mal left the city with his heavily pregnant best friend Karen after his parents were infected and his brothers fled with their families to other bases, heading towards a base several states away that he thought was more strategically located than the nearest one. He and Karen had had a drunken one night stand, and after some deliberation, decided even if their parenting arrangement would be unconventional (neither wanted to have a shotgun wedding just because of the pregnancy), they wanted to go ahead.

Travelling together presented some unique risks, but Karen was as capable as he was, having served in a tour in Iraq with Mal. They were about half way through their journey when Karen was bitten during a confrontation. They both knew the dire nature of the situation they were facing, and Karen managed to deliberately induce labour less than twenty minutes after the bite. Mercifully her labour was relatively short, and she delivered a baby girl. They had no idea if the baby was infected. At Karen’s insistence, Mal shot her as soon as she began to show symptoms, saving her the ravages of the disease.

Now Mal is on his own with an infant child that may be infected with the virus, and a long way to go until either of them is safe.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Physical and combat skill, high intelligence, very even-tempered.  Reluctant to leave anyone behind if he thinks he can help them, putting himself and sometimes others at risk, a perfectionist to a fault, and although he usually has people’s best interests at heart, he does not like his authority being challenged.

Paragraph Sample: With a pistol in the front pocket of her maternity dungarees, Karen surveyed the round ahead by standing on the seat and poking through the sunroof of the SUV, peering with binoculars.

“There’s a gas station up ahead. Looks empty.”

Mal kept the pace of the vehicle steady as she lowered herself down into the seat again, bracing a hand on her huge belly.

“Probably already been raided.”

“I dunno,” she shrugged, “this is the long way round, we haven’t seen another car for a day. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Part of him hoped that was the case, but another part hoped it wasn’t; they hadn’t run into any real trouble on the road yet, and that was starting to worry him. It would be just typical for their luck to be so good and then dry up in a tight spot. As he watched her loading up her clip and fasting her arm bracers, he knew they’d both do everything they could to keep the odds in their favour.

URL or Real name: tealangdons/valerie Time Zone: GMT-6:00 (US central time) Character you’re applying for: Calvin Tanner

Character bio: Back home in Nebraska, Calvin experienced severe bullying. This led him to become very shy and self-conscious, and to use his intelligence as armor to protect him from other humans. He has a hard time relating to people, and when he's angry, he can become petulant and downright childish. However, he is fiercely loyal to the people he cares about. Among those people are his mother, father, and younger sister Mia. He's desperate to get in contact with them.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Strengths- intelligent, loyal, a very fast runner. his detachment from most people allows him to kill zombies with little remorse. Weaknesses- Childish, knows how to hit people where it hurts when he's angry. He has trouble fitting in with the team. Very sensitive.

Paragraph Sample:

At first, the sight of his classmates stumbling and foaming at the mouth startled Calvin, but after a few minutes, a general numbness set in. He pushed past the infected without looking back, they had barely spoken to him when they were healthy anyway. All he could think of was getting somewhere safe, and calling his family. He raced up to his dorm room, barricaded the door with a chest of drawers, and dialed the familiar numbers on his cell phone.

The reception was spotty, but he could hear the fragmented dial tones coming through, and then a panicked voice. "Cal?"

"Mom."

"Oh my god. Are you okay? I--"

"Yeah, mom, I'm...I'm fine...Mom...hello?" The line was breaking up, taking pieces of his mother's voice with it. "Mom, talk to me!"

"Cal--honey--"

There was a click and the line went dead. Calvin hit redial.  A mechanical voice whined in his ear. "Sorry. We are unable to complete your call. For assistance, please dial--"

He hung up. Panic rose in his throat like bile, but he swallowed it down. Now was not the time to panic. He reached for his backpack and began throwing items inside. A shirt, a pair of jeans, socks and underwear. Bags of chips he'd hoarded from the cafeteria. He looked around the room. He had no weapons, nothing but his own two feet. Hopefully, they'd be able to carry him fast and far away from here.