Everyone used to say things like the world was coming to an end, wars, terrorism, crime, drugs, and global warming were bringing down society as all knew it. No one expected that they were right, and wrong, all at the same time. The world did come to and end, at least as far as people were concerned, but it wasn't anything anyone expected or could recover from. In six short months the globe had succumbed to an epidemic that left very few survivors to fend off hordes of living hungry corpses.<br/><br/>In the wake of its sudden and world wide destruction, small enclaves of survivors were forced to eek out existence on a survival level and those who could adapt fastest were the ones who still lived. Valhalla, a geographically well placed rustic wilderness resort in northern Wisconsin, was one of those enclaves that offered a small, lucky group of people a chance at survival. Cabins offered shelter, forest lands offered game, nearby Lake Michigan and several streams offered fresh clean water, and the climate had given respite from the wandering dead through the winter. It was in Valhalla that Roger and his step father George had banded together with a handful of other people to make a life after the end of the world.<br/><br/>Roger hadn't been there at the onset of the outbreak, instead he had been living a marginal existence as a parolee downstate in Milwaukee. His crimes had been violent, but not the worst. Mostly alcohol and poverty driven, he had a number of violent offenses and assaulting an officer with a weapon was the one that got him put away for the better part of four years. He'd managed to stay clean after his release, but he still struggled with an anger that had been with him since his youth. Rough childhood, inherited alcoholism, absent father; the regular recipe for a life disaster.<br/><br/>He'd long stopped blaming his mother for it all after spending plenty of time reflecting on how a life like his usually unfolded. She had been a decent woman, young, just trying to make something work and never quite catching a break until she'd met George. Things for Roger had already become well rooted, though, and the spiral just continued going down until he found himself too ashamed, and too embarrassed to go back home. That all changed when people started dying and reanimating again and he did anything he had to to get back to his family.<br/><br/>They didn't get much time to be together before his mother and step brother were lost to a fever early that first winter. It was such a simple thing; a cold, the flu maybe, but in a world without doctors or medicine, it had been a miserable suffering death. Roger had been consumed with rage and his step father drowned in loss and depression, but with a long cold winter ahead, they had to rely on each other and the handful of people who had become their 'tribe'. George wasn't really equipped for a frontier kind of living, but Roger helped him adjust to that gritty kind of life, and George pulled him back again and again from letting his anger get the best of him. By spring, they'd all made it; a little worse for wear, but the promise of the warm weather renewed their energy to move forward, do better, and to make a safer, more resilient homestead so that the next winter would have no lives to claim.<br/><br/>There were seventeen people all together; all adults, all capable, and they had used the winter to make plans for spring. There were jobs and duties along with divisions of time and labor to get things done. No one went alone, and no one person ran the roost.<br/><br/>On April 24, 2011, the day that would have been Easter, the group planned to a feast, it would be eager, but its' intent was to unify their goals and solidarity. Roger and George's part of the planning was to gather and bring back as much fire wood as they could; enough for the feast, and more for storage. Two other teams of two went hunting, another pair fetched water in surplus, others kept watch while still others started spring clean up around the small cabin dotted fort and noted repairs that would be made. They'd all be tired by the end of the day, but it would be a good tired.<br/><br/>"Jesus, I wish there was still more snow or that the shit had completely melted," Roger complained. The partial melt meant that the sleds they had couldn't be used, nor could the wheelbarrow or wagon. It was irritating and made the job twice as hard as it needed to be. He looked over to George who seemed to be trying to make the best of it with a good attitude and Roger was reminded that attitude was half the battle. "Maybe if we go to the other side of the camp. It seems to get more direct sun. Maybe it's melted enough for wheels."<br/><br/><div class="bbCodeSpoiler">
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Roger Larson<br/>
Age: 25</div>
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