character :: Deanne
Deanne didn’t know what she wanted. Hell, none of her friends did either? Her parents thought at 24 she should have the whole world figured out. “You’re in college.” They would demand, as if that was all the answer she needed. Neither of them had the opportunity to go to college, they reminded her, constantly. And when was she going to marry that boyfriend she’s been seeing since freshman year? They certainly liked him enough. The questions never seemed to stop! It’s not that she hated her parents, but they didn’t know the first thing about her life anymore…like the fact that she broke up with that boy nearly a semester ago, or that she had just recently flunked her foreign language course and needed to take it again, or that her new manager at work was a passive-aggressive little man with a nervous laugh that never meant he was happy. They didn’t even know about the two times she’d changed her major since she started going to school. No, Deanne was a mess: but there’s no way her parents were going to find out. At least, not this year!
All Deanne really knew is that if she had to work one more week at her dead-end waitressing job, or go to one more 8 AM class, she was going to scream. She’d been going for three long years now without a break, and watching her younger college friends take elaborate spring break trips and skiing excursions during the winter was really grating on her nerves. So, when her best friend announced a destination wedding – in sunny California – she leapt at the chance to help her plan the event. It would result in a free plane ticket and hotel, plus as promised, all the extra wedding favors and minibar booze she could drink! Deanne couldn’t be happier. This would be the break – for one week, she could be anyone she wanted.
Too bad her thoughtful, loving, sister-like bride-to-be best friend invited Deanne’s ex with the intentions of playing matchmaker. Deanne tried not to let the small token of ill-placed kindness get to her…but it certainly wrecked her plans of finding a beautiful long-haired, square-jawed man for the week. His possessive attitude and annoying “dates” quickly got frustrating, and with the hopes of drinking a little too much the day before the wedding, Deanne went to the hotel bar to run up a tab.
The chaos broke out quickly. She’d of course been watching the news feed on her phone, but it didn’t seem too much to worry about…it seemed half a world away from the city she was in. The Bird Flu was something to worry about when she called her folks again – but it descended upon the party city fast and without much warning. Three weeks later, Deanne was miserable; holed up with her ex-boyfriend in the thin hope of survival. One evening, she looked at the hell she found herself in, trapped in the hotel with a man deeply in love with her but she couldn’t find anything within herself for him. Frustrated, she snuck away with the intention of finding some more supplies for the pair – but what she stumbled upon instead would change her life forever.
A thick Tennessee accent, blood-spattered boots, and deep soulful eyes drew her in as she tried to sneak past his room. Deanne tried to fight it – she had nothing in common with this man and yet here she was – fleeing with him across a rickety wooden bridge built by god-knows-who across the roof access of the hotel to another building. In her mind, anything would be better than an ex and a dead best friend trapped somewhere in that hotel; but she had no idea what the newly kindled friendship would lead.
The leader of the new colony she unwittingly joined had a grand idea: safe buildings connected from rooftop to rooftop, far away from those infected monsters who waited like a sea under floors and floors of a drop. And so, Britton and Deanne got to work – for the good of the colony. And when hardship struck, Deanne was stuck to Britton like glue as a convoy went searching for more supplies, more people, and more food. With no idea how her story would end, her hopes are set high: but in a place like this, there’s no more dangerous an outlook than faith.
Deanne’s story is not meant to be the highlight of a movie, nor the main character of a zombie survival videogame. She doesn’t have the innate ability to be a black-belt fighter or military sniper hidden somewhere beneath her wild party-girl college girl exterior. She is exactly as she looks; lost, no real purpose in life, and her degree in Elementary Education isn’t going to be saving many lives in this new world. But what Deanne does possess is the ability to grow; to become something grand in a world torn by heartbreak. What a time to be alive? Deanne knows that she cannot be a strong woman while loving her man unconditionally – it’s almost akin to sin to find purpose in another person. But there’s something about survival that will bring forth a path to even the most lost of souls: and, unfortunately for Deanne, her path is grown over with briars and patches of thorns. With a strength she didn’t even knew she had, she will forge forward – no matter if she has to burn a path straight through the brush, Britton in tow.
