Marti Cavanaugh

Marti comes from Portland, Oregon and grew up in an upper-middle-class suburban home. She was finishing up her fall semester at the Carver School, a high-ranking high school in Portland, and had just finished the crunch of college applications when she went with her parents and little sister to visit her grandmother in rural Pennsylvania for the holidays.
Marti was an academic, the child of two ex-hippies who worked for a firm in developing an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. They lived comfortably, but certainly not luxuriously, and Marti’s parents raised her to be both sensitive to the planet she was living on but also to really want to learn. Marti’s favorite class is Biology, and she is taking Physics this year and also volunteering at a marine life study center. Marti never quite fit in with the “cool kids” she didn’t have an interest in things that were too girly, like cheerleading or being prom queen. She liked dressing comfortably – cords and a sweater were more her style, and putting on dresses and make-up were reserved for important occasions.

She was about to start her final semester at Carver, until the world’s collapse interrupted her plans. The tornadoes in rural Pennsylvania took the entire state by surprise Marti had been at the market in town picking up some food for a big pre-holiday dinner when all hell broke loose. She hid out in a cellar of the store with the store clerk and a few other customers, only emerging days later when all the noise had finally abated.

Terrified for her family, Marti walked the three miles back to her Grandmother’s home, only to find herself completely disoriented by the wreckage before her. She couldn’t find any standing homes – and the debris seemed to have been scattered everywhere. It took her hours to find the ruined remains of the foundation and bodies of her family.

By nightfall on Christmas Eve, Marti knew she was on her own, and wondered where the troops were that might save her. She found some of her cousins – two women who lived near Harrisburg – both sick with some strange illness. By Christmas morning, both were dead, and it was clear that this wasn’t just some freakish east coast event.

Completely alone, Marti flagged a ride with a man on a motorcycle, Marcus, who said he was traveling east southern New York to meet up with a friend, Carl. He had a walkie-talkie and kept in touch with his friend that way. She didn’t know until later that she was the only female he’d encountered who wasn’t sick or dying. She’d seen a lot of sick women over the past few days, but had no idea how widespread it was. She had been so glad to find a friendly face that she never saw his attack coming.

Marcus kept her locked in a motel bathroom much of the time, keeping her only minimally fed and giving her only small sips of water every few hours. He had broken her spirit by the end of the first week, and Marti had given up hope of a rescue. After all, where would rescue come from?

It was on New Year’s Eve that Marti saw her last chance to escape, and she took it. In her mind, she had two choices: kill Marcus and get away, or die trying. There was no in-between. She knew he would find her if she left him alive, so she slipped some drugs she’d found in his bag into his soup one night. He passed out, and she took his gun and shot him with it before running out into the night.

All she has are the clothes she’s wearing, the gun, a warm jacket she found in someone’s car, and a bag of pretzels she found in the remains of a market. She’s been sleeping in cars, turning on the heat and draining the battery before walking again. She’s seen a few small groups of men, but hid, not wanting a repeat of what happened with Marcus. She is in southern New York, but trying to avoid the area where she knows Carl is. She has no idea where she’s going…but she can’t stop moving, either.