[hider=Deirdre Miller]
Name: Deirdre Miller
Group: Walkers 
Age: 61
Occupation: Various odd jobs to supplement welfare benefits
Family life: Single
Sex: Female
Hair: Black, fading to gray
Eyes: Brown.
Weight: 178 lbs.
Blood type: A+
Immune: Yes
Gear: Old gray Jansport backpack. Contents: two mismatched changes of clothes, a beat-up old blue blanket, a can of generic green beans, a can of Dinty Moore beef stew, a can of peas, half a bottle of maple syrup, a Heath bar, an unopened 375 ml bottle of Jim Beam bourbon, a half-liter bottle of Evian water, an 8” meat cleaver with cardboard wrapped around the blade, one toothbrush, travel-sized toothpaste, a bar of Irish Spring soap, a paperback romance novel.

On her person, Deirdre carries a Swiss Army knife and a photo of her daughter. A 16 oz claw hammer hangs from her belt, tucked at the small of her back is an old Smith and Wesson Model 10 loaded with six .38 rounds. She has no spare rounds and no means of cleaning the gun.

Picture: [img]http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsC/tve20924-20070523-1559.jpg[/img]

Bio: Deirdre Elizabeth Miller was born into poverty and has known nothing else in her life. She was born in 1956 and raised in the notorious JeffVanderLou district of St. Louis, Missouri. Her father had disappeared long before she was born, and her mother Carol was rarely around, struggling to support the two of them with long shifts at a local diner. Left to her own devices, Deirdre quickly discovered the dark side of JeffVanderLou- rampant drug use, corrupt and venal police, gangsterism. Before she was even twelve, Deirdre had adopted the sort of world-weary fatalism common to urban dwellers. 

While she was far from stupid, Deirdre was a poor student- not that the local schools had much to offer- and dropped out at age fifteen. She shuffled from menial job to menial job throughout her life, never staying at one for long. Her mother died when she was twenty and working as a hotel maid, and Deirdre found herself alone in the world, at least until the following year. Her daughter Suzanne was born in 1977, the product of a one-night stand with a businessman from Philadelphia (she never did catch his name). 

Deirdre found her life transformed by the responsibilities of parenthood, which she enthusiastically and wholeheartedly embraced. With more than herself to worry about, she found her cynicism turning to a hard edge. Where once she had seen drug dealing and blight as simply part of the landscape, she now viewed them as walls of a prison, something to escape with along with Suzanne. She began, desperately and silently, to dream of something better. More than that, she tried her best to instill values of citizenship and morality in Suzanne. Voting, going to church, donating to charity- these were the activities she enforced on the young girl.

They didn't take. As she grew older, Suzanne found a habit she liked better, cocaine.

Deirdre could only watch helplessly as her teenaged daughter spiraled into addiction, becoming friendly with a local dealer in exchange for an unlimited supply. Deirdre tried to help Suzanne, on one heart-stopping occasion staring down her armed punk of a boyfriend and telling him to leave Suzanne alone (the young man actually did as asked, but Suzanne simply found a new dealer). She attempted to get Suzanne into rehab or a support group on numerous occasions, but nothing ever came of it.

Finally, in 1994, Suzanne died of an overdose. 

The last twenty years have been something of a standstill for Deirdre. Her cynicism knows no bounds, and as much as drug dealers and corrupt cops both know to stay off her street, she no longer sees the point in trying to make the world better- it's always going to be dark and blighted.

When the Rising happened, St. Louis was sadly but unsurprisingly one of the first major American cities to collapse into anarchy. From Chesterfield to Cahokia, three million people were caught in a hellish, burning war zone, a battlefield with no front lines and no succor for the weak. For every person who died at the hands of the dead, the living claimed still more. Somehow, through the determination and toughness required to live in one of America's worst neighborhoods, Deirdre survived, clawing her way out of the city and joining a column of refugees. The leader of the refugee column had the idea that the military could help them. A visit to Scott Air Force Base outside the city disabused that notion, leading to half the survivors dead and the remaining group fractured over what to do. Several set out on their own while the remainder decided to try to head to Fort Leonard Wood. Deirdre, unwilling to believe that any external force could help them now, left on her own.

That was nine months ago.

The summer was long and fraught with peril. Deirdre, on her own or occasionally joining with other groups for a week or two at a time, wandered aimlessly through Southern Illinois and Eastern Missouri, though she shed forty pounds from her heavyset frame and suffered through more than one illness. During that time, she found herself forced to kill two people. One, a woman who tried to rob her- Deirdre took the revolver she now carries off the bandit's corpse. Two, a man she traveled with for six days before his careless attempt to engage the dead with a Molotov cocktail had left him covered in third-degree burns she couldn't possibly treat. Her hammer had been the only mercy she could give.

Now, with early snow on the ground and winter fast approaching, Deirdre knows that wandering around out in the open will be suicide. She's heard rumors from other survivors that Fort Leonard Wood may be safe and has set out for the base, wondering if perhaps the group she abandoned months ago might have indeed made it safely. 
[/hider]