Mark Spitz
Mark Spitz is the protagonist of Zone One. When the novel begins, he is employed as a “sweeper” in downtown Manhattan tasked with killing “stragglers” who have been infected by the plague. For much of the novel, little is known about Mark; however, as the plot progresses, more information is revealed about him in the form of flashbacks to Mark’s memories of life before the plaque. He grew up on Long Island in the suburbs of New York City with his parents but had dreams of moving to the city and studying to become a lawyer. Nonetheless, Whitehead reiterates throughout the novel that Mark is an entirely unexceptional character who “had led a mediocre life exceptional only in the magnitude of its unexceptionality” (p. 183).
When the plague begins, Mark has had a number of failed relationships because he “had a habit of making his girlfriends into things that were less than human” (p. 241). He is still living with his parents and commuting to the city, where he works in “Customer Relationship Management, New Media Department, of a coffee multinational” that resembles Starbucks (p. 183). It is later revealed that on the “Last Night” before society collapsed, Mark was partying in a casino with his friend, and, when he returned home, saw his zombified mother bent over his father “gnawing away with ecstatic fervor on a flap of his intestine” (p. 87-88). It is also revealed that Mark Spitz is not his real name but a nickname given to him after he admits that he does not know how to swim (Mark Spitz is an American former Olympic swimmer who once held the record for most medals won in a single games). This nickname also relates to the dynamics of race depicted in the novel–Mark is black and he mentions “the black-people can’t swim…stereotype” (p. 287).
After the collapse of society, Mark wanders around the Connecticut region trying to survive. One day, while scavenging at a toy store, Mark meets Miriam Levy Cohen, a mother of three who lost her family to the plague. Mark and Miriam begin a romantic relationship and Mark admits that it “was the healthiest relationship he’d ever had” (p. 241). After spending the winter in the toy store together, Miriam goes missing during a scavenging trip. Mark then continues to wander before encountering a farmhouse where he meets Margie, Tad, and Jerry. After Skels begin to attack the house, Mark is rescued by a military unit and taken to Happy Acres where he volunteers to work as a “wrecker”. His first job is to clear I-95 highway in Connecticut which had been filled with people desperately trying to escape the plague. After this job, he’s transferred to Zone One in Manhattan where he begins work as a sweeper.
While an unlikely hero, Mark is depicted as being loyal, courageous, and compassionate. He adapted quickly to life after the apocalypse–Whitehead writes that “a part of him thrived on the end of the world” (p. 245)–and works hard to create a better future for humankind. Through Mark, Whitehead is able to demonstrate the incredible potential for ordinary people to overcome adverse circumstances, and to grow in the process.
Gary
Gary is a member of the Omega Unit of sweepers in Zone One along with Mark and Kaitlyn. He is described as having “a granite complexion, [and] gray pitted skin” and walks in “a controlled slouch, with which he slunk around corners and across rooms” (p. 27). Gary speaks in the first-person plural “we” pronoun as a result of growing up in a set of triplets, although both of his brothers died in the plague. Compared to Mark’s middle-class upbringing, Gary comes from a working-class family and “dropped out of school to crank bolts full-time in his father’s garage with his brothers” (p. 28)
Gary is depicted as having a sense of humor and often acts as comic relief; however, his conduct often borders on rudeness and irreverence. Unlike Mark, Gary holds a deep hatred towards the skels and stragglers. He also rejects authority and struggles to follow rules. Along with No Mas, Gary is involved in a network that sells the prescription pills they scavenge while on duty. Gary’s misbehavior eventually proves fatal when Mark, Kaitlyn, and Gary encounter a fortune teller straggler while on duty. Gary starts playing around with her inanimate body but she wakes up and bites “deep into the meat between the index finger and thumb” (p. 284). Before he is infected with the plague, Gary kills himself.
Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn is employed as one of the sweepers in the Omega Unit along with Mark and Gary. She is described as being a “stickler” and a “grade-grubber” and she is adamant about following proper protocols while on the job which leads to tension with Gary. She is intensely nostalgic for her childhood, which she describes in idyllic terms every time she takes “the opportunity to divert her companions down nostalgia’s alley” (p. 56). In particular, she often talks about the joyous birthday parties she had before the plague. While her attitude is often judgmental and inflexible, she is nonetheless caring towards Mark and Gary, and she remains hopeful that their situation will improve. Like the other survivors, she is resilient. As the narrator notes, “she was hunted, and she had escaped” (p. 59). Still, she maintains a good attitude and is described as having a “buoyant giggle” (p. 59).
At the end of the novel, Mark runs to retrieve medical attention after Gary was bitten by the fortune teller. While he’s gone, the wall surrounding Zone One collapses. When Mark returns, he finds Gary’s body but no sign of Kaitlyn, leaving her fate unknown at the novel’s conclusion.
Miriam Cohen Levy
Mark meets Miriam, or “Mim, ”in an abandoned toy store in the early days following the apocalypse. She lived in her husband Harry’s hometown of Paterson, New Jersey before the plague. She was the mother of three children named Asher, Jackson, and Eve, who were killed at a birthday party on the Last Night. Before meeting Mark at the toy store, she lived in a community in a mansion called Willoughby Manor. Mark and Mim stay at the toy store for several months and develop a romantic relationship. She remains hopeful that society will be rebuilt by the leaders in Buffalo; however, one Spring day Mim disappears while out scavenging for pepper to put in their lentil soup. Mark never discovers what happened to her, but he reasons that “people disappeared. You never knew it was the last time you’d see them” (p. 247).
Lieutenant
Lieutenant is the leader of Fort Wanton for much of the novel. He is known for wearing aviator glasses and for drinking heavily. As a leader, “he preferred a light touch” and is described as “casting himself as the hip young teacher in the high school” (p. 38). He is prone to digressions and often speaks in a philosophical manner. As he says to Mark, “‘if you can bring back New York City, you can bring back the world’” (p. 121) He is generally respected by his team, and he develops a weekly routine of sharing a bottle of whiskey with Kaitlyn and Mark.
Midway through the novel, Lieuteant is said to have been “summoned to Buffalo,” leaving Fabio in charge. Later in the novel, however, it is revealed that the Lieutenant had actually killed himself by placing a grenade in his mouth. The characters speculate why he might have killed himself–some think he had been depressed but others think he had been bitten by a skel.
Fabio
Fabio is the second-in-command at Fort Wanton. He later takes control after Lieutenant’s death. Unlike Lieutenant, he is not respected by his team, and he is described as being “a pretender” (p. 252). After the wall around Zone One, he is killed while trying to reach a truck to escape.
Margie
Mark meets Margie at a farmhouse in Northampton, Massachusetts where she is camping out with Jarry and Tad. She is described as having a “miniscule, almost pixie face” with a large scar running from her jaw to her earlobe (p. 214). Originally from Virginia, she had been visiting an island off Cape Cod during the Last Night. She remained on the island with 10 other people until bandits came, killing everyone except Margie, who escaped. She later “hooked up with Tad in a high-school cafeteria” and they came to occupy the farmhouse (p. 216).
Margie is welcoming to Mark and encourages him to stay with them at the farmhouse. Mark grows fond of Margie, and feels as though they have developed into a family. Shortly thereafter, however, a group of skels gathers around the house. After three days of being surrounded, Margie finally cracks and sneaks onto the roof of the farmhouse where she begins throwing bombs down at the skels below. The bombs alert the skels to their presence in the house, and they start attacking. In the fray, Jerry falls off the roof and is eaten by the skels, though Mark believes that Margie might have pushed him. Fortunately, Mark, Tad, and Margie are rescued by soldiers, but Margie “disappeared into the woods while the convoy was taking a piss” (p. 229).
Tad
Tad is one of the campers at the farmhouse in Northampton, Massachusetts. When Mark arrives Tad is originally suspicious of him, but Margie convinces him to let Mark into the house. He is described as being “a slender young man” with glasses and a long ponytail (p. 214). Before the plague, he worked at a “video-game company that specialized in first-person shooters” and was “holed up on a marijuana farmer with fellows of like-minded spiritual outlook” before meeting Margie and coming to the farmhouse (p. 217). After Margie starts attacking the skels, Tad is rescued along with Mark. After they arrive at Camp Screaming Eagle Tad does not appear again.
Jerry
Jerry is a former real estate agent who had previously sold the farmhouse in which he, Tad, Margie, and Mark gather. He is also a veteran and did “two tours of duty in one of the Middle East Wars” (p. 218). After the plague, he initially traveled toward Canada, and he spent a winter near Buffalo before coming to the farmhouse where he met Tad and Margie. When Mark arrives at the farmhouse, Jerry does not want to allow him but loses “the argument for expulsion quickly” (p. 215). He is depicted as an optimistic character who believes “‘this is a war we can win’” and who dreams of continuing to sell real estate when things have returned to normal. Unfortunately, he ends up in the “hungry arms” of the skels.
Harry Cohen
Harry was Miriam’s husband who worked at a company that compiled facts for radio station programs. His fate after the apocalypse is unknown, but, as the narrator says, “you never asked about the characters that disappeared from a Last Night story. You knew the answer” (p. 160).
Doris Tromanhauser
Doris Tromanhauser was a survivor of the plague who had “holed up in the Trenton branch of a respectable international bank” along with a “plucky band” (p. 50). Doris became pregnant, but the band “dwindled as they were forced to make the inevitable forays outside” (p. 50). Left alone for 6 months, Doris is finally discovered by a recon unit but dies during childbirth. Her children–Finn, Cheyenne, and Dylan–survive and become an embodiment of hope for other survivors. Later in the novel, however, it is suggested that two of the children were killed when the Bubbling Brooks camp is overrun by skels.
No Mas
No Mas is a member of the Bravo Unit of sweepers in Zone One along with No Mas and Carl. He is widely known for his inhumanity towards the stragglers and he draws on their faces and poses with them for degrading photos before he kills them. Later in the novel, Mark discovers that No Mas and Gary are involved in the illegal sale of pharmaceutical drugs that they gather while on duty.
Angela
Angela is a member of the Bravo Unit of sweepers in Zone One along with No Mas and Carl. Mark is wary of Angela and the rest of the Bravo Unit for their ruthlessness and inhumanity towards the stragglers. While No Mas is the cruelest of the unit, Mark also overhears Angela and Carl “reminisce about their time together in a bandit crew, ripping off weaker survivors for aspirin and thermal underwear” (p. 143). She is said to have had a “six-month thing with a Brazilian guy” and as a result, enjoys drinking cachaça liquor.
Carl
Carl is a member of the Bravo Unit of sweepers in Zone One along with No Mas and Angela. Before arriving in Zone One, Carl was a member of a bandit crew with Angela.
Trevor
Trevor is a member of the Gamma Unit of sweepers along with Joshua and Foreskin. Before the plague, he worked as a mall security guard and trained in martial arts. Like the rest of the Gamma Unit, he is killed while clearing the subway system.
Joshua
Joshua is a member of the Gamma Unit of sweepers along with Trevor and Foreskin. Little is revealed about his character except that he admits to being an alcoholic and that he tries to draw the attention of skels by playing the kazoo. Like the rest of the Gamma Unit, he is killed while clearing the subway system.
Richard “Foreskin” Cowl
Richard “Foreskin” Cowl is the leader of the Gamma Unit of sweepers along with Trevor and Joshua. His crude nickname comes from the shortening of his name Richard to “Dick.” Before the plague, he worked as a “sommelier at a high-end novelty eatery in Cambridge that specialized in offal” despite being a vegetarian (p. 257). Like the rest of the Gamma Unit, he is killed while clearing the subway system.
Ms. Macy
Ms. Macy is a government official visiting Fort Wanton from Buffalo. Mark meets her when Bozeman picks him up in his jeep, and Ms. Macy is in the passenger’s seat. Mark is struck by her beauty and glamor, and she is described as being like “a meteor crashed from another part of the solar system” (p. 201). Bozeman takes Mark and Ms. Macy to a luxury hotel, where Ms. Macy reveals that she is in Fort Wanton because “Manhattan is going to be the site of the next summit” of world elites (p. 207). While she initially espouses a sense of hopefulness in the future, she later admits to the flawed nature of the government in Buffalo and declares that instead of rescuing Zone One, “those pricks are probably trying to figure out which island in the Bahamas to settle on” (p. 311).
Taylor
Taylor was the leader of a community of survivors where Mim lived before meeting Mark. The community camped out at a mansion called Willoughby Manor where Taylor’s father used to work as a gardener. He is described as dressing like “biker-club muscle” despite being “a very sweet soul” (p. 151). The community at Willoughby is destroyed after someone named Abel opens the gates to the compound, allowing skels to enter “like wedding guests looking for cocktails after the ceremony” (p. 154). Taylor’s fate after this incident is unknown.
Neil Herkimer
Neil Herkimer is a psychotherapist who coined the term “Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder”–or PASD–to describe the various physical and psychological symptoms experienced by those who survived the apocalyptic. Before the apocalypse, Herkimer had become famous after writing a series of self-help books using “The Herkimer Solution to Human Unhappiness.” He never appears directly in the narrative, but he is presented as something of an opportunist and perhaps unreliable.
Uncle Lloyd
Mark’s Uncle Lloyd appears in a flashback at the beginning of the book. Mark fondly remembers visiting his Uncle’s apartment in downtown Manhattan and marveling at all “the latest permutations in home entertainment” owned by his Uncle (p. 4). Mark would also stare out of his apartment windows and dream of one day moving to the City. As a sweeper in Zone One, Mark often stares at his Uncle’s apartment building and wonders what happened to him.
Mark's Mother and Father
While little is revealed about Mark's parents, they are depicted in a loving manner. In the opening scene of the novel, they take Mark to visit New York City and pose for photos at museums and outside Broadway shows. When he is a child, Mark walks into his bedroom and sees his mother performing oral sex on his father. He connects this image to the sight of his zombified mother bent over his father “gnawing away with ecstatic fervor on a flap of his intestine" (p. 87-88).
Kyle
Kyle is Mark's friend. They were together at a casino in Atlantic City, unaware that the plague was rapidly spreading. On the way back to Long Island, they notice an unusual amount of traffic but assume it's just the rush of everyone returning at the end of the weekend. Kyle drops Mark off at his house and the two never see each other again.
Gina Speers
Gina Speers is a former adult film actress from Italian who became a celebrity as a result of her "stunts in a series of action sequences throughout Italy's contests against the dead" (p. 52). Due to her heroism, she becomes an influential part of Italy's government. Posters of Gina are printed and distributed across the world to help boost the mood of survivors.
Annie and Lily
Annie and Lily appear only briefly in the novel. They work together in the Disposal unit of Zone One, where they deal with the bodies of stragglers left by the sweepers.
Bozeman
Bozeman is “Wonton’s top military clerk” (201). Like Mark, he is from Long Island, though little else about his character is revealed. He is with Mark when the wall around Zone One collapses. After Mark hops off the truck that Bozeman is driving to escape from the skels, he hears the truck crash in the distance. Bozeman's fate is left unknown.
The Smiths
Mark's meeting with the Smith family is described near the end of the novel. He meets them in an abandoned hotel and they stay together for two days. On their final night together, they ask Mark to take a photograph of them and they take a photograph of him in return. The following morning, they leave the hotel mere hours before it is ransacked by bandits who kill and torture the remaining residents.
