Judah Van Buren

Judah was born in 1983 to a decently well off family from Vermont, New England. Born and raised on the family farm, from an early age though he was fascinated by the tales of the sky and his grandfather's adventures as a fighter pilot during the second world war. When not helping out on the farm or studying hard, he was often dreaming of taking flight into that wide open sky, and dreams slowly became reality as his grandfather slowly taught him how to fly the farm's crop duster, eager to share a passion with the youngest scion of the family. That upbringing on the family ranch helped instill a lot of the traits and skills that would carry on to later life. How to handle a rifle to scare off and deal with Vermin and Predators lurking in the deep forests, how to fix an aging, dying motor for a tractor built by a nation that didnt exist anymore, it was a hard, but fair childhood.

By the time he had left High School, his passion remained, though with the advent of action movies that passion had drifted from planes, to Helicopters. Enrolling in a Flight School at 18, He graduated at the age of 20 as a fully certified Helicopter Pilot, and soon after marrying his childhood sweetheart in 1999.

What followed was a lucky case of Nepotism with WBLN News, hired on through contacts and friends of the family as a News Chopper Pilot across the United States. It wasn't an easy life, Despite the dreams. The money was good, that much was true, but long times away from Home resulted in marital strife, resulting in a messy, expensive divorce that nearly sent him back to stage 1 in 2006. Compounding on top of that, After his grandfather passed away in 2007, The family fought and squabbled over the inheritance, as per usual, and Judah cut ties to the rest of the family as it descended into rabid infighting and squandering. In 2008, a Hit and Run nearly grounded him and his career after a brutal car accident, only recovering to return back to work in January 2010, 8 Months before it all went to hell.

As the "eye in the sky", Judah was one of the first to see the Wildfire Virus in action, as even from above it was easy to tell that the so called 'riots' were anything but as the “rioters” ripped each other apart in bloodied frenzies. It wasn't until August however, when the Information blackout finally broke containment, and the virus began to spread like the whole world had gone mad. It only took two days for Society to go to hell in a handbasket, Trapped in Baton Rouge, ostensibly to cover the upcoming Mardi Gra that was looking with every second like an Alien Planet, Judah was going...Stir Crazy. God help him if he was going to ignore those screams and calls for help over the Radio, he had the tool damn it! Aint like no one else was using the bird. When he proposed his idea of rescuing folks to the local National Guard, instead of dismissing the idea out of hand, they embraced it in spite of the grounding order as the situation rapidly deteriorated. The Van Buren express, as it was dubbed, served as a rapid reaction force for an already overstretched National Guard.

Its amazing how far you can stretch a tank if you have a list of the local airports, even more is how most folks dont even figure about Aviation Fuel during the mad dash for gas. For about 7 days straight Judah did what he could, Rescuing survivors and supplies and bringing them back to Baton Rouge, It was poor luck and tiredness that finally did him in. On September 4th, After a harrowing close evacuation from a Hospital, One missed check for bites, one ignored borderline turning case, and the news chopper became write-off as it’s rescued survivors turned and began slaughtering each other, causing it crash into the Mississippi, North of Baton Rouge

Despite having managed to escape the wreck with his life, Judah clung to the wreckage as the dead crowded the banks of the river. After two straight days of clinging to the wreckage and kicking any ‘Deadite’ off the wreck and back into the water that managed to crawl aboard, It was only through the passing of the Zenith on September 6 was he rescued from a slow, painful death of starvation aboard the floating wreckage.

Despite Injury, Judah has remained chipper since being fished out of the river, though privately has a lot of concerns about where the hell they're going. In his mind they should be getting out of the river system and into open water. Nevertheless, he's doing what he can to help keep the ship running, what little he can help with at any rate.