Jake Klimavicius

"'I had an idea… we should each pick a song… something we’d want to play at our funerals… we’re all gonna die, eventually… but if we think about it like that… I don’t know, it’s kind of… peaceful…'""- Jake Klimavicius, proposing his dirge project in Life After: The Void"Jakub Rafael "Jake" Klimavicius is a minor character in the Life After novels.

A high school freshman, Jake is participating in his first marching band competition at Thomas Massey high school just before the zombie apocalypse begins. Jake follows Jeff Grey when he sees him grab Julia Marino in the midst of the chaos, kicking off the events of Life After: The Arising.

Appearance and Character
Jake is skinny with short brown hair, cobalt eyes, fair skin, and is below average height. He dresses in loose clothing that give him the affect of a skater, but it's not an aesthetic he intentionally cultivates. Before the arrival of Elena Mursak, Jake is easily the youngest member of the group.

Jake is nervous, perceptive, withdrawn, and emotionally volatile, yet extremely eager to learn and better himself. He's among the quietest of the group on the first night, but by the following dawn, he tearfully attempts to fight his way back outside, accusing Jeff of not caring about anyone else but Julia. Though Jeff successfully placates him and Jake quickly warms to helping Jeff gather supplies, Jake's observation isn't entirely wrong: throughout much of the narrative, Jeff only engages Jake briefly and glancingly, inadvertently pushing him more toward Rich McKnight, John Anderson, and, later, Melody Landon. When the two finally converse at length, Jake annoys Jeff so thoroughly that Jeff ends up destroying a bathroom stall.

It's only after a few months that Jake truly allows his deep-seated disdain for Jeff to show; whereas he was once twitchy, docile, and retiring, by the events of Life After: The Void, he becomes snarky, sarcastic, and ultimately belligerent, though not without good cause. This contrast is clear whenever Jake associates with Rich and Anderson, both of whom he regards with a great deal of respect and deference. Even when he and Jeff appear to bury the hatchet, Jeff continues to prioritize his immediate friends and group leaders above him.

History
Born between November 21st and December 21st in 1989 to Rachel, a pharmaceutical representative, and Adam, a graphic designer, Jake was raised in Windermere, Florida alongside his younger brother David. Like Jeff, Jake had a fairly idyllic upbringing until his mother's career necessitated a move that ultimately broke the family apart. After a few years in Meraux, Louisiana, Adam and Rachel divorced and agreed to split custody; Adam would take David and move back to Windermere, while Rachel would take Jake and move to Ogden, North Carolina. Neither Jake nor his mother particularly liked Ogden, so they moved to Winston-Salem, a placement both of them enjoyed much better. Unfortunately, they would be on the move again shortly thereafter, this time to Darien, Connecticut; Rachel was terrified to tell Jake, but found him surprisingly receptive, since the advent of AIM had allowed him to stay in touch with both his brother and his friends, allowing him to enjoy the frequent relocations.

While the move to Darien proved advantageous for Rachel, it was less fruitful for Jake, who made few friends and was growing sullen as a result. When he told her how he felt, Rachel decided to make a career change, uproot, and settle in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania the summer before Jake would begin middle school; the location was deemed ideal for many reasons, not the least of which that Jake's father and brother had recently relocated to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, making family reunions far easier. For Jake, the most monumental event of this move would occur at Langstoon Chase middle school, where he would first meet Julia. On one particular day, when Julia was sitting in on his art class, the teacher put one of Jake's projects up in front of the class and began to criticize it, much to Jake's horror, but Julia, who was two years above him, defended his work so successfully that the teacher never raised the subject again. It was at this point that Jake fell in love with Julia; when he discovered she played brass in the school band, he immediately told his mother he wanted to join and took up trombone.

Even though he knew Julia was about to graduate, Jake was heartened by the fact that he would have two whole years with her in the high school marching band, which meant endless practices, football games, and competitions together. While this dream remained nascent, Jake made some friends and managed to integrate with his classmates, culminating with Kate Manning asking him to the Sadie Hawkins dance in eighth grade. He agrees, and they have fun, but Jake determines to remain single when he enters high school.

In his first band camp as a freshman, Jake takes every chance he can to chat up Julia, who barely remembers him. Thanks to Kate, who has also joined band and is friends with Julia's younger sister Netta, Jake discovers that Julia is dating Jeff, leaving him despondent. Ironically, through this same channel, Julia gets Netta to set Jake up with Kate, a courtship to which he reluctantly agrees. As a result, he feels remorseful that he's dating Kate despite being in love with Julia, and angry at Jeff, whom he's never met. His rage festers as he rubs elbows with Ava Vaziri, whose considerable experience with Jeff has filled her with tangible disdain.

Life After: The Arising
While Jake is excited to participate in his first-ever marching band competition on home turf, he is perturbed by the presence of Jeff and heartbroken by how seemingly in love with him Julia is. Once the band takes the field, Jake is among the first to see Jeff rushing into formation, shouting at him as he grabs Julia and runs for it; though he has no idea what's going on, he immediately follows Jeff because he's carrying Julia, going so far as to ignore Kate's cries for help. Jeff leads a small crowd to the green house on the high school roof as chaos erupts in the football stadium and surrounding parking lot. Once settled, Jeff explains the grim possibilities of their situation, drawing the ire of Melody and impetuous sophomore Matt Hughes while finding some support for his plan to stay put in Ava, John "John Squared" Johnston, and Rich. Jake and senior Don Mason say little, but ultimately agree to spend the night. During the course of the evening, they are joined by Steve Parmacek, a student from out of town who was injured by one of the zombies. As a precaution, Jeff insists they restrain him before trying to sleep.

By morning, Matt has disappeared and Steve has turned into a zombie, confirming Jeff's suspicions about their predicament. Jake tries to leave as well, taking out his frustration on Jeff while failing to acknowledge his own remorse about having left Kate behind. After Jeff talks him out of it, Jake helps him gather supplies. They tune into a radio broadcast, discovering that the zombies are believed to be protesters, but the town is nevertheless quarantined. Over the next few hours, Jeff attempts to mitigate a burgeoning conflict between Ava and Melody while the group establishes a rotation to watch the main road in front of the school. After one such rotation, Jeff accompanies Don to the downstairs bathroom; Jeff returns in haste, telling the group he had to kill Don before he himself succumbs to an asthma attack.

Once Jeff has recuperated, the group is miraculously stumbled upon by Jeff's best friend Anderson, a specialist in the Pennsylvania National Guard. Having found them, Anderson's next goal is to lead the group to the nearest check point and reattach with the Guard once he gets some sleep. In the intervening hours, Jake and Anderson get acquainted, while Rich elaborates on an earlier criticism of Jeff's leadership skills and indicates that he'd prefer to take orders from Anderson. This inadvertently leads to feud between Melody and Ava exploding into a shouting match that ends with Jeff and Ava diving into an ugly fight over Julia.

That evening, a throng of undead sieges TMHS, splitting the group in half as they scramble for an escape; Jeff, Julia, Melody, and John Squared go one way while Anderson, Jake, Ava, and Rich go another. A chase across the roof leads Anderson's quartet through the auditorium roof access, where his group is set upon by the undead and Ava is killed. Anderson, Jake, and Rich finally escape from the high school, linking up with Jeff, Julia, and Melody, who were forced to leave John Squared behind.

They drive first to the nearest major thoroughfare, finding that both lanes headed toward the nearest check point at I-476 are blocked with a line of abandoned vehicles, so they divert to the police station in the neighboring town of Broomall, which was supposed to be a rescue center but seems to have been recently abandoned under unsettling circumstances. Against Anderson's initial protests, Jake joins him and Jeff at a local sporting goods store to arm themselves and acquire a district school bus to unburden themselves from travel in Jeff's two-door sedan.

They arrive at the check point shortly before dawn, finding a massacre. An errant vehicle trying to merge on the interchange is stopped by the few remaining undead, so Jeff and Anderson rescue the occupant, former nurse Karen DeMarco. The group resupplies at a local supermarket and stops by Jeff's house before beginning a trek to the Lima Mall, the last known local rescue center. Their trip is interrupted when they have to clear the barricades at the Springton Reservoir check point; as a result, the group spends the night at the Delaware County Community College, where an overnight attack by the undead reveals another small group of survivors holed up in the complex. The next day, Jeff and his compatriots continue to the mall. When they arrive at yet another deserted rescue center, Anderson abandons his attempts to reconnect with the Guard and ratifies a previously suggested three-way leadership platform of himself, Jeff, and Rich. The group spends the night at the mall pending their next move, but when the mall is riddled with zombies the following day, the group hurriedly exits and decides to loot a nearby hospital for medical supplies.

The hospital mission goes well until Julia is badly cut by an errant swipe from a zombie with a scalpel wedged in its fist; having apparently committed suicide with the same instrument, the zombie's blood gets in Julia's open wound. Julia quickly resigns herself to her fate and asks to be rendered unconscious, sharing one last tender moment with Jeff before being executed by Rich. Under Anderson's direction, Jeff is locked up in a room by himself, leaving Anderson and Rich to oversee the elimination of a brief incursion by the undead with Jake's help.

By the next day, Jeff is a shell of a man, so Anderson and Rich take control, deciding to abandon the hospital and return to Newtown Square; at this point, Rich agrees to teach Anderson how to drive the bus while Anderson agrees to teach Rich how to shoot a scoped rifle. When Jeff regains some of his senses, he suggests that the group fortify TMHS to survive the worst of the crisis, bedding down in the nearby community center to avoid working and sleeping in the same place.

While scouting the community center, Jeff and Anderson find the body of a young girl who apparently committed suicide, and soon thereafter, they cross paths with Robert Proctor, a disoriented loner. Once the building has been cleared, Anderson takes part of the group out to acquire more supplies while Jake, Jeff, and Melody remain behind. With everyone else gone, Jake ends up engaging Jeff in a conversation about Julia, where a misunderstanding drawn from the contextual use of certain terms explodes into a war of words that sees Jeff run off and destroy a bathroom stall. He rejoins a perturbed Jake, who attempts to placate the situation by sharing an anecdote about Julia, much to Jeff's relief.

A survey of TMHS the following day yields the discovery that the zombified Steve has remained untouched in the greenhouse, and not only do they find the zombie of John Squared, they also discover the resurrected corpse of Matt Hughes in the basement, believing that he may have led the siege back to them after his ill-conceived exodus. Once they've dispatched all of the remaining zombies within the building, the group returns to the community center, where Karen cremates Julia's body in an old kiln. The next day is spent using the abandoned cars around TMHS to barricade the major egresses. When they return to the community center, an ethical and spiritual debate erupts between Rob, Rich, and Anderson, with Jake and Jeff remaining largely on the sidelines. The work continues the next day, with most of the time spent improving internal fortifications.

A news report later in the evening suggests that the epidemic has spread to Europe, but a more pressing concern develops when Jeff finds Rob injecting drugs. An improvised intervention goes south and Rob nearly murders Jeff with his own rifle. With Rob isolated from the rest of the group, they continue working on TMHS the next day, culminating with Jeff and Anderson going to survey the football field and finding their friend Colin Mursak holed up in the concession hut. While pleased to see his friends, Mursak's first and only concern is that his younger sister Elena is still at home with his mom and dad, so Jeff, Anderson, and Mursak undertake a dangerous journey to Havertown that leads to the successful rescue of Mursak's sister.

An evening news report confirms what Jeff and Anderson intuited from several earlier encounters with the undead: the first wave that left Newtown Square a week prior has grown and is set to return to the area within the next few hours. The group prepares to spend one last night in the community center, but the building is besieged and the group splinters in the confusion. By the time Anderson marshals almost everybody out of the building, he realizes that Jeff is missing and gets Mursak to follow him back inside for a rescue mission, ultimately finding him fighting the undead hand-to-hand on the roof. They escape to TMHS with rest of the group safely on the bus.

The group takes various positions around the high school to observe the approaching wave of zombies, but the undead seemingly take no interest in TMHS until a young woman runs screaming out of a house adjacent to the school. Anderson runs out to intercept her while Rich tries to lure the undead away using the bus.

Life After: The Void
Two months after the events of Life After: The Arising, Jeff, Anderson and Rich have settled their band of survivors into a new life at the freshly fortified high school, including a newly installed video surveillance system. While the group tensions seem to have largely abated into a realm of amicable mutual respect, the recently rescued Helen Cleary has bonded with Anderson while remaining passively at odds with Jeff, and their newest arrival, a psychology student discovered holding up in the otherwise abandoned Lima Mall named Althea Luangrath, largely keeps to herself.

Having spent several weeks cooped up in TMHS, Jeff proposes that he, Mursak, and Anderson travel to their former domiciles to collect computers and personal effects while scouting the surrounding region over Helen's strong objection. The plan to depart is solidified when Rich yields to his reservations, making their travel arrangements for the following day. Jeff, Anderson, and Mursak wake up early and hit the road, returning to TMHS intact several hours later. After putting his affairs in order, Jeff wanders to the courtyard in an effort to converse with Jake, who clearly wants nothing to do with him or his paltry attempts to make conversation. It's only once Jeff obliquely criticizes him that his passive animosity turns active, pointing out that Jeff only cares about his political power plays and who he sleeps with, implying a sexual relationship with Melody. The argument ends when the two join Anderson to put down an incursion on the front lawn.

Shortly thereafter, Jeff joins Anderson, Helen, and Melody for an early dinner in the cafeteria, but an underlying tension quickly boils to the surface, leading to a vicious verbal altercation; Jake listens in from outside the door until he's discovered, at which point he runs off. Later in the evening, when Jeff is out on the front lawn taking out a few errant zombies, he notices Melody and Jake smoking together on the roof of the auditorium. He spots them again when he goes to shower in the school gymnasium, this time standing in front of a set of doors leading out the side of the school.

Later that day, they land upon a news broadcast: the program describes the use of a nuclear weapon in continental Europe and goes on to detail ongoing rescue efforts by the military, militias, and paramilitary groups within the United States. Anderson and Rich quickly agree that they should advertise their presence for a rescue, but Jeff's impassioned rebuttal leads to the group agreeing to a tribunal where Rich will argue to leave, Jeff will argue to stay, Anderson will serve as a mediator, and the rest of the group will cast their vote for either Jeff or Rich's initiative. With the help of Colin, Melody, and Jake, Jeff's argument carries the day.

The next day, the group spot two people walking by the school, ultimately deciding to invite Tracy and Jimmy Dantis to spend the night. Karen takes Jimmy and Jeff privately welcomes Tracy, but she pulls a gun, makes an excuse to get away from him, and ultimately commits suicide in one of the bathrooms. A cursory examination of her body reveals that she'd been bitten by a zombie. Anderson and Jake ultimately remove Tracy's corpse. The following day Althea puts together an intervention for Jeff, hoping to extract an admission that he's not dealing with his grief and that his belligerence is only worsening. Though present, Jake is one of the few people to say nothing. Jeff lashes out and secludes himself in his room.

On Christmas Eve, the group hears the sound of helicopters overhead, heralding a military-backed scientific expedition to the cemetery. Once Anderson recognizes one of the scouts as an acquaintance from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, he meets the soldier outside in secret, keeping the conversation private before conveying to the rest of the group that they are to remain inside and keep quiet in order to avoid detection. The ruse is maintained for several hours, but potentially compromised when Jeff stumbles upon Melody and Jake seemingly having an intimate moment; Jake acknowledging this infuriates Melody, who dismisses both of them, walking away just as the helicopters take off.

Jake's rage finally boils over, leading him to take a swing at Jeff, who grapples Jake and briefly renders him unconscious. As Jake cries, Jeff finally sits down to try and understand his animosity. Jake starts by alluding to his jealousy over Jeff and Melody growing closer, but finally comes clean about his feelings for Julia. Rather than talk, Jeff tries to listen as Jake relays his guilt at following Julia inside while leaving Kate to die on field. When Jeff tries to cast the situation in a more positive light, Jake shuts him down by pointing out that Jeff not only helped him drag Kate's body to its final resting place in the pool, he made a joke when doing so. Jake accepts Jeff's apologies, and as the helicopters fly away, he mentions an idea he'd been considering: since the group starts each day with the specter of death lingering over their heads, Jake thinks each member should pick a song they'd want played at their funeral. Jake commences the first pick in his dirge project, proffering Deady's "This Goodnight".

Later, Helen announces a vehicle approaching from the street. Jeff, Anderson, and Jake scramble for reconnaissance, but when the approaching camouflaged men open fire, Anderson insists that they take arms and defend themselves. The result is a brutal firefight in which several of the intruders are killed, Anderson is rendered unconscious, and both Melody and Helen are abducted. Jeff immediately conscripts Rich and Mursak for a rescue effort while Karen is left in charge. Several hours later, the three return with Helen and Melody; while things have settled down at TMHS, Anderson remains in a comatose state. Rich ultimately details their rescue efforts to Jake.

The following day is Christmas, and the group celebrates with a large, elegant breakfast, during which Rob is introduced as having completed his rehabilitation. The group exchanges gifts, and with his best friend still unconscious, Jeff opens Anderson's present to find a framed picture of his family, something that causes Jeff to break down into tears. The entire group embraces him as he cries. Following the meal, the group takes stock of their supplies and Althea begins therapy sessions. Later, it is revealed that Jeff's friend Alan Taylor, who has his own group of people holding up in State College, Pennsylvania, is contending with a contaminated water supply. Jeff and Rich both quickly agree to the possibility of a rescue effort.

Following another incursion by the undead the following evening, where Jake, Jeff, and Mursak do most of the handiwork, the group watches a news broadcast where it is stated that wounds on the extremities, such as those suffered by Julia, may not be as fatal as initially thought. A further concern is raised when it becomes unclear whether the government will begin using nuclear weapons on American cities. Jeff clarifies the consequences of that action by showing the group The Day After.

Jeff is awakened the next morning to help Jake and Rich put down a small zombie incursion. Later in the afternoon, Jeff finds Rich to insist upon revisiting DCCC and rescuing Alan and Jack O'Connor. Finding Rich receptive, Jake and Anderson engage in target practice the following day before going with Jeff, Melody, and Karen to DCCC for a reconnoiter. While the scouting and scavenging aspect of their trip is successful, Anderson irritates Jeff and Mel with his tactical analyses. A significantly greater problem arises when it is revealed that Karen is sick; after debating what to do, they decide to stay put so as not to force her into action, but quickly find themselves in the midst of a zombie siege. After several close calls, and a long period of time in which Jake and Melody carry out a conversation in whispers, the group rests in a supply closet.

When enough time has passed, Anderson prepares the group to leave, using several Molotov cocktails as distractions. While the plan works initially, the sprinklers douse the group in freezing water, hampering their evacuation. Though they manage to escape without incident, they notice a gigantic complement of undead advancing on the freshly triggered alarm bells of DCCC. Once they return safely to TMHS, Rich reams Jeff for his failure to recognize Karen's illness, forcing Anderson to intercede before Jeff can assault Rich. The next day, Jeff visits Karen, who expresses little hope for a successful convalescence from what she believes to be influenza. That night, the group watch a celebratory broadcast in a secured Times Square.

On New Year's Day, the group indulges in another extravagant breakfast as they recount their resolutions. What would appear to be a minor siege from the undead turns serious when a few surviving runners attack, but the group maintains their composure and dispatches them. Once the corpses are deposited in the pool, Rich reveals that Karen has suggested some antiviral medications to combat her sickness. Anderson details a complex and infeasible plan to locate looters and trade supplies for the necessary drugs before Mursak reveals that he successfully acquired the medication at the Temple University Ambler health center. The group celebrates by getting drunk and goofing off.

The proceeding day begins with Rich coaxing a plan for their forthcoming attempt to rescue Jeff's acquaintances from State College, with Rob suggesting that they call the effort Operation Prometheus. Jeff and Rich spend the rest of the day planning for Operation Prometheus with Anderson, who is to remain behind; they amass supplies, plan routes, and accord a generous supply of automatic weapons and ammunition to the voyage north. After conferring with Alan the next day, it is ultimately decided that Jeff, Rich, Mel, and Althea will make the trip, leaving Anderson, Karen, Mursak, Jake, Rob, Elena, and Jimmy behind. Operation Prometheus commences at daybreak the following day; Jake is given the assignment of following their route if they don't return in a timely fashion.

By the early afternoon, the mob of undead spotted near the DCCC campus makes its way to TMHS, and Anderson is forced to implement defensive strategies with only Mursak and Jake to help. When the members of Operation Prometheus return later in the day, TMHS is in the throes of a debilitating siege. In short order, Jeff rallies the new arrivals to fight their way toward Anderson so he can apprise them of their forthcoming offensive; in short order, Jake briefly meets Nick Wilborn, the pale and heavyset loner he knows to have previously murdered another member of the PSU group, Lada Dragomirov, a sturdy Russian expatriate, Andy Kremens, a vaguely distrustful and soft-featured nerd, Levi Hazen, a fit and stone-faced black introvert, and Nancy Candler-Hollowell, a traumatized old-money outcast. While Anderson gives them the rundown, Rich drives off into the horde as a diversion.

The initial offensive goes quite well, with the unified group continuing to make progress against hundreds of attacking zombies, until a series of compounding setbacks results in a faltering defensive line, compelling Jeff toward a bold series of maneuvers that drags him further and further from the rest of the group. The ensuing combat gets close and tense as Jeff tries to fight his way back, and he nearly manages to get clear before his hand gets bitten. Rob yanks the katana from Jeff's belt and hacks off the affected appendage just before he's dragged inside.

A brief lull in the siege the following day allows the group an opportunity to withdraw; though the undead continue to build up around the TMHS perimeter and walls, Anderson assesses that their numbers are insufficient to threaten a breach. With Jeff unconscious, and Karen expressing doubts as to his survival, she and Anderson ultimately decide to give Jeff's possible recovery as much leeway as possible. Later, Nick and Andy suggest that killing Jeff is the smartest move. When Nick persists in his arguments, Anderson punches him out. Suspecting that Nick might attempt to kill Jeff in secret, Anderson delegates the defense of TMHS to Mursak and Jake, choosing instead to stake out Jeff's convalescence. Sure enough, Anderson catches Nick's attempt on Jeff's life and shoots him before he can carry it out.

The next day, Karen feels confident that Jeff won't turn, so she and Anderson wake him, with Anderson alleging that the fires at DCCC, the arrival of the Chinooks, and presence of the zombified Steve at TMHS might've somehow contributed to the volume of the ongoing siege.

Knowing that Jeff is out of the woods, Anderson returns to the fray with Jake, Mursak, Althea, and Andy, directing the group's attempts to halt or slow the onslaught of undead. Seemingly low on definitive strategy, Anderson drives a truck into the horde, laying on the horn and rolling out of the vehicle as it continues down the street while Jeff watches from a classroom in TMHS. Anderson throws a Molotov when the situation becomes more chaotic, and before long, he pops smoke, effectively admitting that fighting the horde in the street is futile, and that their last chance at survival means relying on the high school's largely untested defenses.