Julia Marino

"“Here’s to the next toast, and a hundred more after that. Here’s to spending every moment at each other’s side. Here’s to never worrying about money, work, or school… here’s to making love the most important thing. And here’s to never giving up on each other.”""- Julia Marino, toasting Jeff Grey in Life After: The Arising"Julia Sofia "Jules" Marino is a major character in the Life After novels.

A high school senior, Julia is dating Jeff Grey when she partakes in a marching competition at Thomas Massey during the beginning of the zombie apocalypse that kicks off the events of Life After: The Arising.

Appearance and Character
Julia is short-haired, skinny, 5'5" tall, and impressively curvy with big brown eyes, braces, and an eclectic fashion sense. She plays French horn in the TMHS Monarch marching band and cultivates various artistic endeavors, including drawing, painting, photography, and poetry, ultimately being perceived as artsy, enigmatic, and vivacious by her classmates.

Though Julia seems to possess an almost effervescent energy, she is also remarkably shy; she seldom shares herself with others, best evidenced when she sparingly interjects during the group's initial conversations in the greenhouse, only to proffer an incisive analysis on their situation to Jeff alone. This action amply demonstrates that, moreso than the rest of her peers, Julia is perceptive, subtle, and circumscribed in her words and actions.

Despite her quixotic charms, Julia's coyness actually conceals her crippling timidity; she struggles with her own self-confidence, leaning on friends and loved ones to guide her and retreating to a sphinx-like façade when she feels particularly vulnerable or indecisive. These tendencies ultimately have a profound effect on her friendship with Ava Vaziri and relationship with Jeff, where the former casts aspersions on the latter, leading to a melancholy separation from which the three emerge having resolved almost nothing.

Regardless of these shortcomings, Julia is an optimist at heart, occasionally finding herself capable of bold, assertive, and romantic gestures, particularly when confronted with the grim possibilities of an apocalypse; she capably takes to utilizing a firearm, skirmishes vigorously with the undead, and meticulously plans a passionate rendezvous with Jeff, fully embracing the notion that their lives have been altered for the better because they can live for each other rather than what society once expected of them.

History
Born between February 19th and March 20th in 1988 to Liana and Dario, Julia was raised in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania alongside her older sister Leora and younger sister Netta. While her parents enjoyed a healthy relationship, and the three girls never wanted for anything, Julia had always suspected the reason for their family size was a combination of her father's unacknowledged desire for a son, stanched by his fear of only being able to produce daughters.

From a young age, Julia detected that her parents weren't particularly interested in her artistic endeavors. As the middle child, she felt particularly antagonized despite the fact that Leora always appeared to be the black sheep, doing poorly in school and constantly getting into trouble. Julia felt more of a kinship with Netta, doing her best to nurture her natural talent in photography, something with which Julia struggled. Julia befriends Ava at Langstoon Chase middle school, but her best friend is Natalie Alsworth; the two of them share a journal, giving it back and forth to write entries, draw pictures, and compose poetry. In the year prior to graduation, she took a study hall in a 6th grade art class that included Jake Klimavicius.

From the first time she saw Jeff in August of 2002, she was taken with him; unlike many of the men Julia befriended, Jeff did not seem to be immediately infatuated with her, giving her time and space to explore his intelligence, creativity, and maturity, while Jeff remained oblivious to her silent affections. Julia took part in stage crew on one the plays in which Jeff acted, resulting in a backstage conversation where Jeff was describing a situation in which he kissed a girl and Julia admitted that she had never been kissed. She later admitted in an online conversation that she wanted Jeff to be the first person to kiss her. When he eventually asked her to the senior prom, she enthusiastically agreed, and they kissed for the first time later that night.

Julia and Jeff never officially asked one another out, but they both generally accepted that they were dating. Jeff, having just graduated, would come home every weekend to spend time with her. Though Julia's friends didn’t mind Jeff's presence at first, they eventually came to resent his frequent appearances and Julia's apparent fixation on him. Under the direction of Ava, Julia's friends decided to convince her that Jeff was souring their friendship. Stirred by Ava's passion, Julia started giving Jeff the cold shoulder in June of 2004, resulting in Jeff spending two months doing everything in his power to convince Julia to take him back.

While initially determined to spurn him indefinitely, Julia became too heartbroken to continue consciously hurting Jeff and began working toward building good will between the two of them, but right at the beginning of this process, Jeff makes out with another girl at Drew Rusciotto's condo in Wildwood. Jeff tells Julia about it as soon as they're back together, but when Julia informs Ava, she instructs Julia to end it with Jeff right then and there. The two have an uncomfortably tense argument on the subject, where Ava's curt, insensitive personality finally bubbles over, leading her to insist that Jeff never had Julia's best interests at heart. Julia, in turn, insists that it was Ava who failed to heed her best interests from the beginning of this episode, and that Jeff shouldn't be expected to remain a saint when she wasn't even speaking with him. Natalie supported Julia throughout this process, ultimately losing favor with Ava. When Jeff and Julia officially got back together in August of 2004, they forgive each other unequivocally, but Jeff goes the extra mile of telling her that she could never do something like that to him again.

With their relationship healed, Julia attends the summer's band camp, where Jake reconnects with her; she immediately senses his infatuation and does her best to remain polite until she discovers, through her younger sister, that Netta's friend Kate Manning has a crush on him. She immediately gets Netta to set them up, hoping that will both make him happy and lessen his affections.

Life After: The Arising
Although Julia anticipated that Jeff would likely join her for the Thomas Massey high school Bandrome marching festival, Jeff manages to sneak up on her before she has to join the rest of the band in warming up. In their brief window together, Julia offers to give Jeff a back massage while the two talk of their recent education experiences and lament that their mutual friend John Anderson is absent from the proceedings due to weekend duty with the Pennsylvania National Guard.

TMHS takes the field at approximately 9:00pm, and much to Julia's shock, she spots Jeff rushing the gridiron, only to sweep her off her feet and carry her several yards before she fights to get down and run on her own. While she quickly sees that the stadium is descending into chaos, she doesn't bother to ask questions, instead following Jeff as he leads them through the tennis courts to the parking lot, then finally into the bowels of TMHS, where they first encounter Richard McKnight, a local vagrant squatting in one of the school's alleys. Jeff continues up to the green house on the high school as the panic in the stadium erupts into the parking lot.

Once settled, Jeff describes the incident as zombie-related, drawing the ire of erstwhile high school queen bee Melody Landon and Julia's impetuous younger classmate Matt Hughes while finding some support for his plan to stay put in Julia's fellow juniors Ava and John "John Squared" Johnston along with Richard. The remaining survivors, senior Don Mason and freshman Jake Klimavicius, say very little, but at Jeff's direction, the group ultimately agrees to spend the night though Julia says very little. Shortly thereafter, while Julia and Jeff are shoring their defenses, they are run into 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. Before they sleep next to each other for the first time, Jeff asks for Julia's assessment of the situation, and she astonishes him with a meticulous plan for the following day, quietly suggesting that the group wouldn't listen to her, but they'd listen to Jeff.

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, but is talked out of it. The group splits up to gather supplies, listening to the radio once they reconvene. They learn that the zombies are believed to be protesters, but the town is nevertheless quarantined. Before they move on to their next assignment, Richard thanks Jeff for inviting him to join the group and insists that Julia hang on to him. Once they've gathered weapons, a helicopter flies overhead, but the group's attempts to signal it fail. Jeff then gets Julia to assist him in conducting an experiment to see if the undead are drawn more to sounds or smells. After which, Julia suggests that the group hang their band uniforms over the Thomas Massey high school sign perched above the front of the building, using them to write a message to onlookers.

After establishing Julia's suggested roof rotation, the third shift sees Melody request to join Jeff. When Melody returns early, Julia goes out to see what happened, finding Jeff sheepishly admitting that Melody kissed him, but he stopped her before she could seduce him further. Julia calmly accepts his explanation, and although the two kiss and Jeff stumbles through telling her how much she means to him, Julia insists that he tastes like an ashtray and needs to brush his teeth. They return inside when their shift is done, nap, and then take yet another shift together. Once out on the roof together, the two hear a barrage of automatic gunfire in the distance. Embracing the gravity of the situation, Julia acknowledges that, despite their future plans having been permanently disrupted by catastrophe, she's glad that it means the two of them can be together, passionately vowing that she wishes to stay with Jeff forever.

When they return from roof duty, Jeff accompanies Don to the downstairs bathroom. A short while later, Jeff returns without Don and succumbs to the throes of an asthma attack, eventually passing out. Julia sleeps next to him, and when she awakens, finds Jeff re-entering the greenhouse with the news that someone is coming in off the street. To everyone's immense surprise, it's Anderson. Once he's introduced to the group, he and Jeff take turns showering in one of the science rooms, after which Julia is shocked to finally hear that Jeff had to kill Don, but receives little additional explanation. Shortly thereafter, Anderson goes to sleep, and in a brief ensuing conversations between the two, Melody discovers that Jeff and Julia had never slept together before. She tries to mock them, but Jeff shuts her down. As Jeff takes his next roof rotation with John Squared, Julia and Ava get showers.

When they all reconvene in the greenhouse, Jeff suggests they do away with the rotation, prompting Rich to challenge Jeff's apparent leadership of the group by insisting that Anderson should be in charge. Jeff tries to avoid acknowledging as much by finally apprising the group of Anderson's next plan: lead the group to the nearest check point and reattach with the Guard. The disagreement ends amicably when Rich decides to resume the roof rotation, but his departure results in Ava's tactless attitude finally getting a rise out of Jeff. The two then launch into a long, brutal, ugly fight where the two criticize each other's personalities, elevating to shouting by the time Ava dredges up Julia and Jeff's separation. Julia, who is sitting right next to Jeff throughout the argument, is too horrified to interject as these long unspoken hostilities are finally aired.

The argument ends when Ava leaves the room, at which point Jeff and Julia commiserate over the situation, further strengthening their bond, although their conversation abruptly stops when Julia asks Jeff if he needs to talk about Don's death, and Jeff says he is indifferent. Shortly thereafter, they fall asleep together, and by the time Jeff awakens, Julia and Ava have had a long talk, after which Ava apologizes to Jeff. The group then seems to settle in to more natural groove, listening to the radio and, for the most part, calmly discussing their upcoming sojourn.

However, a throng of undead sieges TMHS later that evening, 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 Jeff's quartet through the ceiling of the gym and into the belly of the school, and they nearly make it out together before John Squared is killed. Melody and Julia follow Jeff out to his car and they circle the driveway until they spot the second half of the group. Anderson, Jake, and Rich get in the car without Ava, at which point both Julia and Jeff begin sobbing.

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, they stop to acquire a district school bus to unburden themselves from travel in Jeff's two-door sedan and spark to the idea of visiting the local sporting goods store for firearms. Julia remains behind at the bus station with Rich and Melody, where Julia conspires to trick Jeff into thinking she's been bitten. Returning from the gun store, Jeff is deeply disturbed by Julia's joke. When he expresses this, Julia quietly weeps and swears to never do it again. Melody expresses alarm that Jeff didn't hit her.

The group departs in the bus shortly before dawn, arriving at the check point to find 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, where the group has a chance to shower and change their clothes. In the midst of this, Jeff and Julia get a chance to lay in his bed together, something they'd never previously had a chance to do. Once they've collected some additional supplies, they begin their trek to the Lima Mall, the last known local rescue center, but their trip is interrupted when they have to clear the barricades at the Springton Reservoir check point.

The group ends up spending the night at the Delaware County Community College, where, following dinner, Jeff and Julia get a chance to make out, and possibly more. Later in the evening, Jeff and Melody are attacked by the undead, revealing another small group of survivors holed up in the complex. The next day, following a stern lecture from Jeff concerning how deeply they must distrust strangers going forward, the group continues to the mall. They arrive to find themselves in yet another deserted rescue center, thereafter dispersing to gather supplies and prepare to spend the night. Julia enlists Karen's help in preparing a surprise for Jeff later in the evening, getting to know her better than anyone else in the group in the process. While everyone else goes to sleep in one of the stores, Julia absconds with Jeff, taking him elsewhere in the mall for a private dinner, after which they become more intimate than ever before, rejoining the group several hours later.

Julia awakens Jeff in the midst of a nightmare the following morning, and shortly thereafter find the mall riddled with zombies. The group hurriedly exits and decides to loot a nearby hospital for medical supplies, splitting up to scour the hospital with no clear plan of where they might go next. Julia finds a door locked from within, calling for Jeff's help, but opening the door leads to blind swipe from the blood-covered scalpel in the death grip of a zombified suicide victim, slicing open Julia's arm. Jeff and Julia seem to resign themselves to her fate instantly, dissolving into a puddle of grief and passing out. Later, they both awaken and Julia makes the particulars of her impending death clear. They spend their last moments in tearful valediction, after which Julia and Jeff are blindfolded and separated. Julia is led away, drugged, and shot in the head by Rich.

Jeff hears the shot and instantly knows she's dead, spending the rest of the night agonizing in grief and believing himself to have a conversation with her in the afterlife. Later, as they depart the hospital, he imagines speaking with her yet again. Throughout the next few days, Jeff numbly goes along with the group, paralyzed by his agony.

Within a week, Jeff tasks Karen with cremating Julia in the kiln of the Gauntlett Center while the group plans to fortify the high school. Though Jeff tries to avoid the ritual, he ends up on the roof of the school, where he smells her burning and ends up crying so hard he passes out. The following day, Karen presents Jeff with Julia's ashes in a jar.

Several days later, when Jeff is contemplating suicide during the siege of the Gauntlett Center, he supposes that he'll be joining Julia in the afterlife, but fails to hear her voice in his head. He ultimately decides to fight and manages to be saved by Anderson and Mursak.

Life After: The Void
Two months after the events of Life After: The Arising, Jeff has a dream that Julia is still alive, thereafter recording that, though he misses her greatly, his melancholy has abated. Nevertheless, she remains in his thoughts for the remainder of the day, culminating in Jeff's belief that his teenage love for her will remain evergreen, lingering and growing like a legend as he ages.

The following day, an expedition to Temple University allows Jeff to claim a prom photo of himself and Julia. On the trip back, Mursak indirectly scolds Jeff for Julia's death, prompting Jeff to threaten his life. Later, when talking with Althea Luangrath, Jeff brings up his grief over Julia, but Althea insinuates that there was nothing Jeff could've done to save her and he must stop blaming himself.

Having reacquired his cell phone, Jeff listens to a voicemail message from Julia's mom the night of the arising. A few days later, in the throes of a political discord serious enough to require an informal hearing in which Jeff and Rich must plead their cases before the rest of the group with Anderson serving as the judge, Rich makes a blindfold so that Anderson can't receive signals from his new girlfriend Helen Cleary; the act triggers Jeff's PTSD.

A week later, Jeff has a fight with Jake and discovers that Jake was infatuated with Julia and always hated Jeff as a result. Not long after, Jeff reconciles a fight with Melody by telling her about the episode in which he cheated on Julia.

Sometime afterward, the group watches a news broadcast in which it is revealed that those suffering cuts from the undead have a better chance at survival than originally believed, filling Jeff with horror over the choice to execute Julia. Days later, as Jeff begins to draw closer to Melody, he considers that his feelings toward her have been allowed to blossom only as a result of Julia's death. He tries once again to produce a conversation with her in his head to no avail. Jeff has the same thought a few days later when he wakes up with Melody draped over him. Later, while the two are conversing, Jeff admits to Melody that he'd have taken the slice that felled Julia if he could.

Several days later, as Jeff recovers from having lost his hand, he has several hallucinations featuring Julia, seeming to perceive his fixation on the undead following her demise as an empty reckoning.