Robert Proctor

"'I can’t take back what I did… and it’s not something you can just… apologize for.'""- Rob Proctor, apologizing for his transgressions in Life After: The Void"Robert Kevin Septimus "Rob" Proctor is a minor character in the Life After novels.

A college sophomore, Rob is stumbled upon when Jeff Grey and John Anderson are sweeping the Gauntlett Center shortly after the beginning of the zombie apocalypse that begins with Life After: The Arising.

Appearance and Character
Rob is of average height and slightly overweight with bleary blue eyes and dirty blond hair. From the moment he encounters the group, several people register that he seems unwell and remark on the subject frequently, but Rob dismisses these concerns because he's concealing what would appear to be a heroin addiction.

Rob is reasonably intelligent, guarded, religious, and extremely emotionally volatile. While he clearly possesses an aptitude for partisan debate, his facility with restraint is severely compromised by his addiction, best exemplified by his murderous rage when Jeff discovers him shooting up and later attempted assaults on Karen DeMarco as she monitors his convalescence. As a result of his addiction, he finds little sympathy with Jeff, John Anderson, Rich McKnight, and Colin Mursak, the latter three having known drug addicts who color their perception of his personality.

Once he begins to rehabilitate, Rob seems far more docile, kind, and contrite, but due to their limited knowledge of his past, his abrupt change in temperament is considered dubious by the vast majority of his peers; his weapons, having been taken away after his attempt on Jeff's life, are given to Mursak in perpetuity.

Unlike most of the rest of the group, very little is known about Rob prior to his first appearance, though it is suspected that he had a hand in killing the young woman found dead in the Gauntlett Center.

History
Born between July 22nd and August 22nd in 1985 to Agatha, a florist, and Christopher, unemployed, Kevin was raised in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. The family endured a rocky, lower-middle class lifestyle that culminated with a divorce in 1997, at which point Christopher relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina. Robert would eventually attend Bishop Carrell high school in Springfield, Pennsylvania, thereafter taking religious studies courses at Delaware County Community College.

Life After: The Arising
According to Rob, he attended the marching band festival at Thomas Massey high school, jumping off the back of the bleachers and landing on a trailer before running for the exit. In a state of panic, he allegedly forgot about his car in the lot until he'd already made it to the street, at which point he noticed he was being followed by a young girl. They supposedly ran from the chaos together, and after holing up in the Gauntlett Center, the young girl gave him a gun. A day or so later, she disappeared.

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 Rob. He joins them for a survey of TMHS the following day, discovering that the zombified corpses of Steve Parmacek, John "John Squared" Johnston, and Matt Hughes. Once they've dispatched all of the remaining zombies, the group returns to the community center, where Karen cremates Julia Marino's body in an old kiln. The next day, Rob helps maneuver the abandoned cars at 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 Rob taking a traditional conservative religious tack to counter Rich's more progressive, anti-theist arguments.

A news report later in the evening suggests that the epidemic has spread to Europe, but a more pressing concern develops when Jeff catches Rob injecting drugs. An improvised intervention goes south and Rob nearly murders Jeff with his own rifle; when his effort fails, Jeff beats Rob senseless and threatens his life before excusing himself to single-handedly engages a throng of undead. 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 Mursak holed up in the concession hut. 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 and the demise of his infected parents.

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, possibly as a result of Rob's screaming withdrawal, the building is besieged and the group splinters in the confusion. The entire group manages to escape to TMHS on a stolen school bus.

While the group takes various positions around the high school to observe the approaching wave of zombies, Jeff entreats Karen to inject Rob with morphine so he stays quiet for the next several hours. 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. Rob's convalescence continues, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group. While Helen seems to dislike Jeff for his attitude about rescuing other survivors, she also seems to harbor a disdain for Rob that no one else can explain.

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 depart early and return safely later in the day, but shortly after their arrival, Jeff discovers that Rob has struck Karen and storms into the improvised medbay where he's been convalescing, insinuating an awareness that Rob killed the girl whose body they discovered in the Gauntlett Center.

Over the next several days, Rob remains ignorant of the comings and goings at TMHS until Helen announces a vehicle approaching from the street; when 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, leaving Karen in charge. The three men successfully return with their female counterparts later in the evening.

The following day is Christmas, and the group celebrates with a large, elegant breakfast, during which Rob is introduced as having completed his rehabilitation, though Jeff is unreceptive to his apologies. 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.

The next day, Rob alerts the group to a forthcoming 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.

Several days later, Jeff leads a splinter group to DCCC for a reconnoiter. Though they manage to escape without incident, they notice a gigantic complement of undead advancing on DCCC, and it is discovered that Karen is sick. The next day, Rob joins the group to watch a celebratory New Year's Eve broadcast in a secured Times Square, and at the stroke of midnight, Mel favors Jeff with a passionate kiss.

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 trying to coax some sort of plan regarding their forthcoming attempt to rescue Jeff's acquaintances from State College, with Rob suggesting that they call the effort Operation Prometheus. After conferring with Alan the next day, it is ultimately decided that Jeff, Rich, Mel, and Althea will make the trip.

At daybreak, Operation Prometheus officially gets underway, but 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. 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; while giving them the rundown, Rich drives off into the horde as a diversion. The unified group continues 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. Having fought his way to Jeff's aid, Rob yanks the katana from Jeff's belt and hacks off the affected appendage just before he's dragged inside, rendered unconscious, and has his wound cauterized; though Jeff's tactics resulted in a grievous injury, he managed to buy them enough time to fortify the defenses and start driving back the undead once again.

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.

The next day, Karen feels confident that Jeff won't turn, so she and Anderson wake him and inform him that, among other things, Rich has not returned or made contact following his diversion. After discovering that one of the new arrivals, Nick Wilborn, had made an attempt on his life which Anderson fatally neutralized, Jeff sluggishly traverses TMHS, ultimately running into Rob. The two engage in a bittersweet conversation where Rob admits to crippling Jeff and further apologizes for his past transgressions; Jeff alludes to the fate of the dead girl at the Gauntlett Center when he admits that he will never trust or forgive Rob, but acknowledges that he won't allow his distrust to affect their friendship. At this point, Rob proffers his pick for Jake Klimavicius' dirge project, Boston's Peace of Mind.