Girl and Her Dog

Characters from a story I’ve written, combining the genres of post-apocalyptic fiction, alien invasion, and spaghetti western.  Okay, she’s not really a girl, she’s about nineteen, probably.  The title right now is just referencing the cult post-apocalypse film ‘A Boy & His Dog’, where the fallout from nuclear war seems to have given some people the ability to telepathically communicate with their pets.

The girl here can’t do that.  She’s mute, due to a neck injury she sustained when she was younger and a lack of surgeons, and can only communicate through gestures (although when possible, she can write).  She never tells her name, so other characters give her nicknames like ‘Blue’, on account of her blue eyes and the duster she usually wears.  Another character later names the dog ‘Rafe’.  Otherwise, not much is known about her in the beginning, except that she was probably born shortly after the invasion and has spent many years wandering and surviving in the wilderness, where she came across Rafe.

As well as her rifle, she also typically carries a six round revolver in a holster.  She’s learnt a number of martial arts and survival techniques just from studying old books and manuals.