Ethan Beckett

**Post-Outbreak**

* Leader of his group

**Ethan Beckett** is a main character and a survivor of the outbreak in *Black Blood*. A disgraced former professional baseball player, he finds a new purpose in protecting his family in the midst of a prion outbreak.

## Biography

### Pre-Outbreak

Ethan Beckett was born in 1994, the second child of Joel and Sharon Beckett, in Baltimore, Maryland. Tragedy struck the Beckett family when Sharon died giving birth to her third child, Clyde, when Ethan was just four. Although their father never remarried, Ethan and his brothers grew close to his long-term partner, Sophie.

Like his elder brother Sam, Ethan quickly developed a fondness for sports of all kinds, particularly, to his father's delight, baseball, for which he had a natural talent. However, mostly due to his brother's influence, Ethan enlisted in the U.S. army and underwent basic training, only to ultimately leave before graduation and take up baseball professionally; this greatly strained Ethan's relationship with Sam.

By the time he was twenty-eight, Ethan had become an all-star player for a baseball team in California. His reputation was that of a strong all-round player, excelling in every position from batting to fielding. He became a national celebrity for a home run that won his team the World Series, and appeared on talk shows across the nation. During one of his home visits, he began dating a nurse named Marzia Gallo and convinced her to move with him to Baltimore, which he still considered his home. Shortly after the move, his stepmother Sophie died of cancer.

Ethan's reputation was forever tarnished when, in the early 2020s, he admitted to using performance enhancers during the latter stages of his career, while also claiming that his World Series run was accomplished without using PEDS. He was ejected from his team, mocked by pundits and managers alike, and forced to move back in with his father and aimless younger brother Clyde in Baltimore. His girlfriend Marzia, while not explicity ending their relationship, grew distant from him after she too was forced to leave their apartment and take a job in the local hospital.

Less than a month after Ethan moved back in, his father Joel developed Alzheimer's disease. Unable to afford a carer, Ethan and his brothers were forced to look after their father. While Sam dug into his military pension and Clyde mined cryptocurrency to pay for their dad's medical bills, Ethan, thanks to his tarnished reputation, was only able to get a job at Walmart. All seemed hopeless for their father until the Beckett family heard of a brand new drug called "anti-AZM", promoted as a revolutionary treatment for Alzheimer's.

### Post-Outbreak

#### New Purpose

In late 2023, Ellis Pharmaceutical released anti-AZM, a revoluntionary treatment for Alzheimer's that used a modified prion to repair damaged neurons. Joel Beckett, a long-time sufferer of the disease, was selected as one of the first receivers of the drug; his entire family, including Ethan, joined him at the hospital. Within an hour of receiving anti-AZM, however, Joel began twitching uncontrollably as his eyes went bloodshot. He begged his family to run before succumbing to animalistic insanity; in his rage, Joel bit his son Sam on the arm.

Ethan immediately rushed away to find a nurse, only to discover all the other Alzheimer's patients were displaying the same symptoms of aggression. Ethan saved his estranged girlfriend, nurse Marzia, from one of her infected colleagues, who had also been bitten by a patient. Upon returning to his brother, Sam begged Ethan to watch out for his children before succumbing to the infection and eating his wife Becky alive as she tried to help him. Ethan collected his niece and nephew, his girlfriend Marzia and his brother Clyde as they sprinted through the hospital, which was quickly being overwhelmed by the infected. They managed to reach Sam's truck and headed home; as they drove through Baltimore, they watched as people tried to flee from the infected, which resisted gunfire, climbed over cars and devoured victims in the streets. Their truck collided with another vehicle, flipping the truck onto its roof.

Ethan awoke minutes later to find Ben had climbed out of the wreckage; unfortunately, he had fallen into the arms of an infected, which had proceeded to devour him. Horrified, Ethan retrieved Sam's pistol from the glove compartment and killed the infected before getting everyone else out. Still far from home, they ran towards the home of a local prepper, Bill, who had built a bunker out of the belief of the country's inevitable collapse.

## Victims

* 1 unnamed U.S. army soldier
* 6 members of the Lobos motorcycle club
* Numerous counts of infected

## Relationships

	+ Joel Beckett - father †
	+ Sharon Beckett - mother †
	+ Sophie Beckett - stepmother †
	+ Sam Beckett - elder brother †
	+ Clyde Beckett - younger brother
	+ Charlotte Beckett - niece
	+ Ben Beckett - nephew †
* Baltimore, Maryland
	+ Marzia Gallow - girlfriend
	+ Bill - neighbour
* Tombaugh Centre
	+ Darren † - friend
* Howe's Wholesales
	+ Curtis †
* Pikesville
	+ Maryland State Police
		- Andrea Hudson - friend and saviour
	+ Ken Hyatt
	+ Billy Hyatt
	+ Sarah Hyatt †
	+ Hansen † - attempted executioner
* Lobos