For this round of the Survivor Profile
entries, I present to you one of the most lethal distance duos in our group.
Yep, these are our snipers. I’ll put ours up against yours any day of the week
and twice on Sunday…
Ashlynn
Bishop: I think
everyone knows a girl like Ashlynn. She is the girl that posts the crazy
pictures of her nights out in the club that inevitably involve duck face at one
point or another. I know for a fact that she has met at least two cast members
from the Jersey Shore when they were
on their club tours. But that his her weekend persona. I know I mentioned this
before but she worked as an accountant for a small insurance agency in Vinita.
I have to admit, when things were just
starting out and the walls were crashing down all around us, I really thought
Ashlynn might have been the first to consider checking out. Despite her 9-to-5
in that Vinita office, she talked regularly about camping and being outdoors.
She offset her office time during the week with time spent outdoors. Hunting,
fishing, softball, getting muddy… I think being stuck inside is one of the
biggest problems she has right now. Just being on the roof doesn’t cut it. But
with Ashlynn spending time on the roof, she was quick to display a pretty
impressive talent. She’s a really good shot. When sniper detail is needed on
the roof, I trust her to cover other members if they are in the parking lot.
I have seen Ashlynn work. And I do
mean work. When it came time to barricade the doors and lock this place down,
she was hustling or even outhustling the rest of us. She will toss around a
forty-pound bag a dog food with not a second thought. And she counterbalances
that work with music and dancing. Her and Kim seem to always be talking about
music and I think for her that is one of her escapes. She was so happy when
Janet suggested Dance Party Thursdays.
The only thing about Ashlynn that none
of us mention is her son. He was in Ketchum elementary during Zero Hour. I
don’t think I need to say any more… Way back when, we did a Survivor Guilt
Circle where we all got to talk about all the people that were left behind. She
only whispered about being a single mom. Some people can handle things. Others
handle things by not saying anything, just out of sight, out of mind. It is one
of those things where you can see the emotional knife wound that she has… So we
just don’t say anything.
Becca
Cason: You know that expression “Don’t judge a book by its
cover.” I don’t think that has ever applied more to anyone than Becca Cason.
Becca works as a cashier at a local winery up in Vinita. She had stopped in at
Reason’s to get lunch for her crew when Zero Hour broke out. I have to admit,
she doesn’t stand out much in a crowd. She is average height, average build,
and not too flashy with the hair or the makeup. But when you speak to her,
Becca has this razor sharp wit. Smart as a tack.
You can imagine our shock when she
field stripped one of pistols to clean it in record time. As it turns out, her
dad was a police officer for two decades. She claims she has been handling
pistols and rifles since she was 8-years-old and to see her at work, cleaning
and firing the weapons, you believe it. She even took two semesters of archery
during her first year of college.
When it comes to the rooftop duties,
Becca is probably one of our best shots so I am very glad to have her on
protective duties. She is also pretty adamant about not going outside. She has
some nice ideas for the sortie teams (“Can you pick up this?” “Be on the
lookout for that.”) But she has very politely stated that there is no way she
is going out into the dead zone.
She is
not a coward but she seems to follow my same theory about Great White Sharks.
You cannot get bit if you don’t go in the water. Out of everyone in the group,
Becca is the only one that has not shared anything about her life before all
this happened. I think she has an ex-husband. I don’t think she has any kids.
It is like out of everyone in the group, Becca has learned to disconnect the
best from the old world and the way things were. I wish I could get to that
level myself. Like I mentioned above, I know Ashlynn needs it. We would probably
all do better in the long run if we could get to that place but it is
tremendously hard to let go sometimes.
In the
meantime, I am very glad to have her sniping skills made available to the
sortie teams when it comes to the returning to base. On a good day, she drops
as many zoms as Fred, Kasondra, Lance and Hunter. I am curious to see what she
can do with a bow but we have more bullets than arrows than arrows right now so
we are waiting to unleash that weapon until later…
