Jack

Jack at the Docks with his AK47. (TLS:UC)

"Hey, Jack saved my butt more than a few times. I've only known the guy for a few days. I was fighting my way out of Jonestown, guy comes tearing through with an RPG over his shoulder, blowing those things to pieces. Wanna rely on someone to keep you alive? Jack is your man."

— Shawn Smith, one of Jack's survivors

Jack is the protagonist of The Last Stand and The Last Stand 2, and is an NPC in The Last Stand: Union City, playing a crucial role in the storyline.

Background

Having survived well over three months in heavily zombie-infested environments, Jack is intelligent and resourceful, and a capable leader. During his initial 20 day defense and subsequent journey to Union City, he spent his time recruiting other survivors, building and maintaining barricades, and searching for weapons and usable supplies.

Despite his skill with and proclivity for assorted firearms however, it is unlikely that he is a member or ex-member of the military, as he seems unfamiliar with and has no apparent connection with them. He relies on TV and commercial radio for news from outside, and doesn’t seek for a way to announce his presence to those in Union City or anywhere else.

Games

SPOILER ALERT!!!

The Last Stand

Jack in TLS1

In The Last Stand, Jack attempts to ride out the zombie infestation, having built a heavily fortified barricade and stocked it with supplies. At night, he defends the barricade from zombies, and repairs the barricade and searches for supplies and other survivors during the day. It is unclear when, or if, he sleeps.

While Jack remains focused, at times he also seems to not entirely comprehend his situation — he cracks jokes, and treats the nightly assaults with some levity. However, as supplies run low, the assaults worsen, and Jack becomes responsible for more people, his situation is thrown into sharp relief and his writings become noticeably more distressed. He even goes so far as to criticize his choice in location, lamenting his decision to stay away from the cities.

With no contact from the outside world and no usable resources left, his group makes the decision to move on. They look to him to provide a direction, but he has no idea where to take them. His delays nearly cost the group their lives — until they are rescued at the end of the 20th night by a passing military helicopter.

The Last Stand 2

Jack in TLS2

The Last Stand 2 picks up immediately after the military helicopter’s timely rescue of Jack and his group. He is breathing a sigh of relief when disaster strikes — one of his group is infected. It is implied that the infection takes over and the survivor-turned-zombie causes the helicopter to crash.

A month passes. Jack, the only person to come out of the crash alive, has started over in the nearby town of Glendale and builds a new barricade inside the local tool shop. He hears a radio broadcast detailing a plan to seal off the mainland in 40 days, with the warning that any remaining survivors must reach Union City before then to be evacuated.

With that in mind, he starts over — repairing barricades, recruiting survivors, searching for supplies and weapons, etc, but he now focuses on constantly moving. Motivated by the Union City deadline, and perhaps by the memories of the near disaster in The Last Stand, Jack only stays in a given place long enough to find a few recruits, maybe a weapon or two, and enough supplies to move to the next town. In this fashion he and a few companions traverse most of the state — Glendale, Whistler's Grove, Claysburg, Aspenwood, Jonestown and Fort Tran — before finally arriving at Union City.

His diary entries are particularly interesting due to their sparsity; instead of daily reports like in The Last Stand, there are only entries whenever he visits a new town, and there is almost no levity at all. This indicates focus and determination, most likely due to his desperation and new feelings of responsibility for those under his protection. He seems to have become hardened since the events of The Last Stand, and it is likely that it will be very difficult for him to adjust should he return to civilized society, somewhat akin to post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Last Stand: Union City

Jack and his fellow survivors on the Union Island Bridge. (TLS:UC)

In The Last Stand: Union City, Jack is located in the Docks Safehouse. He leads a band of survivors (Jane, Shawn and Dana), which he gathered during his journey to Union City.

When the player finds him, he and his group are trying to get onto a boat out of the mainland, however, HERC has destroyed most of the boats to prevent the spread of the infection. The only boats left are on Union Island, protected by a concrete wall erected by HERC.

Jack sitting on a footlocker with his AK47

Jack gives a quest in which the player must find C4 explosives in an overrun military base in Waterside to blow through the wall. Once the C4 is found, Jack's group blows a hole in the wall, which has the unintended result of allowing masses of zombies to pour through after them. Fleeing with their spouse, the player must evade the zombies whilst fighting through the HERC troopers to get to a boat.

After reaching a pier, the player again meets Jack, this time only accompanied by Dana. Jack escorts the player to a motorboat which the player and their spouse hastily board and leave, with him stating that they would find another way out. After this, nothing is known of Jack's fate. It's likely that either he and his group escaped on another boat or that they were overrun by the zombies.

END SPOILER ALERT!!!

Trivia

• Jack's weapon of choice in TLS:UC is his AK47, apparently because of its reliability.
  • He also claims the XM8 is not as reliable; strangely, it has been demonstrated to suffer very few failures in reliability tests.
• Jack seems to be somewhat skeptical, or at least not overtly religious.
• Jack seems to dislike dogs, reporters, obese people and policemen, or at least their zombie forms.
• Jack also empathizes with criminals, at one point remarking “Killed a dozen of them at least, better than prison I guess."
• Jack apparently grew a fairly substantial beard in the time between the events of TLS1 and TLS2.
• When the player speaks to him in TLS:UC, he will mention that he traveled through Whistler's Grove, Jonestown and Fort Tran before reaching Union City, notably skipping Aspenwood, which is difficult to do in-game.
• Like other player interactable NPCs in TLS:UC, zombies will ignore Jack and he will not use his firearm on them.
• Jack's appearance from TLS2 and TLS:UC can be replicated in TLS:UC by purchasing the Survival Kit, equipping the Survivor Jacket, Survivor Pants, setting hair to long 1, facial hair to full beard, hair color to dark brown or black, skin color to white and equip either an AK47 or a G17 Pistol. For his TLS1 appearance, use hair medium1 and shadow facial hair instead.
• Jack is apparently aware of the fact that he is being controlled by the player as seen in his diary in TLS1 ("Something's controlling me!") and on the loading screen of TLS2 ("And I'm still being controlled by a magical force D:").
  • He is also aware of the ads on the loading screen, as he describes them as "a magical moving picture".
• Jack is the only character in the series who wields the Uzi with only one hand.