Adam Jeffson
Technically, the narrator of the tale, though that identification is something of a rabbit trail that must be explored. Through less than admirable means, Jeffson makes his way onto an expedition to the North Pole and through less than admirable means manages to become the last man on earth by virtue of being safely protected from a worldwide apocalyptic event. The bulk of the narrative is a first person account of a man who be a new Adam or may be totally insane. Hard to tell.
Countess Clodagh
The Countess Clodagh appears at the beginning of Adam’s story as his fiancée. The Countess part may be a bit misleading; this Clodagh is no lady. It is only through her act of murder that Adam manages to get seat on board the ship leaving for an expedition to the North Pole.
MacKay
MacKay—whom the narrator later remembers as possibly being named MacIntosh—is a firebrand preacher who comes out in totality against the very idea of an expedition to the North Pole. Full of fire and brimstone, his dire warnings carry the sharp edge of Biblical prophecy. And, wonder of wonders, it turns out he might have been right!
Scotland
Scotland is a man that Jeffson claims to have met at Cambridge. He was short, paunchy man with a Roman nose who loved cats, had a fondness for the poetry of Sappho and passed along his fervent belief that the universe was a place where a constant battle waged between the force of good and evil known as The White and The Back. Though attributing the idea to Scotland, Jeffson himself seems almost incapable of not talking about the White and the Black.
Clodagh/Leda
The second Clodagh is named after the first. She is a girl whose mother managed to survive the apocalypse for a time and give birth to her. Subsequently raised under those conditions, she never knew what the world was like before the purple cloud. When Jeffson first discovers her, he names her after his fiancée. When she rebels against that, he decides upon Leda, rejecting her proposition of the name Eve since it would conflict to too great a degree with his own name.
