The father's young son, born after the catastrophe and knowing no other world. He functions as the novel's moral conscience - more instinctively compassionate than his father and more troubled by their refusal to help strangers. He carries the fire that gives the novel its central metaphor.

A father travelling south through a post-apocalyptic wasteland with his young son. Resourceful and fiercely protective, he carries a revolver with almost no ammunition and pushes a shopping cart of scavenged supplies along the ash-covered roads. He suffers from a worsening cough and carries the weight of impossible decisions to keep his child alive.

An old wanderer encountered on the road, small and bent, nearly blind, tapping along with a peeled stick for a cane. He claims to be ninety years old and says his name is Ely, though he later admits this is not his real name. He speaks in cryptic, philosophical terms about the end of the world and the nature of God.

A scarred man who appears on the road after the Man's death. He wears a gray and yellow ski parka and carries a shotgun with handloaded shells sealed in candlewax. He has a family including a woman, a little boy, and a little girl. He smells of woodsmoke and offers to take the Boy with him.