I'm surprised no one has suggested the Private Investigator. This character provides a reason to be in the town, at least minimal training in firearms and self-defense (maybe more depending on his background.) along with a plausible lack of moral constraint.
As far as staying in the city, it's simple. String the character along until the obvious escape route is closed. Remove his/her method of transportation at the first opportunity (preferably as soon as the character is out of sight of it.)
A variation on that theme is a pair of bounty hunters who show up to collect a bond. Think Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Or you could go old school with the Professor. That could open up whole new avenues for the adventure.
Stuck On what kind of character to use for horror game
From what I understand, you're trying not to go generic & old school and bring something new to the ball park. I see "regular people" has been suggested already. If I may expand on that:
Character 1:
Sex: Male
Profession: Engineer/Coal Miner/the "Braun"/Someone who is strong because it's their profession
Character Type: Macho, Hero
Character 2:
Sex: Female
Profession: Smart, Librarian, Scientist <<<OR>>> Too Young, High School-girl, Not so book smart, rather street smart.
Character Type: Sensitive, smart, talented, saves the macho dude.
This might turn out to be too much of a romantic movie if you stick with exactly what I suggested, so I advice you to mix my thoughts with some of the previous ones. And sorry if I repeated someone's idea.
Character 1:
Sex: Male
Profession: Engineer/Coal Miner/the "Braun"/Someone who is strong because it's their profession
Character Type: Macho, Hero
Character 2:
Sex: Female
Profession: Smart, Librarian, Scientist <<<OR>>> Too Young, High School-girl, Not so book smart, rather street smart.
Character Type: Sensitive, smart, talented, saves the macho dude.
This might turn out to be too much of a romantic movie if you stick with exactly what I suggested, so I advice you to mix my thoughts with some of the previous ones. And sorry if I repeated someone's idea.
Another possible suggestion would be volunteer workers(for an orginization somewhat like FEMA) sent in to survey and report on the situation. Then when they drive into town a ways in surveying everything, cut into a cutscene/cinematic. A 'victim' will run into the street to get away from a danger like zombies, a riot or whatever. The car with your characters will swerve to avoid running the victim over. The car naturally crashes, and the game begins from there.
This circumstance of the crashing vehicle doesn't necesarily have to be volunteer workers, it could work more or less for just about anybody, since the people aren't likely to be arriving on foot, or would have the resources to be flown in. In any case the people who are arriving are now victims in this disaster themselves. Losing the car effecively cuts off a quick escape, and makes them more vulnerable.
From there you can set up circumstances that lead you to flee further into the city, such as that's the only way to escape out of their current situation. Also perhaps the crash leads to need of medical attention and they need to get to a hospital or a clinic for supplies. After going in deeper they will have to worry about them having to find a route out of the city or maybe reaching some objective such as a refugee point set up by local law enforcement.
Just some more thoughts to consider if you haven't already decided for sure what you want :)
This circumstance of the crashing vehicle doesn't necesarily have to be volunteer workers, it could work more or less for just about anybody, since the people aren't likely to be arriving on foot, or would have the resources to be flown in. In any case the people who are arriving are now victims in this disaster themselves. Losing the car effecively cuts off a quick escape, and makes them more vulnerable.
From there you can set up circumstances that lead you to flee further into the city, such as that's the only way to escape out of their current situation. Also perhaps the crash leads to need of medical attention and they need to get to a hospital or a clinic for supplies. After going in deeper they will have to worry about them having to find a route out of the city or maybe reaching some objective such as a refugee point set up by local law enforcement.
Just some more thoughts to consider if you haven't already decided for sure what you want :)
Ever heard of "Silent Hill?" In Silent Hill the "hero" is just some average joe who got lost, crashed his car, and now cannot find his daughter. He is weak, frail, he shivers all the time, and you can hear his heart beat. Unlike other "horror" games where you play a big powerful hero, Silent Hill was actually scary. You knew that the monsters were more powerful than you, and you could more easily empathize with the main character's fear. Silent Hill proved that making a game scary doesn't require a powerful highly trained main character. Average joe characters can easily have far greater depth than some highly trained perfect cop or special ops soldier (unless that soldier is me :) ).
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