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We open on an empty intersection. The camera pulls back to reveal an overturned car and truck. A sheriff's cruiser pulls up and out steps Rick Grimes. The uniformed man cautiously examines the scene before approaching a gas station. More abandoned cars. Laundry. Baby dolls. Makeshift camp sites. A dead woman rots in one of the cars.
Grimes, who carries a gasoline canister, is looking for gas -- but a sign at the station reveals that there is none left. Suddenly, he spots a shambling figure in bunny bath slippers. It is a young girl. "Don't be afraid," Grimes says. She turns -- a ZOMBIE! Grimes pulls his gun ... and blows her brains out. Welcome to the apocalypse.
FLASHBACK: Rick and his partner Shane discuss the differences between men and women while eating lunch in their cruiser. Rick talks of his wife Lori and son Carl. Apparently, the couple had a fight the night before. "It's like she's pissed at me all the time and I don't know why," Rick explains to Shane. The pair then gets an urgent call.
A weaving car is being chased by cop cars. Rick and his men set up a roadblock. The weaving car swerves and FLIPS over and over before coming to stop in an adjacent field. Two bloodied men emerge from the wreck with their guns drawn. They FIRE. Rick is hit. The officers return fire and quickly take the two men down. Rick, who is wearing a bulletproof vest and has only been winged, believes it is all over. He stands up ... and is SHOT again. Turns out there is a third armed man in the wrecked car. Shane raises his shotgun and BLOWS the man away. He then turns his attention to Rick, who is BADLY injured. It doesn't look good.
CUT to the hospital. We see events from Rick's hazy point of view. Shane visits with flowers. Time passes ... but how much time? Sometime later, Rick awakes. The flowers are dead. The clock has stopped. He tries to move, but his legs have atrophied. He falls. "Nurse, help!" Rick cries. No answer. Rick manages to stumble into the hallway ... and discovers a complete mess. Gurneys, papers and equipment are strewn everywhere.
Worse: a hospital employee appears lying dead on the floor appears to have been almost completely devoured. A set of double doors, meanwhile, has been chained shut with the scrawled warning: "Don't open. Dead inside." Rick wisely backs away from the doors, which begin to bulge and shake. Something wants out. Rick retreats to a darkened room with a flight of stairs heading down. Using only a match to light his way, Rick eventually finds an exit door ... and is blinded by the light of the day. Outside, dozens and dozens of dead and rotting bodies are wrapped in hospital sheets. Rick is HORRIFIED.
Rick stumbles away from the hospital, finds a bicycle and races home. "Lori!" he cries. "Carl!" But the house is empty. Its occupants are long gone. Crying, Rick walks outside. Something approaches him from behind -- slowly. It's a non-zombie boy! The boy, Duane, swings a shovel and knocks Rick to the ground. The boy's father, Morgan, then rushes up -- and notices that Rick isn't a zombie, after all. Rick passes out from the blow.
For the second time that day, Rick wakes up in a bed unsure of his surroundings. He is tied to a bed inside a suburban home. "Did you get bit -- maybe scratched?" Morgan asks. Rick explains that he has "only" been shot. The trio then sits down for dinner and Morgan explains that the streets are crawling with "walkers." The process: bites kill you, a subsequent fever "burns you out" and, then, "after awhile, you come back." Duane then looks out the window at the walking dead -- and spots his mother! He cries ... and Morgan does his best to comfort his son. "She died in the other room in that bed over there," he explains to Rick. "I should've put her down ... I just didn't have it in me."
The next morning, Rick returns to his home with Morgan and Duane. He notices that all the family photo albums are gone. Rick theorizes that his family fled after packing up their personal belongings. Duane says they probably headed to Atlanta, where the center for disease control and prevention is located. The trio then head to the police station to take hot showers (the station has its own propane supply) and collect weapons and ammo.
Rick then says goodbye to Morgan and Duane, who take their supplies to a nearby Jeep. Rick hangs around just long enough to SHOOT a zombie deputy he once knew before driving away in his squad car. Destination: Atlanta. First, though, Rick stops at an area park to put a female zombie -- cut in half and crawling pathetically -- out of her misery. "I'm sorry this happened to you," Rick says through tears. He shoots her in the head.
Meanwhile, Morgan and Duane return home. Dad tells his son to wait downstairs before heading to the upstairs bedroom. There, Morgan takes aim at zombies in the street with a scoped rifle. He shoots two ... before spotting his wife. Shaking, Morgan takes aim ... but can't bring himself to pull the trigger. Zombie Mom shambles away. Morgan weeps.
Sometime later, Rick uses his police radio to see if anybody responds. Unbeknownst to Rick, a group of survivors does hear Rick's message (he can't hear their answer). It turns out that the group, which has made a camp in a field, includes Shane, Lori and Carl! Lori tells the group that they should've set up a roadside sign warning people against going to Atlanta, which is apparently crawling with zombies and completely unsafe. Shane tells her that they simply don't have time. She storms off to a tent. Shane enters to talk her down ... and the two end their conversation with a passionate kiss. Uh oh.
CUT to Rick, who comes upon a farmhouse where the inhabitants decided to shoot themselves rather than live in a zombie-infested world. Rick, who is looking for gas, spots a horse in the yard. He decides to ditch his cruiser and ride the steed. "Go easy, OK?" he tells the animal. "I haven't done this for years." Riding the horse, Rick soon approaches Atlanta. The city is seemingly empty -- save for crashed cars, empty Army helicopters and burned-out buses. Sure enough, zombies begin to appear.
Suddenly, Rick hears the sound of a helicopter. He spurs the horse to follow it -- and turns a corner into a side street PACKED with zombies. Quickly turning around, Rick flees -- and runs into another horde. The sheriff is pulled from his horse, which quickly becomes zombie feed. Rick then crawls underneath an Army tank and begins SHOOTING wildly. He then notices a hatch in the bottom of the tank and pulls himself into the belly of the steel beast, SLAMMING the hatch shut behind him. He crawls up against a seemingly dead soldier, and takes his gun. While looking away, the soldier comes to zombie life; Rick shoots him in the head just in time. Safe ... for now.
Inside the tank, Rick can hear the undead swarming all over the vehicle. He is despondent when, suddenly, a voice crackles over the tank radio. "Hey you, dumbass," the voice says. "You in the tank? Cozy in there?" Rick's eyes go wide. Who is that?
Until next time, what is left of America ... |
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