Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Rick Grimes (First Appearance)
Supporting Characters:
- Shane (First Appearance)
- Morgan Jones (First Appearance)
- Duane Jones (First Appearance)
Villains:
- Zombies (First Appearance)
Other Characters
- Unnamed Criminal
- Carl Grimes (Photograph) (First Appearance)
- Lori Grimes (Photograph) (First Appearance)
Locations:
- Kentucky
- Cynthiana
- Cynthiana Police Department
- Harrison Memorial Hospital
- Rick's house
- Cynthiana
Vehicles:
- Police cruisers
Synopsis for 1st story
Reprinted from The Walking Dead #1.
During a shootout in Cynthiana, Kentucky, Police Deputy Rick Grimes gets severely wounded, putting him in a coma.
Time passes, and Rick wakes up in a hospital bed. Rick, still weak, dresses in his belongings and finds the hospital empty. As he takes an elevator and arrives on his destined floor, he surprisingly finds a corpse. Calling to anyone for help, Rick then finds the building's doors to the cafeteria barred. After unlocking the doors, Rick stumbles into a room full of zombies. Seeing him, the zombies chase after him and he stumbles into an emergency stairway. There, he wrestles a zombie which is then killed by having its neck severed. Rick quickly leaves the hospital, and finds a very emaciated zombie near the highway. Disturbed by what he has seen, Rick takes an unused bicycle and peddles home.
Upon arriving there, he finds his home and neighborhood entirely deserted and ransacked. After searching his home, Rick wanders onto his neighbor's lawn and is suddenly hit in the back of his head by a shovel, and knocked out.
Rick later awakes on a couch and is greeted by a man named Morgan who asks Rick to join him with his son, Duane, for dinner. Confused, Rick demands to know what has happened to him. Morgan explains that his son knocked him out, accidentally mistaking him for "those things". Still confused, Rick asks how did it all happen, explaining that he just woke up from a coma. Morgan then briefs him of the events after Rick's coma: in the world, the dead, for unexplained reasons, have come to 'life' and start feeding/attacking the living. Before the nation's news media stopped broadcasting, the American government told its citizens to evacuate to nearby bigger cities to be safe; however, Morgan felt that it was safe to be isolated, away from the cities, and has been living in Rick's neighborhood ever since. Hearing about the cities, Rick believes that his family is safe in Atlanta and plans to get a car to the city.
Rick takes the Jones Cynthiana's Police Department where Rick offers them the station's weapons and police cruisers. Rick bids farewell to the Jones as he departs in his car for Atlanta. On the way he stops back to where he discovered the undead emancipated corpse and puts it out of its misery before moving on.
