I enjoyed the first season of the "Walking Dead" on A&E, and I hope that the second season will be even better. The first episode, the Pilot episode, had the characters Morgan and Duane in it, but we didn't see them anymore the entire season. At the end of the first episode, Morgan is about to shoot his wife who is a walker, but he can't do it. We get to see the emotion on his face in a way that resonated with me. All the other zombie movies turn killing zombies into a video game like scenario.
Walking Dead
(The March Onward)
Morgan and his young son, Duane sat on the outskirts of town when a large explosion sent the walkers into a frenzy. The dust and smoke blistered the sky as they watched from a small hill outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The moans, the smells, the sites—all had taken its toll on their spirits, and sometimes Morgan prayed for a quick and brutal death. If the walkers trapped him, he always kept one bullet for himself. The last thing he wanted was to return as a walker like his wife did.
He wanted the nightmare to end, but every day was a challenge to find edible food and shelter. He summed it up in one word—pain. His nose crinkled as he watched Atlanta burn and the billows of smoke flew high into the sky blackening everything. Food was scarce.
He gave his son some more sunscreen to cover his exposed, black skin and then he put the remainder over his face. If he knew anything, he knew to survive he had to live off the land on every level possible. The bug repellent, a white cream in a green tube, was almost empty, but he knew the ticks were as much of a threat as the walkers. He had to find some more repellent before one of the little critters buried its way deep beneath his skin.
They walked over to a dusty vehicle that stood in the middle of the road, and he was a little disturbed that he couldn't contact Rick, a sheriff of a small town he met nearly two weeks earlier. He hoped for the best, but the reality of the walkers dampened his spirits because Rick was just a man and the walkers were diseased and everywhere. They tattered the hillsides, the cities, and the empty roads with their awful smells and decaying flesh, but he knew his strength came from ensuring the safety of his son. He mattered. In order for him to grow into a man, Morgan mattered.
The voices of Atlanta, once a loud beacon of comfort, went silent a week earlier, and now Morgan knew he and his son needed to travel north west. His radio spit out nothing but silences, and he wanted to hear a voice, any voice so he'd know that at least one more human existed besides him and his son. It was like the world was void of life or at least intelligent life.
"We're going west now?" Duane asked.
"Yes, get in the car," he said, "Tactical all the way."
They drove into a town of about forty thousand outside of Memphis, Tennessee called Bartlet, and bodies inundated the streets. The hot sun intensified the horrid stench of dead bodies, but Morgan kept the driver's side window rolled down to listen for anything out of the ordinary. By chance (not luck) he hoped that a box of military meals was in the tank that stood quietly in the middle of the street. It had two dead soldiers on top of it with their heads blown off and several civilians with their heads crushed underneath the military war machine. Desert brown, black symbol on the side, and a gun on top of the tank made it look threatening. He could see the latch on top of the tank was open, and nothing else.
He stopped the car, opened the door, and hopped out of the driver's seat with his weapon at the ready. His son did the same thing from the driver's side, but not as smooth. He looked over at his son, and told him to cover him as he cleared the military monstrosity. Approaching the tank, he heard something move directly in front of him, and he pumped his shotgun prepared to kill anything that moved. As he inched closer to the tank, he saw a young walker no more than ten-years-old munching on a soldier on the far side of the gigantic machine. He knew if he blew off her head that that would send all the walkers running in his direction. On the ground in front of him, he saw a bloody baseball bat that he used to whack the young walker in the head. She never looked up to see the blow coming, but it didn't make it any easier for him. She's just a girl played in his mind like a musical instrument, but he kept whacking until she didn't move or groan. Minutes passed, but it felt like hours. The thick humidity and heat made the stench a lot worse than it normally would be, but he kept climbing the tank until he was at the very top. He rolled the two dead bodies on to the ground, but the thump of the last zombie hitting the hot concrete caused one of the scraggly walkers to look over at him. When he opened the latch, he caught a whiff of the dead body inside the machine, and then he heard something rattling around inside. It was dangerous. It was too dangerous to risk it. When he jumped off the tank, about eight walkers moved toward his position, and he blew the head off the leader of the pack. It was like a beacon to the other zombies. The walkers merged onto the street by the hundreds, and the father and son team hopped in their car, drove to the other side of town, and took up refuge in an old house.
They searched every hole in the old house, but couldn't find one ounce of edible food. It was the fast food generation that he had to understand because nobody seemed to have any canned goods. He boarded up the windows the best that he could, but he found out that the boards only held temporarily; but if the walkers wanted in bad enough, they would tear through the flimsy boards without a problem. They always did. Once they finished securing the house, he walked over to the kitchen sink, but no water. He tried to turn on the kitchen stove, but no gas.
"Don't make yourself comfortable," he said.
"Why?"
"'Cause we need running water and food."
Frustrated, Morgan and Duane removed the boards off the front door because they wanted to find another home with at least some food. It was obvious the town didn't have any power, but at least one home had to have some can goods. A few shotgun shells and some 9mm rounds was the only thing they had to rely on besides their wit, and it scared them. Morgan knew he needed more ammo, but he didn't know where the gun shop was located.
Once they made it out into the streets, several walkers diverged on their positions, and they ran down the street checking door after door to see if it was unlocked. As soon as they came to a small, white house on the corner, the door opened as soon as they ran up to it.
"Get in. Hurry," a young girl said from behind the door.
When Morgan stepped into the home, he saw a young, black girl no more than seventeen-years-old standing in the middle of the living room with a military style sniper rifle.
"You're the only surviver?" He asked.
"No. I got you two," she said.
He smiled. "Morgan and this is Duane."
"Shauna," she said, "State champion marksman."
"So, you make every round count?" He asked.
"That's right. It's too many of them now, but I've managed to stay alive," she said as she walked over to the window. "I've killed quite a few, but..."
"Yeah. How many?" He asked.
"The majority you see dead," she said, "I wage war from rooftops with my silencer and a box of ammo. I find a house, raid the supplies, and move on to the next. It's been like this for months."
"Any food?" Duane asked.
She walked into the kitchen, and came back with a military meal. "Been collecting these military meals over the years. Brought two with me on this trip."
"Really?" Morgan asked.
"Yeah," she said, "Share this."
"Were your parents killed?"
"Yeah. Happened quick. Too quick," she said, "They were turned before the first news report. I put them to rest months ago."
"We're headed west," he said, "North west."
"You hear of some safe place?" She asked.
"No. Maybe a pocket of humans. Maybe cooler temperatures," he said, "Don't know what we'll find."
"Probably the same here. Death."
Morgan realized that when it came to the walkers, Shauna was like the predator, lurking and waiting on rooftops sniping them one by one until she cleared every neighborhood. That explained the precision kills he saw in the downtown area of the city. It sort of shocked him that a young lady as young as her had the ability to place a round between a walkers' eyes every single time.