Days Gone Bye
A man wakes to a world where the dead walk and the living are scarce.
Days Gone Bye serves as the foundational opening chapter of The Walking Dead comic series and the inaugural episode of its television adaptation, establishing the grim reality of a world overrun by the dead. This narrative arc introduces Rick Grimes, a small-town sheriff's deputy who awakens from a coma to find his community decimated and society collapsed into chaos. It sets the emotional and thematic tone for the entire franchise, focusing on isolation, the loss of civilization, and the desperate struggle to survive in a landscape where the dead no longer stay buried.
- Protagonist
- Rick Grimes
- Setting
- Post-apocalyptic United States (Georgia)
- Primary Antagonists
- The Walkers / The Living Threats
- Key Location
- King County Hospital, Atlanta
- Narrative Function
- Inciting Incident and World Introduction
Lore & Background
As Rick traverses the desolate highways and overgrown suburbs, he encounters other survivors who are equally traumatized and desperate. His journey culminates at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on the outskirts of Atlanta, where he witnesses the brutal failure of organized humanity to contain the outbreak; the facility is ultimately destroyed by Dr. Jenner's internal explosion to prevent infection spread, rather than a military bombing.
In Their Own Story
The silence was heavier than the gunshot that put him under. When Rick Grimes finally opened his eyes, the hospital room had been reclaimed by dust and decay, the air thick with the cloying rot of things long dead. He stumbled through corridors where shadows danced like ghosts, his body weak and mind reeling, only to be confronted by a shuffling figure in tattered scrubs that used to be a nurse. The realization didn't hit him as a shock, but as a slow, suffocating dread. Outside, the world had ended. Cars sat abandoned on the highway like rusted coffins, while nature began its ruthless reclamation of the asphalt. He walked through a graveyard of civilization, clutching his service revolver, searching for a family that might no longer exist in anything resembling life.
Reader's Guide
The narrative opens with Rick Grimes waking alone in an abandoned hospital after falling into a coma during the initial outbreak. Confused and injured, he navigates the walker-infested facility before escaping on horseback to return home to King County. There, he finds his house eerily empty, save for a lone deer grazing in the overgrown yard—a haunting omen that his family has either fled or perished.
Rick encounters Morgan Jones, who reveals the terrifying truth: the world ended while Rick slept, and death itself is now contagious regardless of bite marks. After helping Morgan clear his home of walkers, Rick pushes toward Atlanta, learning from survivor Dale that his wife, Lori, and son, Carl, may have joined a group heading to the city.
Upon reaching the outskirts of Atlanta, Rick becomes trapped in an RV by a massive, churning horde of walkers. He eventually escapes with the help of Shane Walsh and Glenn Rhee, witnessing the military's desperate, failed attempt to bomb the horde from the sky. The arc concludes with Rick reuniting with his family and joining a larger survivor group camped outside the city, setting the stage for their precarious new existence.
Did You Know?
- In the original comic, Rick is shot in the back during a confrontation with a suspect, whereas in the TV show, he is shot while trying to arrest a man who attacked his wife.
- The iconic scene of Rick riding a horse through an abandoned highway was inspired by classic Western imagery, contrasting the frontier spirit with the modern apocalypse.
- Morgan Jones does not appear in Issue #1 of The Walking Dead comic series; his first appearance occurs in Issue #2, and he is not present in the 'Days Gone Bye' episode or chapter.
- The CDC facility is destroyed by an internal explosion triggered by Dr. Jenner to prevent the infection from spreading, debunking any notion of a military bombing of the Atlanta horde.