Connecting The Walking Dead: ‘Truth Or Dare’

3) The Source Of The Virus?

The source of the zombie has always been (And I think, will forever remain) a mystery in the Walking Dead universe. That said, that hasn’t stopped people (Including me) from theorizing, in fact, it hasn’t even stopped people in universe from theorizing, as we learned from one of Huck’s flashbacks.

While Huck and her unit searched the services tunnels for survivors, one of her comrades, Private First Class Owens, began recounting rumors he’d heard about the source of the virus that was quickly ravaging the country.

According to the rumor Owens heard, a rocket returning to Earth from outer space was contaminated with the virus, passing to a person who had breathed in the contagion, who then got sick on an airplane mid-flight, and began the outbreak.

What makes Owens’ rumor so interesting is that this is almost the exact way the zombie outbreak began in the original Night Of The Living Dead, which is, obviously, the inspiration for nearly every piece of zombie-related media since the movie’s release in 1968… a release which never happened in the Walking Dead universe.

Additionally, just as a fun bonus to this rumor, the second part that Owens recounts, of Patient Zero getting sick on a plane mid-flight is a scenario fans of Fear The Walking Dead’s first set of webisodes, Flight 462, should be familiar with, as that is the premise of those webisodes, with a passenger by the name of Marcus (Who, unbeknownst to the rest of the passengers, has been bitten by an infected) gets sick while en route to Phoenix, dies, turns, then rampages on the plane, eventually leading to its crash.

While the origin PFC Owens suggests may not have a connection to the rest of the Walking Dead universe, it is a nod to the movie which helped inspire it, so, I simply can’t leave it hanging.