We're only days from the return of The Walking Dead for Season 8, and fans will finally get to see what happens next after Rick and Co. took an epic stand against Negan and Jadis' forces in the Season 7 finale. The majority of Season 7 was more concerned with the human threats than the undead threats, mostly thanks to the premiere kicking off with Negan brutally murdering two of the good guys with his baseball bat. Negan will be back and undoubtedly as brutal as ever, but thanks to a new batch of photos of the Season 8 premiere, we can guarantee that we're in for a whole lot of super gross Walkers as well. Check 'em out!
This particular Walker looks like he's seen better days, both as a human and a zombie. He was evidently scorched pretty severely, as a whole half of his body seems burned. He also looks pretty fresh, given that a Walker that has been dead longer undoubtedly would have had all that burned flesh sliding off his bones, especially if he's tugging at a leash on his arm continuously. My money is on this Walker being quite freshly undead, which could make for a pretty scary sequence. Who can forget the burning zombies from back in "The Grove," wandering over from Daryl and Beth's moonshine-fueled fire before Carol killed Lizzie?
In another look at this scorched Walker, we see that his pants are still pretty intact as well, and he seems quite energetic. He's definitely a relatively fresh Walker, which means we could learn that he was part of one of the communities that chose their sides in the Season 7 finale. If he was a Savior, Negan and Co. may use him as another sort of Fat Joey martyr to justify striking back harder than ever against the Alexandrians.
Super fresh zombie or not, this guy has clearly seen better days.
This Walker looks decidedly less fresh than the burned zombie, and she's all the grosser for it. Although also tethered to something, she looks like she's been there for a while, and whatever she tried to do with that left hand of hers obviously didn't go well. Most of her hair seems to have been sloughed off her head (along with a bunch of her skin), and what remains of the flesh of her arms doesn't look great. Still, if anybody comes within chomping range, I'm guessing she'll have plenty of bite left in her.
This fellow in the front has had some serious issues with his cheek. In fact, the way that this Walker seems mostly intact aside from the rot in his lips and cheek makes him even more disgusting than if all his flesh was dropping off his bones. This is the kind of Walker that might have tricked our survivors into thinking he was still alive until they got close.
This corpse technically isn't walking anywhere, and it's perfectly possible that it will never reanimate and try to chomp on Carl. It earns its place on this list just by virtue of how gross it looks slumped and rotted into that car seat. There's no gaping head wound, and The Walking Dead does like its zombie jump scares, so we should probably brace ourselves for this Walker waking up enough to try and take a bit out of what's left of Carl's face.
Luckily, we don't have too much longer to wait. The Walking Dead returns to AMC for Season 8 on Sunday, October 22 at 9 p.m. ET. If you need a last-minute breakdown of some of what's to come, take a look at what we know so far about Season 8, and check out our picks for characters most likely to die on The Walking Dead in the next batch of episodes.
