| This article is about the Novel Series character. You may be looking for his Road to Survival counterpart. For other pages with the same name, see: Joshua |
| “ | You think this is like a passing thing? Like this is Summer camp? Like we're all gonna go home at the end of the season after losing our virginity and getting poison ivy.
―Joshua to Lilly about their relationship and the zombie apocalypse.[src]
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” |
Joshua Lee Hamilton, better known as Josh, is a main character and a survivor of the outbreak in Thomas Dunne Books' The Walking Dead. He was the leader of his group and the boyfriend of Lilly Caul. He worked on Martínez's construction crew in Woodbury up until his death at the hands of Sam "the Butcher." He is described as "an imposing figure. Built like an NFL tackle, with monolithic shoulders, enormous tree-trunk thighs, and a thick neck." "His sad, long-lashed eyes and deferential brow, which perpetually creases the front of his balding pate, give off an air of unexpected tenderness." He has a "tattooed bicep" and wears a "sleeveless denim shirt and ratty down vest." He served as the deuteragonist of The Road to Woodbury.
Pre-Apocalypse[]
Greenville, South Carolina[]
Josh was born on January 15th, 1969, as the son of a single mother, Raylene Hamilton, and he grew up with four sisters (including his older sister, Alicia) in a Baptist household with rough living conditions. He moved around a lot, different schools, and shuffled through ramshackle housing projects with his family. Because of the kind-hearted nature of his mother, every day, he and his sisters would return home to find their house full of strangers & stray dogs she had taken off the street to feed and make tea, but he loved her.
He grew up as a natural loner in the 1970s when South Carolina was still clinging to the ghostly days of Jim Crow, still making futile attempts to integrate their schools and join the twentieth century. During childhood, his uncle Vernon would take him hunting on Briar Mountain, where Josh was an eagle-eyed hunter.
In his teenage years, he developed crushes on girls with embarrassing frequency, but he seemed to muck things up so many times by rushing them and behaving like a big old puppy licking at their heels. He put his God-given size and strength to use on the gridiron, clearing the field for a running back and playing varsity ball for Mallard Creek High School with visions of getting a scholarship. But, he lacked the one thing that sent other players up the academic and socioeconomic ladders: raw aggression. Like once in the match, when an opposing offensive tackle—a good old boy from Montgomery—called him a racial slur. He had always been a gentle soul to a fault - he let far weaker boys pick on him, deferred to all adults with a "yessim" or "yessir," and simply had no fight in him.
By the mid-1980s, for that reason, his football career petered out. Around that time, his mother, Raylene, got sick with "lupus erythematosus," although it wasn't terminal, it was a death sentence for her, a life of chronic pain, skin lesions, and near paralysis. He took it upon himself to be his mother's caretaker (while his sisters drifted away to bad marriages and dead-end jobs out of state), cooked and cleaned, and took good care of his mom. Within a few years, as having a natural flair for culinary especially meat dishes, he got a job in a restaurant before moving up the ranks at steakhouse kitchens across South Carolina and Georgia.
Atlanta, Georgia[]
In the 1990s, he was successful in his career and later moved to Atlanta with his mother to keep caregiving for her. He thought he would lose her a few times, but she lived long enough to fight the sickness. He had the pleasure of the number of gourmet food shops he could find in the local Little Five Points—everything from good kimchi to rare pink truffle oil.
By the 2000s, he had become one of most sought-after executive chefs in the Southeast, supervising large teams of sous-chefs, catering upscale social events, and getting his picture in Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles. And all the while, he managed to run his kitchens with kindness—a rarity in the restaurant world.
In 2002, he purchased a $300 luxury Movado sports watch with decent money earned from his catering job.
Post-Apocalypse[]
Atlanta, Georgia[]
During the early days of the outbreak back when there were only a few biter sightings, Josh was still trying to get into work each morning. One Sunday when the walkers started to become a bigger problem, his street got blocked off by officials. Josh left for work while his mama was sitting at the window, staring at the dead slipping through the cordons and getting picked off by SWAT, thinking she'd be okay. Later that day he tries to call her but the phone lines are down so he figures no news is good news. At about 5:30 PM he finishes work and returns to his street, flashes his ID at the cops and notices a lot of activity outside his building. Josh is ordered to leave but is let through when he tells the SWAT that he lives here. He enters and finds the front door to his apartment building wide open with cops coming and going and some carrying specimen containers for human organs. He runs up the stairs, knocks over a police officer and gets to his door on the second floor where men in hazmat suits block the entrance. He shoves them aside and discovers the horrific sight of his mother torn apart and slumped in her chair with six walkers dead on the floor. Blood coats the walls and china and her chewed up fingers lie next to the gravy boat.
Tent City[]
Around sunset one evening Chad Bingham's caravan of survivors gets pinned down by a pack of walkers in a Kmart parking lot. Josh Hamilton comes to the rescue from the shadows of the loading dock like some Moorish gladiator, wielding twin garden hoes with the price tags still flagging in the wind. He easily dispatches the half-dozen zombies and saves the survivors who thank him profusely. He shows the group a couple of brand-new shotguns in the back aisles of the store, as well as camping gear. He helps the group load their two minivans with provisions and is allowed to join the group. He invites Lilly Caul to ride with him on the back of his Suzuki motorbike as he follows the caravan closer to the abandoned orchards patchworking Meriwether County.
The Road to Woodbury[]
"Red Day Rising"[]
During the first attack on the original camp, Joshua is attacked by walkers. Scared, Lilly escapes, while other survivors save Joshua. Lilly felt ashamed about escaping and wants to apologize to Joshua. Joshua forgives her, but Lilly won't believe it. When Joshua is away, a second attack happens at the Tent City. Chad blames Lilly for the death of his daughter and starts beating on her breaking ribs and smashing her face. Joshua sees this happening and attacks Chad. Losing all control, he slams Chad against a tree several times, killing him. Joshua is forced to leave the Tent City but Lilly, Bob Stookey, Megan Lafferty and Scott Moon all decide to go with him.
They end up camping in a farm house for a few weeks while there Joshua starts falling in love with Lilly. They are soon forced to leave the Farm House and find that the Tent City was overrun and destroyed having no option they hit the road again until the stumble across a Walmart, where they meet Caesar Martínez.
"This Is How the World Ends"[]
They follow Martinez to Woodbury where they stay for a while and finally Lilly and Joshua tell each other of their feelings and start a relationship, while in Woodbury they catch wind of some weird things from Brian Blake's creepy leadership to Sam's corrupt barter system they decided to leave Woodbury after secretly scavenging for their own supplies.
Death[]
- Killed By
After returning to Woodbury with Lilly from a community of houses nearby, Sam (who runs a type of market trading favors in exchange of goods) spots the bag of supplies that they had with them. When Sam asks to give him the bag to pay off his massive debt, Joshua Lee Hamilton declines, which leads to a brief struggle between the two and ends when Sam quickly proceeds to take out his pistol and shoot Joshua in the head.
Killed Victims[]
This list shows the victims Joshua has killed:
- Chad Bingham
- Numerous counts of zombies
Appearances[]
Novel SeriesThe Road to Woodbury
Descent
|
| Novels | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rise of the Governor | |||||
| The Road to Woodbury | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| The Fall of the Governor | |||||
| Descent | ✔ | ||||
| Invasion | |||||
| Search and Destroy | |||||
| Return to Woodbury |
| ✔ | Appears | ✔ | Voice is heard |
| 👁 | Appears with no lines | ✔ | Appears in a flashback |
| ✔ | Appears as a walker | 🖼 | Appears in a photograph/video |
| ✔ | Appears as a corpse | ✔ | Appears in a hallucination/dream |
Trivia[]
- In The Fall of the Governor, we learn that Josh's death date is November 11th 2012. However this is incorrect as The Road to Woodbury starts in late October, and many weeks pass on the road before the group arrives in Woodbury, far exceeding the date mentioned for his death. However, on the day of Josh's death, it is mentioned that Christmas is twelve days away, placing his death at December 13th.
- Josh is one of the few Novel Series characters to make an appearance in The Walking Dead: Road to Survival. Others being Philip Blake, Nick Parsons, Gene Gavin, Trey Barker, Jeremiah Garlitz, Chen Wenzhu, Elena Anderson, Ying Hengyen, Wangfa, Guo, Jiang Lǎopó and Jiafeng.
- Josh almost has the same name as Lance Hornsby's actor in the TV Series, Josh Hamilton.