| “ | It's a Mossberg, ma'am, loaded with deer shot. Ain't as accurate as a rifle, but it'll do quite a bit of damage at close range.
―Stephen to Lilly about his firearm.[src]
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” |
Stephen Pembry is an antagonist and a survivor of the outbreak in Thomas Dunne Books' The Walking Dead. He is described to be "a gangly young man in his mid-twenties with a tattered short-sleeved dress shirt, bow tie, and black trousers. Looking like a worn-out Mormon missionary who has rung too many doorbells." Stephen acts as one of Jeremiah Garlitz's closest minions. He served as one of the two secondary antagonists of Descent and Invasion (along with Reese Hawthorne).
Pre-Apocalypse[]
Macon, Georgia[]
Stephen grew up in Macon, Georgia as a sickly, skinny kid. He turned to God and free weights to build up his resistance to the real world.[1]
Panama City Beach, Florida[]
Not much is known about Stephen's life, except that he was a Sunday school dropout, described as being a clean-cut choirboy and worked as a laborer in Panama City Beach.[2]
Post-Apocalypse[]
Descent[]
Stephen is one of the members of Jeremiah's group that get trapped in his church. As Lilly is asking about if the group has any firepower, Stephen shows Lilly and described his firearm to her, and is told to stay at the front of the group. On Lilly's command, Stephen is told to open the church doors as quietly as he can. Later, as the group gets stuck in the tunnels underground, the walkers slowly start to catch up, and the members with firearms start to aim at the walkers, but Lilly changes the plan and they shoot at the top of the tunnel, causing it to collapse and block off the walkers.
After being rescued from the herd of walkers by Lilly and the Woodbury survivors, he becomes a member of Woodbury. Jeremiah listed Stephen, as being best suited to be on the construction crew in Woodbury, as he hands Lilly a chart of the members of his groups best attribute, age and occupation. Stephen, along with the younger members of Woodbury and the church group often gathered behind the courthouse to smoke weed. After the church group finally decides to all be part of the mass suicide in Woodbury to join with God, Jeremiah takes the males of the church group out and inform them on the plan.
As the plan fails because of Bob, unknowingly Stephen blew the gates to Woodbury, causing the herd to overrun Woodbury as part of the original plan. Stephen and Reese, along with Jeremiah escape to an SUV outside Woodbury, where Stephen would get in the passenger seat and drive, only to crash into the walkers and flip the car, supposedly killing Reese from skull injuries. Stephen struggles to stay conscious, blood streaming down his body and dripping off the top of his head, and Stephen struggles to keep the walkers away by shooting at them through the shattered windscreen. Jeremiah soon after ends up saving Stephen, when the SUV flips over again and Jeremiah slams on the accelerator.
Invasion[]
Stephen, being one of the few survivors of the invasion and Jeremiah's group as well, copes slowly from his injuries and continues his journey to Florida along with Reese and Jeremiah. They find Norma Sutters, who tags along and tells them about a convoy. The group finds the convoy, led by a preacher named Patrick Murphy.
Stephen, along with Reese, discover on a supply run that some of the Woodburians are still alive. After telling Jeremiah about this, they start to plan a attack on them.
Death[]
- Killed By
When Stephen leaps out of his tow truck trying to fire his gun, one of Norma's stray rounds strikes him full-on between the eyes, sending him staggering backward, his skull snapping back in a fog of pink spray, the impact knocking him to the ground, where he lies and expires over the remaining seconds of the skirmish.
Killed Victims[]
This list shows the victims Stephen has killed:
- Speed Wilkins (Caused)
- Wade Pilcher (Indirectly Caused)
- Mark Arbogast (Indirectly Caused)
- Joseph Bressler (Indirectly Caused)
- Anthony (Indirectly Caused)
- Rose (Indirectly Caused)
- Colby (Indirectly Caused)
- Cailinn (Indirectly Caused)
- Emma (Indirectly Caused)
- Mary Jean (Indirectly Caused)
- Noelle (Indirectly Caused)
- Several unnamed Woodburians (Caused)
Appearances[]
Novel SeriesDescent
Invasion
|
| 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 |