General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

The Walking Dead: Cold Storage

The Walking Dead: Cold Storage is a four-part webisode series in AMC's The Walking Dead franchise, released on October 1, 2012, that follows a young survivor named Chase as he seeks shelter in an Atlanta storage facility in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. It was written by John Esposito and developed, produced, and directed by Greg Nicotero, the series' special effects makeup designer and executive producer.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Four webisodes, with individual runtimes of five to nine minutes, produced by Generate for AMC and posted on AMCTV.com²
Release date	October 1, 2012, two weeks before the season 3 premiere of The Walking Dead on October 14²^•³
Episodes	"Hide and Seek", "Keys to the Kingdom", "The Chosen Ones", "Parting Shots"⁴
Main cast	Josh Stewart as Chase, Daniel Roebuck as B.J., Cerina Vincent as Kelly, Chris Nelson as Harris⁵
Timeline placement	Set before the events of season 1 of the television series⁶
Position in the webisode line	Second of eight Walking Dead webisode series, between Torn Apart (2011) and The Oath (2013)⁷

Spoilers

Story and characters

Chase, played by Josh Stewart, is trying to reach his sister in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. Seeking refuge from a horde of walkers, he enters an abandoned self-storage facility run by B.J., a former employee played by Daniel Roebuck, whose affable manner conceals a dark secret.²^•⁸ Cerina Vincent plays Kelly, an employee who worked with B.J., and Chris Nelson plays Harris.⁵

The four parts build the story in short beats. In "Hide and Seek", Chase takes refuge in the facility, unsure whether he is the only survivor there. In "Keys to the Kingdom", B.J. gives him a tour while hiding what he knows. In "The Chosen Ones", Chase ventures into the darkness to help B.J. reset the generators so the electricity keeps flowing. In "Parting Shots", Chase discovers B.J.'s secret.⁴

Place in the franchise

Cold Storage is one of eight webisode series in The Walking Dead Television Universe, running from Torn Apart in October 2011 to Dead in the Water in April 2022, a line that totals 63 episodes.⁷ Within that line it sits second, preceded by Torn Apart and followed by The Oath.¹

Connection to the main series

Prequel placement. Although the webisodes were released after seasons 1 and 2, their events take place before season 1 of the television series.⁶ The story is set in a bombed Atlanta and includes nods to the main show: Chase takes clothing from a storage locker that belongs to Rick Grimes and looks through photographs of the Grimes family.⁹ The Grimes family (Rick, Lori, and Carl) and Shane Walsh also make brief photographic appearances.⁶ Chase mentions that his sister plans to join a caravan to Washington, D.C., and that he wants to get there himself.¹⁰

Nicotero described the series as a darker story told from a new perspective, saying it contained a clear nod to the show but could exist on its own as a "what if" story of The Walking Dead.²

Production and release context

Cold Storage was the second annual set of The Walking Dead webisodes. The first, Torn Apart (2011), told the backstory of the "Bicycle Girl" zombie from the series premiere; Cold Storage followed the same pattern of an online-only story released shortly before a new season premiere, in this case two weeks before season 3 began on October 14, 2012.¹¹^•³ The Los Angeles Times described the release as an "online-only appetizer" from the producers ahead of the new season.¹²

The four shorts were produced by Generate for AMC and posted on AMCTV.com.² The TVDB lists individual runtimes of 5, 6, 7, and 9 minutes for the four parts.⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026