Show runner Dave Erickson already said "Fear the Walking Dead" won't show the zombie outbreak origin. However, this hasn't stopped people from looking for clues in the pilot episode and forming their theories.
Fans of "The Walking Dead" have known since the end of season one that everyone in the world is infected with the zombie virus. Whether you get bitten or not, you are reanimated as a zombie after you die.
Those who tuned in to the pilot have seen Gloria (Lexi Johnson), LA's patient zero. No one knows how she got infected but she's certainly not the very first to turn.
"As we saw in an early teaser video, Tobias [Lincoln A. Castellanos] mentions to school guidance counsellor Madison (Kim Dickens), that there have already been reports of a virus outbreak in five states," The Inquisitr pointed out.
While this suggests the virus didn't originate in LA, it does beg the question of where it did. An Uproxx article said it couldn't have been the water supply as many have suggested because "most municipalities across the country have different water supplies."
An airborne contaminant also isn't likely because instead of the slow rate of the zombie outbreak origin implied in the "Fear the Walking Dead" pilot, "there would be an instant epidemic," according to The Inquisitr.
Whatever it is, the source of the infection would have to be something big - perhaps from a higher power even. Travis' lecture on Jack London's 1908 short story "To Build A Fire" may not only foreshadow the zombie outbreak but also provide clues to its origins.
MoviePilot pointed out that the story is often used as an example of naturalism, "the thought that social conditions and environments shape the character of a person."
And as Travis told his students, "nature always wins."
In light of this, Bustle can't help but ask if Robert Kirkman actually penned a story about Mother Nature's revenge on mankind for destroying the planet.
Given the zombie origin clues spotted on the "Fear the Walking Dead" pilot, the website also wondered if the series took a page from M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening."
