Calvin Dupree, also called Cal, is a main character and later an antagonist, as well as a survivor of the outbreak in Thomas Dunne Books' The Walking Dead. As the head of his family, he drove his worn-out car into Woodbury with his family on the verge of starvation and called for help. With the help of Lilly Caul, who became the new leader there, he and his family joined the town. He later becomes the lover of Lilly after his wife's death, but he is so infatuated with Jeremiah's cult that he interrupts her to the point of killing her.

He is described as being "a compact, emaciated, fair-skinned man with the hard, gristly muscles of a day laborer who wears a filthy windbreaker that looks as though it has doubled as a butcher's apron and has the faint, urbanized drawl of a Southern city—Birmingham, Oxford, Jacksonville." "His gray-green eyes are clear, warm, and open—despite the reticence and the lingering trauma of being out in the wild for God knows how long."

Pre-Apocalypse[]

Kentucky[]

Calvin was born in 1964 and raised in a small Kentucky town that was a haven for gun nuts. He grew up visiting his grandparents and wanting to be like his grandfather, a tobacco farmer down in Calhoun County, Georgia, who always had a plug of Red Man between his cheek and gum, which he had to try. His grandfather used to grow watermelons in his backyard the size of Winnebagos and told him he had a secret formula for them.

In 1976, when he was 12, his grandfather finally took him out back and showed him the secret formula - praying when he planted. Old codger said a Hail Mary over every row he planted even though he was a lifelong Baptist; his grandmother Rosie used to give him guff about it. He picked up his mumbling habit and got his first plug of Red Man tobacco from him, but he ended up puking his guts out all over the seat of his John Deere tractor.

Birmingham, Alabama[]

At some point, he and his parents moved to Birmingham, where he developed the urbanized drawl of a Southern city. His mother gardened rosebushes at their place.

Fayetteville, Alabama[]

In 1987, he married Meredith, and since the following year, he worked as a general contractor in Fayetteville, wearing his paint-spattered steel-toed Timberland work boots.

During the 1990s, the couple had three children: Thomas "Tommy" in 1992, Bethany in 1995, and Lucas "Luke" in 1999. His family lived in Mobile, Alabama, while he was working out of the city. He had to deal with his wife's mental issues—bipolar disorder and clinical depression, and once went bankrupt. He was also a lifelong Baptist who could recite the entire liturgy, Litany for the Souls of the Faithful Departed, without missing a beat and never experienced the old-fashioned immersion ceremony.

Post-Apocalypse[]

Southern United States[]

As the outbreak began, Calvin and his family moved for a long time around Alabama and Georgia while he had been putting his kids through the mill. They were kicked out of two other settlements, including the KOA camp. People don't have the luxury of being sympathetic or Christian about it nowadays as it's survival of the fittest, being paranoid and ignorant when they found out about his wife's condition.

The Fall of the Governor - Part Two[]

"The Fall"[]

As people return home after Penny's funeral by Lilly Caul, now Woodbury's new leader, the faint sound of an engine in the distance gets everybody's attention. Lilly, who raises her guard and checks for an unidentified approach, notices that the car that does not pose a threat is coming. It appears to be an old, battered, rust-flecked Ford LTD, a late 1990s model, burning oil, with half the wood panels shaved off in side-swipe mishaps, the wheels wobbling as though they might fall off at any moment. As the vehicle rattles closer and closer, the people inside come into view—a tattered couple in the front, three small urchins in the back—apparently a family, their engine running on fumes. They pull up to within a safe distance—about twenty-five yards down the road—and cobble to a stop in a cloud of noxious haze. From the driver's door, the malnourished father of the family comes out and begs for spare drinking water. Lilly looks closer at the family's situation and greets them to come into town while Calvin introduces his family and asks for some food or weapons.

Descent[]

Calvin and Meredith argue about staying in Woodbury. After the death of his wife, Calvin and Lilly become lovers, his family and Lilly become very close, the sense of having a normal family life eventually makes Lilly decides to give up most of town leadership to Jeremiah Garlitz, with devastating consequences for the town. Calvin soon turned into a deeply religious man, and he believes now, he is living in at the end of the time, and God's judgement day is coming close, Jeremiah convinces him to join his mass suicide pact so that he could be accepted into Heaven. When Lilly and Bob Stookey find Jeremiah's plot at the last minute and try to stop it, Calvin confronts them. When he is about to kill Lilly, his son Thomas shoots him in the head, killing him.

Death[]

Killed By

• Jeremiah Garlitz (Indirectly Caused)
• Thomas Dupree

When he is about to kill Lilly for not giving up to the Pentecostal People of God, Thomas suddenly shoots him in the head, killing him.

Killed Victims[]

This list shows the victims Calvin has killed:

• Numerous counts of zombies

Appearances[]