By Chris Post

The season nine mid-season finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead is being billed as one of the scariest episodes in years and sneak peek images and videos lend some support to that claim.

From what we can tell so far, it looks like the action will be split between two locations: Hilltop and some seriously spooky wilderness.

Looking first at Hilltop, we can see that Michonne and her group have reached Hilltop with the new survivors.

After a tense meeting at the gate, the group is allowed inside. There are some new (young) faces and Henry gets to work learning the art of blacksmithing.

At some point during the episode, it appears that Carol is going to set off for her return trip to the Kingdom, setting up a tender goodbye moment between the Queen and her Prince.

Meanwhile, the group of Daryl, Jesus and Aaron head out to find the missing Eugene. Along the way they run into the creepy zombie heard that seems to be behaving in a way no one has ever seen before.

Yes, folks, after a bit of teasing, it looks like we’re going to get to spend a bit more time with the Whisperers. The group of villains familiar to fans of the Walking Dead comics, will most likely factor heavily into the back half of the season.

At some point in the episode, it also appears that those meddling kids will go all Scooby Doo gang, heading out to solve some mysteries on their own.

Oh yeah, and lest we forget, Negan is still locked up.