Upright coyotes¶

The upright coyotes are unnaturally clean coyotes in the Ballard, Utah area that rise onto two legs, appear in the cold opens of The Walkers in Skin, and turn up as a stalking pack at Ballard High School.


Type	Monster (animals acting with intent)
Aliases	standing coyote; bipedal coyote; two-legged coyote; cold-open coyote; coyote pack
Abilities	Walking on hind legs; advancing in step; mass rushes
Weaknesses	Retreat when one is shot or when two shooters oppose them
Affiliation	Possibly the Skinwalker faction
Status	One dead coyote kept for examination; the pack retreated
First appearance	Walkers 02 (cold open)

Description¶

In their first appearance a coyote steps out from behind a flock of sheep, trots to the pasture's edge and stands on two legs after a rancher in an ATV has driven away (Walkers 02). The player characters did not see it. The pack in the school hallway stood stock-still and staring, and Andre described the dead coyote that Huell carried out as looking "kind of new" (Walkers 07). Kurt later called it "weirdly fresh" (Walkers 08).

History¶

Cold opens¶

The opener of Walkers 02 is the standing coyote described above. In Walkers 05 a woman drives a pickup into the desert as coyotes encircle it. One coyote's mouth opens unsettlingly wide and grey fibers swim up out of its throat; she scoops white powder from a backpack with a coffee cup and pours it down the animal's throat. The grey fibers resemble those of the tendril-mouthed figures in other cold opens (see Skinwalkers), though the scene never says so.

Kurt's stalker (Walkers 04)¶

Walking back to the guest house, Kurt Larson realized he was being followed. He pulled a wad of baloney from his pocket on a successful preparedness roll, threw it and turned to find a coyote standing on two legs with glinting eyes. He used a "verbal flashbang", "Parlez-vous français?", and the coyote stared for a beat, then ran off into the dark, dropping to four legs as it picked up speed. The goose stole the baloney. Reporting to the others, Dante (as Kurt) said: "Either somebody's got trained coyotes or there's something in the water." (Walkers 04)

In Walkers 05 Kurt told Alberta Wilmarth about the coyote. Andre (as Alberta) answered: "Oh no, if he's on two legs and following you, that's probably one of the weird ones."

The pack at the school (Walkers 07)¶

While Andrew Howard was in the gym, Huell Kendrick searched the hallway and found a pack of coyotes standing still and staring. He backed away and shot at the air around them, then shot the front coyote; it kept advancing a few steps, bleeding, and the pack stopped. When he went back through the gym, ten or twelve coyotes were standing on their hind legs, and one clamped onto his arm. Andrew's replica rounded the corner with a gun, Huell shot the biting coyote through the chest, and the pack retreated into a hallway at the back of the gym (Walkers 07).

Huell carried one body to the car, where it lay on the Cats costumes in the trunk. At the ranch it went into a beer cooler under ice, awaiting Donald McManley. Dante (as Kurt) joked, "All right, maybe the Mormons are training coyotes." Kurt's cursory examination found nothing more than that the animal looked new.

Aftermath¶

In Walkers 08 Huell asked locals he met whether coyotes seemed regular. One answered, "Coyotes? Not more than usual." The question became a running gag.

What remains unknown¶

Whether the coyotes are skinwalkers, directed animals, or something else. The players raised both a trained-animal and a "something in the water" theory.
What the white powder fed to the cold-open coyote does, and who the woman was.
Why the dead coyote looked new; McManley never examined it on screen.

Trivia¶

Walt Murphy says he tried in the summer of 1986 to get people to call him "Coyote" (Walkers 02), and the table uses the name for him throughout the arc.
The cold open of Walkers 02 drew the table joke "Regular coyote" from Ezra, answered by Andre with "Yeah, just normal."