The Whisperers punish Alexandria for breaching their territory. Ghosts, the latest episode of The Walking Dead, has wave after wave of walkers herded towards the settlement. The Highwaymen want justice for their piked brethren. Michonne (Danai Gurira) preaches calm. Alpha (Samantha Morton) demands a meeting to atone for their transgressions. Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) come to terms. Carol (Melissa McBride) has a score to settle with Alpha.

Ghosts opens with a card that says "6:00AM Hour 1." Carol wakes up, pops a pill. "Hour 2" walkers approach Alexandria. "Hour 4" Laura (Lindsley Register) and a man kill several undead, but others pour out of the woods. "Hour 6" Aaron brings another group to help. "Hour 11" Aaron is almost overcome by a walker. "Hour 13" Eugene (Josh McDermitt), with his binoculars on the wall, sees more coming. Carol remarks, "This is her." "Hour 14" is all hands on deck as Alexandra prepares for the onslaught. "Hour 19", that night, everyone kills walkers at the barricades. "Hour 22", the attack continues. "Hour 24", the sun rises. "Hour 31", "Hour 37", "Hour 44", the Alexandrians are bloodied and tired from the relentless walkers.

The next morning, Michonne checks on a sleeping RJ (Antony Azor). Judith (Cailey Fleming) watches over her brother. "Hour 49", from the windmill, Michelle is horrified to see the walkers still coming in the distance. Eugene alerts that three more waves are approaching. Michonne and Daryl (Norman Reedus) are exhausted, but see Gamma (Thora Birch) walking to the gate. She brings a message from Alpha, meet at the northern border; leave your weapons.

In the schoolhouse, the community meets. Michonne asks Lydia (Cassady McClincy) about her mother. She replies they're being punished, but says it's not Alpha. She could kill them all if she wanted. Aaron wants to ignore the meeting. Margo (Jerri Tubbs), one of the Highwaymen, demands to fight back and "put their heads on pikes." Siddiq (Avi Nash) starts suffering PTSD flashbacks and leaves the council table. Michonne shuts Margo down. Alpha has thousands of walkers. They will talk to her.

They decide to split into three groups. Carol takes her revolver and continues to pop pills. Aaron attaches a mace to his metal arm. Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam} forces him to take a reluctant Negan, "He can fight." After killing a few walkers, Negan finds a metal crowbar. Aaron orders him to drop it. That night, Michonne, Daryl, Carol, and Linda's group arrives at the pikes. They put down their weapons. Carol sees Henry's (Matt Lintz) necklace in the grass. She has her revolver hidden in the back of her pants.

The Whisperers appear out of the mist. Alpha removes her skin mask. They broke her one rule. Daryl brings up the fire, but Alpha has no fear of nature. They crossed her territory three times, "We are always watching. You have to be punished." She wants land, "The creek that winds to the valley." That will be the new north border. Carol refuses "this bullshit." She and Alpha square off. She has no fear of her. Alpha coldly brings up Henry. He screamed for his mother when she cut his head off. Carol takes out her gun, but Michonne pushes her arm before she shoots Alpha. Daryl restrains her as Michonne apologizes. Alpha lets the attack go, "mother to mother." She picks up a pike, "This is our land now." The Alexandrians retreat.

That night in the woods, Michonne attempts to calm Carol. "That bitch has to die," retorts Carol as she walks away. Daryl believes she was better off on the boat, but Michonne disagrees. Carol doesn't sleep. She has been searching "for them." By herself in the dark, Carol sees three Whisperers and opens fire. She falls down as the others join her. Michonne wants them captured, not killed.

Aaron and Negan are still fighting walkers. Aaron orders Negan to drop the crowbar. He pulls out his knife, then pushes Negan to the ground. Aaron blames him for Eric's death. Negan faults Aaron for not protecting his lover. Aaron gets into his face. Negan's wife died hating him. Negan's face contorts with rage. He then laughs as a walker covered in vines attacks Aaron from behind. Aaron kills it, but is blinded by the toxic leaves.

Michonne and Daryl cannot find a trace of the Whisperers. Michone asks Carol, "How long have you been taking those pills?" The group takes refuge in an abandoned school. Carol sees a home economics textbook on the floor. She hallucinates and sees herself as the mother on its cover. She volunteers to take first watch, Carol pops more pills to stay awake.

A blinded Aaron stumbles toward a farmhouse. He breaks down the door. Negan sits quietly inside. At the school, Daryl tells Carol a story about his truck driver father. He took pills to stay awake. He saw a ghost on the side of the road. Carol replies, "I'm not a meth-snorting truck driver like your father." Her alarm rings. She takes the remaining pills.

At the farmhouse, the noise has attracted walkers. Negan watches as Aaaron blindly tries to fight them off. Negan saves Aaron with the crowbar. He tells Aaron the vines were Hogweed. He gives Aaron his canteen of water and leads him to safety. He'll keep watch, then they'll leave in the morning.

Carol hears a noise. She sees a dead girl, then Henry with his slit throat. Carol wakes up when Daryl enters. She hallucinated their previous encounter. Her alarm rings. She takes the last pills, "one more hour." Carol hears a noise and follows it into the gym. She sees a Whisperer, but steps into a trap. A rope hauls her upside down from the ceiling. She wildly swings at the Whisperer as walkers enter the gym. She shoots her remaining bullets, then cuts herself down. Carol kills all the undead.

Back at Alexandria, Michonne and Daryl take Carol to the infirmary. A shard of glass is stuck in her forearm. Siddiq suffers a flashback. Dante (David Shae) clamps the wound and removes the shard. The next morning at the farmhouse, Aaron has regained his sight.

In Alexandria, Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Eugene finally return to her home. When Eugene asks about baby Coco, Rosita explodes. He is not with her and not the baby's father. They will never be together. The lack of sleep and the outburst leads to a realization for Eugene. He had hoped she would see him as a lover one day. They're entire friendship was predicated on that hope. A teary Eugene leaves in despondence.

Michonne asks Siddiq how he's holding up. He lies to her and says its just being tired. Dante brings him a drink. He tells a story of his days in Iraq, of a medic that saw his entire platoon die in Fallujah. The medic suffered horrendous PTSD when he returned home. Dante admits he was the medic who blamed himself for his friend's deaths.

Carol wakes up to Daryl making breakfast. He gives her money to go to the store. Henry is at the table. She gets up in reality. Her pill bottle is empty. Michonne shouldn't have stopped her from killing Alpha. Michonne had to look out for their lives. Carol is sure she saw the Whisperers in the woods. Michone returns to RJ's room. She and Judith lay down with him. On the porch, Daryl laughs at Carol's pink bandage. He believes Carol saw the rogue Whisperers. Back at the school, a trail of blood leads outside the gym into the woods. The Whisperer Carol shot reanimates as a zombie.

Ghosts has the characters facing their demons. There is a rift between the Alexandrians regarding vengeance. The Carol vs. Alpha showdown is going to be epic. There seems to be rogue Whisperers outside of Alpha's control. Negan is firmly on the hero path. The Walking Dead returns next week with "Silence the Whisperers" on AMC.