When your parents send you a Michonne bobble head and heart-shaped cookies for Valentine’s Day, that’s when you know you have become the ultimate “The Walking Dead” fan. Blood, gore and the struggle for power in a post-apocalyptic world are what drive this pulse-racing show.

Based off the original graphic novel by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, “The Walking Dead” follows Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a sheriff’s deputy who wakes from a coma to a world where zombies roam free and must find his wife and son in the chaotic new reality that he has been thrust into.

The pilot premiered Oct. 31, 2010 to 5.3 million viewers. By Season 3, after developing a cult following, the finale episode raked in 12.4 million viewers and became the most-watched finale in basic cable television history.

Scary movies, in my mind, can only be remembered in bits and pieces, the rest are covered by my mother’s hand or by the sheet on my bed. That was until three years ago, when I stumbled upon my parents watching a new show that they could not pull themselves away from.

That show was “The Walking Dead.” The violence and blood that had once made me jump in my seat now had me glued to it.

During Season 2, there was a lull as Rick, his family and a group of survivors found refuge on a farm and only fended off the occasional walker or two. I found myself thirsting for the rush of Season 1 and the promise that every zombie would be brutally slaughtered. Where was the blood?

My prayers were answered by the finale of Season 2 as the farm was ravaged by zombies and the group just barely made it out alive. Rick’s arch nemesis Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) was finally killed, only not by Rick but instead by Rick’s son Carl (Chandler Riggs). Rick discovers it’s not the zombie bite that spreads the virus but death itself. The virus lives within all of them, and it’s only a matter of time before death causes them to turn into the walkers they so fear.

The battered and bruised group now has to find a new home and struggles with the loss of so many. Season 3 returned bigger and better than ever as Rick and the gang take over a rundown prison and claim it as their own. Rick’s wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) is pregnant and expecting any day, which puts the group on edge as they realize they must now raise a baby in a world that is no longer really meant for children.

As the season progresses, it is no longer the zombies the group has to be afraid of but everyone else out there who is also trying to survive. New villain Phillip Blake (David Morrissey), better known as the Governor to most, is a man so terrifying he would give Hannibal Lecter a run for his money.

The premiere of Season 4 is almost upon us, and I can feel that same rush creeping in as each day goes by. It’s not the zombies that I look forward to the most, but the characters themselves. The show’s fan base isn’t driven by a bunch of blood-thirsty thrill seekers but by people who are so invested with each character that they need to be reassured they will survive. As the mantra goes on the set of “The Walking Dead,” – because it is a show that is so volatile – “no one is safe.”