Exit Wounds

Prologue

"Everything has its time

And everything ends."

-Unknown

✪☮✪☮✪

PROLOGUE

"What's the difference between men and women?"

Two small town Georgian cops sat in their vehicle, eating lunch, their scanner quiet for the moment. Sheriff's Deputies Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh were more than partners, they were best friends. Had been all their lives, along with Thea Winters, the girl who had completed their trio, up until she left to join the US Army. They often got to enjoy quiet moments like these, eating burgers and fries, complaining about the women in their lives, or the one that was just barely on the outskirts anymore.

"This a joke?" Rick questioned, handing his friend a napkin, as he had a little grease around his mouth still.

"No, I'm serious. I never met a woman who knew how to turn off a light," Shane said, grinning as he dipped one of his fries in the sauce on his friend's half-eaten burger. "They're born thinking the switch only goes one way, on. Mm, and they're struck blind the second they leave a room. I mean, every woman I ever let have a key, I swear to God, it's like I come home, house is all lit up...well, except T, but T's always been an exception to pretty much every rule."

"Yeah." Rick said, thinking about his other best friend, who was out fighting in war torn Afghanistan.

He had been thinking more and more about her recently, what with his marriage troubles. He had started to wonder what his life would have been like if he had gathered up the courage back to ask Thea out when they had been kids, before Lori, before marriage, before his son. He always felt guilty for that thought, because there was nothing he loved more than Carl. Nothing. Yet those thoughts kept coming the more he and his wife argued. He found himself waiting for Thea's weekly phone calls, and her letters, with eager anticipation, just for a mental escape from his marital problems and to hear more about this strange world his best friend, and one-time romantic interest, had pushed her way into.

"Anyway, my job, you see, apparently, because...because my chromosomes happen to be different is I've then gotta walk through that house, turn off every single light this chick left on." Shane continued his rant about women and light switches, unknowingly bringing his best friend out of his head.

"Is that right?" Rick questioned, finally turning his head to look at his friend, who was clearly amused by himself.

"Yeah, baby. Mm. Oh, Reverend Shane is preaching to you now, boy. Then...then the same chick, mind you, she'll bitch about, uh, global warming. You see, this is when Reverend Shane wants to quote from the guy gospel and say, 'Darling, maybe you and every other pair of boobs on this planet just figure out that the light switch, you see, goes both ways, maybe we wouldn't have so much global warming.'"

"You say that?" Rick asked, knowing from experience that his friend could be that tactless.

"Mm. Yeah, well, a polite version," Shane laughs, as Rick chuckles at his best friend. Shane had always been the womaniser, the easy going seducer, while Rick was the cool, charming gentlemen. In high school, Rick had spent so much time wrapped up in his secret feelings for his best friend, and then in his relationship with Lori, that he hadn't really dated all that much. Shane had dated a lot. A lot. "Still, man, that...that earns me this...this look of loathing you would not believe. And that's when the 'Exorcist' voice pops out. 'You sound just like my damn father! Always yelling about the power bill, telling me to turn off the damn lights!'."