The Walking Dead

Chapter 1: The Girl Who Once Was

A man with curly brown hair hears something in the distance... Something... Shuffling. He walks towards the sound and sees a little girl with a teddy bear and bunny slippers. "Little girl," the man whispers, no response, "Little girl," he whispers again, still no response. "Little girl?" the man whispers, louder this time, "Don't be afraid, I'm a policeman, I can help you," he says, "Little girl?" the child turns around, revealing a pale face. Is she sick? No. She's dead. Suddenly, the man is stared down by hungry eyes, is she going to eat this man? She looks malnourished but well-fed, chapped lips —- No, they're torn up —— This girl isn't sick, she isn't alive, she isn't dead. What could possibly be happening? The little girl starts walking towards the man, eyes filled with hunger, the man takes out his gun and puts his finger on the trigger. She's getting closer, take the shot! The little girl starts to run towards the man. The man pulls the trigger, creating a loud boom, sending a wave of sound into the air, echoing through the trees. The little girl falls to the ground. Dead. Just like that, she's dead.

The corpses in the cars around the man are alarmed by the sound of the gunshot. Their faces come into his peripheral vision. There were more of them. "Crap," the man whispers to himself. More undead, more hungry faces, starved, malnourished, whatever you would call something that... Unsettling. The man goes back to his car and drives away from the scene. He didn't want to see the dead little girl just laying there. He definitely didn't want to stick around to find out what was happening with the corpses in the vehicles.

"What's the difference between men and women?" the curly haired man asks, "Is that a joke?" a man with dark hair asks, "Nah, I'm serious," the curly haired man says, "In my experience?" the dark haired man starts, looking at the curly haired man, "I've never met a woman who knew how to turn off a light. It's genetics. I swear to God, they were born thinking the switch only goes one way: On," he continues, "It's like they're struck blind the second they leave the room. Every woman I ever let have a key to my house, swear to God, I come home, my house is lit up like it's Christmas day. So apparently, it's my job, because my chromosomes are different, to go through the house and turn off every light the chick left on." he pauses to put some French fries into ketchup, "That's the core basis of the male-female dynamic. The yin and the yang." he finishes. The curly haired man chuckles, "Is that right?" he asks, "Yeah, man, listen, Reverend Shane is preaching to you right now," the dark haired man says, "God, Reverend Shane," the curly haired man mutters, "And then that same woman will talk about global warming and all that crap. That goes double if you wanna drive something with a decent V8 under the hood, in that case, you're a selfish prick who kills baby polar bears." Shane continues, "So Reverend Shane quotes from the Guy Gospel, 'Well, darlin', maybe if you and every other woman on the planet figured out a light switch goes the other way too, we might not have so much global warming', am I wrong?" he finishes, "You actually say all that?" the curly haired man asks, "Yeah but the polite version. Still earns me a look of loathing you wouldn't believe. And out comes this Exorcist voice, 'You sound just like my father! Always yelling about the power bill and I should turn off the lights!' Yeah... Swear to God, they're all like that," Shane laughs at himself before looking at the curly haired man, "See, to us, it's just lights. To them, it's a traumatic flashback that dredges up all their daddy issues." the dark haired man finishes. "What do you say to that?" the curly haired man asks, Shane scoffs, "I know what I wanna say. I wanna say 'You mean to say you've been hearing all this crap your whole life and you're still too stupid to turn off a light?' Course, I don't say that." Shane responds, "Yeah, good," the curly haired man chuckles, "That would be bad." he says, "I do the polite version there too," Shane says, "That's very wise." the curly haired man says.

"How's it with Lori?" Shane asks, "She's good at turning off the lights. Real good. I'm the one who sometimes forgets." the curly haired man says, "That's not what I meant." Shane says, "Um," the curly haired man pauses and clears his throat, "We didn't have a good night," he says, "Yeah, file that under 'No crap.'" Shane starts, studying the curly haired man's facial expression, "Look, I failed to amuse you with my sermon but I tried. Least you could do is speak, tell me what's going on." he continues, the curly haired man scoffs, "Yeah, that's what Lori always says, 'Speak.' You'd think I was the most closed mouthed guy ever, to hear her keep saying it." the curly haired man says, "You express your thoughts? Your feelings? That stuff?" Shane asks, the curly haired man sighs, "The thing is... Lately, whenever I try, everything I say makes her impatient. Like she didn't wanna hear it after all. It's like she's angry at me all the time and I don't know why," the curly haired man says. "Couples go through stuff like that all the time, it's just a phase," Shane says, "Last thing she said to me this morning was 'Sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all.' She said that in front of our kid. Imagine going to school with that in your head," the curly haired man says and looks in the distance, in front of the car, trying to mask the pain of that memory, "The difference between men and women... I would never say anything that cruel to her," he pauses, "Especially not in front of our child," he finishes, Shane sighs, "Yeah," he says, the curly haired man looks at Shane, "And the thing is—" he gets interrupted by the sound of the police radio static.

Shane and the curly haired man look at the radio, the curly haired man turns the sound up, "Available units, code 3. High speed pursuit in progress, highway 18, EB, Linden County units request local assistance, suspects reported as two male Caucasians, GTA, ADW, 217, 243, advise extreme caution." the dispatcher says. Shane and the curly haired man throw their food away in a trashcan and drive towards the location.