Christine and Jim had been in Love. Not the everyday love of most married couples, but Love with a capital L. The kind that everyone dreams of, but most people never find. They had just returned from a three-week honeymoon in Paris, and were prepared to live the rest of their lives in Jim's tiny apartment, tucked away in marital bliss.
And then the infection hit.
No one really ever found out what caused it; in the absence of a real government response or investigation, rumors and hearsay had to do. The one thing people were certain about, though, was that it spread rapidly. Without hope of a cure. So when the infection reached the happy couple's city of residence, there wasn't much that could be done. The inevitable happened. Both of them were infected.
Of course, that wasn't the end of the story. The Survivors, as those who were immune to the virus were called, never saw any spark of intelligence behind the actions of the zombie horde. But then again, maybe they didn't want to. It's much harder to kill when you're killing a real person.
All Christine knew was that when she rose again, she was still the same person at heart. And most importantly, nothing had changed between her and Jim. Sure, her dainty fingers had been elongated into claws designed to tear and rend flesh, and Jim's once-proud jawline now housed a curled tongue capable of snaring a man from a hundred yards, but their souls, their love, remained the same. Even better, the Infection had brought them a gift. While they could no longer communicate by speaking, they shared a new kind of connection. They shared a mind. Jim's thoughts, his feelings, his very being was no different from her own. It has been said that matrimony binds the souls, makes two become one, but it had never been more literal. The physical deformities were irrelevant, compared to this new-found union.
Which is why, two weeks after the Outbreak, the two were sitting in a street-side cafe, whispering sweet nothings to each other in their minds. The remaining walls of the once-proud eating establishment were lit with the smoldering rubble of a nearby gas station. The couple didn't really care what had caused the station's destruction, all that mattered was that it made perfect ambient lighting. No candles required. The soft tones of a Beatles song crooned from the cafe's radio, a rarity in the ruined city, since any noise would attract ravenous hordes of the undead. Jim and Christine, however, were already Infected, and thus were left alone by the shambling monstrosities that prowled the streets.
Sitting on the table were two glasses of an expensive French wine Jim had looted from a nearby restaurant.
"You know what the best part of this is?" Jim's voice asked her in her mind. "No reservations." She chuckled softly, her laughter illuminating his mind like the Northern Lights. She wrapped her clawed fingers around the thin stem of the glass and took a sip, savoring the feeling of the warm alcohol traveling down her spine. Jim smiled. He could feel it too.
The couple had worked through a good half of the bottle now, and were starting to feel its effects... and, well, it wasn't like there was anyone around enforcing public decency laws. There were bigger concerns on peoples' minds. Sensing her intent, Jim leaned in for a kiss, his mouth opened slightly-
"SMOKER!" shouted a voice from behind them. The startled couple swiveled to see a muscled biker standing only a few feet from them. In his tattooed arms was a pump-action shotgun, and on his face was a scowl. Standing slightly behind him was a young black man, dressed in a worn white shirt. His professional-looking red tie seemed absurd, given the situation. The grizzled biker pulled the trigger. There was a flash of light, and then everything went dark.
"Nice shot, Francis!" the younger man remarked, as pieces of the infected lovebirds' spines rained down, ruining a perfectly good bottle of what was probably the last vintage of Chateau Merlot that would ever be made.