Ubiquitous Decay (Zombie)

episode one, part one

Episode 1 Act 1
"And you thought I'd forgotten about today."
"To be honest, I didn't give it much thought. These past few weeks have been chaotic. I never expected us to have a moment like this."
"No amount of chaos could diminish how special our time together has been. I've been collecting things, planning for this night for some time now. I wanted it to be extraordinary for you... I know it's not real, but." The man pulled out a tattered plastic rose, handing it across the table where they sat.
"I love it... Really... all of it. This place, the rose, the candles—even though they aren't lit. I love you." Her look of astonishment excited the young man, who studied her every facial expression.
"Oh, right." The man dug into his pocket and reached up to light the candles with a silver zippo. Since most of the windows in the rundown house had been boarded up, not much light came through from the outside. The setting sun beamed through the small slits where each board met. The shining rays, clouded by a heavy presence of dust, gave the cluttered room that used to be someone's living room a warm glow.
The blue-eyed woman let off a bit of a laugh as she looked across the table at her brown-haired lover fumbling about in his pocket once again.
"I also found this. Abbey..." He pulled something out, clenched it tightly, and got up from the chair. "Will you do me the honor?"
"Frank..." Abbey put a hand up over her mouth, attempting to hide a shocked expression.
"Will you marry me?"
A scream from the streets outside cut Frank's words short. Gunshots followed the shouting, and, without warning, a stray bullet flew through one board covering the large bay window.
The startling yet familiar sounds of men crazed and thirsting for human meat followed, as did more gunshots and an eventual scream of pain.
Abbey jumped up and ran to the window. Peering through the cracks between boards, she watched as a man lay squirming on the lawn a couple of houses down the road. A small group of biters attacked the struggling man, reloaded, screaming in agony as they chewed on him. He desperately attempted to reload his pistol. Once reloaded, she watched the man end his own life to avoid the constant torture of being eaten until he himself turned into what was eating him.
She turned away, cringing at the gory sight. "Frank, we've got to." Glancing back to see Frank, she saw him knelt there, holding a bloodied spot on his chest. She immediately assumed that the stray bullet had hit him. With the other hand, Frank released the ring he had clasped within it. By the time the ring rolled across the floor to her feet, she had already knelt to pick it up. Abbey looked back at her love, only to see him take one last breath before falling lifelessly to the floor.
"FRANK..." She ran up to him, but it was too late. The bullet went straight through his heart. "NO. NO NO. Not now. Yes, Frank, the answer is yes..." She fell to the ground and cradled his head against her chest. "Don't leave me, not now, please... you can't... I'm pregnant." She wept in a frenzy as the tears beaded off her cheeks and Frank's head.
Some time went by with Abbey cradling her deceased love, lost in a false euphoria of memories, momentarily unfazed by all that surrounded. Blood had soaked her shirt, and though it started out warm to the touch, the chill that came over her as it cooled was a painful reminder that the tragedy that didn't seem real would leave an unfriendly place in her heart.
The candles, which had fallen off the table when Frank fell, sparked a small fire that quickly spread to all the junk lying around outside the room. A moment later, the crash upon the boarded-up windows startled Abbey from her trance. The biters had heard Abbey and were now beating down the barricades that barred each window.
She didn't want to leave Frank's side, but the threat was too great. She developed an instinct since this all began, and that instinct now kicked in, forcing her to think about survival and how Frank would've wanted her to pull it together to live on.
She threw her pack over one shoulder, grabbed Frank's pack with the other hand, and ran over, kneeling down beside him for a kiss. A few tears fell to his cheeks as she hovered above, glaring deep into his lifeless eyes. Abbey shook her head and half-heartedly wiped her eyes clear. "It was always yes." She flipped him over, grabbed the pistol tucked in the backside of his jeans, grabbed the ring beside his body, slipped it on the appropriate finger, then headed out the back of the house.