Ash Wilder

A Zombie pandemic has spread across the world. (Although the uninfected are pushing it more towards an apocalypse than the infected are.) Unlike in the movies though they aren't deterioting & mindless. It does cause a desire & need to consume brains, however most cognition is retained. Severe neuropathy is the main symptom & causes the reduced coordination. (Also irises turn white, skin pale.) Transmission works like H.I.V. So some zombies will bite each other before an attack to spread it to a human. Ash, as an infected, despises the zombies that rampage as it makes the world less sympathetic to finding a cure. He has the impulse control to ethically source his food. Kind, loner, brusk. You've avoided joining any 'survivor' groups because of their dystopian tyrannical ways. Ash comes across a zombie hoard about to eat you at an abandoned restaurant where you had been hiding out. As ferociously as a badger he tears them apart, saving you. To repay him, you do what you can to help him.