*Chapter Five: Trust in the Dead - Perhaps I can trust him.*

3 days since I last ate anything. My body is completely on the verge of eating me from the inside out. My stomach is gnawing and seemingly growling. I ran out of the pepperoni then and any store I've gone into has been nothing but a wasteland. The food has spoiled that might have been sustenance for me to devour. The shelves cleared of any canned meats I might have been able to quell this evil desire within me. "Fuck." The hunger was almost unbearable. Just what was it about this virus that made me want and seek flesh? I couldn't figure it out. I might have to succumb to the fact that I'll have to eat a human soon enough. It would be wrong, but I'd have to do something. I didn't want to let this 'thing' consume my very being. I'd been fighting it for this long, I think I can handle a little longer.

I hopped on my bike and tried to start it but it wouldn't. I looked down at the gas dial. "Double fuck!" I knew cursing got me nowhere but it was the only thing about me that was still me. I had filled up back at the Ohio state line but even that was almost fumes coming out of the only pump that still worked. Or at least hadn't blown up yet. I got off of it and kicked the tire. The pressure from my kick burst the tire and it went flat. "Fucking piece of crap." I was finally at my last rope. My hunger had finally gotten to me. The craving need had finally entered my brain. I screamed out in total terrifying agony as I felt my skin crawl. I was starting to lose it. It felt like there was nothing left to live for. I fell to the ground and looked to the smoky sky. "Mom...I failed you.."

That was when I heard a vehicle approaching. It was still far away but I could hear it from a few blocks over. I looked in the direction and saw it was coming towards me. I stood up and covered my eyes because the vehicle had the brights on. It was the middle of the day but with the smoke in the atmosphere from all the burning, it was tough to see, even for me. It stopped within a few feet of me and I peered around the front to attempt at a glimpse of who was driving. The door opened and I stepped back, grasping my bat in my hand. If this was another survivor that was bent on killing me, I'd have no choice to kill them - and worse, devour their flesh.

"Hey, if it isn't someone like me," a male voice came from the vehicle as the figure closed the door. A man stepped out of the van and began walking towards me. His arm had a huge hunk taken out of it and some type of silk wrapped around it in an attempt to cover it. "You can put that bat down. See? I'm putting down my chainsaw." He put his weapon on the ground and continued to walk towards me. "Can ya speak?" he muttered before he took another step. He seemed alright except for the fact his skin was pale and grey with specks of blood on his shirt and his pants torn at the bottom.

I put my bat down and stepped away from the bike. "I'm...I'm AZ," I muttered. "Who are y-Ahhh!" I clasped my abdomen as I looked to him, almost collapsing to the ground. My hunger had reached its limit. The feeling was unbearable. The man ran to the back of the van and opened the hatch before he ran back to me. He popped open a can and turned me over on my back. He pulled out a small piece of food and placed it in my mouth.

"It's not much, but it will help." His voice was raspy because of the infection but his smile was genuine. He seemed to be like me. Like the infected me, anyway. I looked to him as I began to chew. My taste was nearly gone but I could still sense that it was something I had eaten before. A vienna sausage. I quickly grabbed the can from him and began to devour it. I pushed my fingers into the can not caring if I cut them or not. I couldn't really feel my fingertips that much more anyway. The blood from my body seeped from the cuts as I ate the last one. I was saddened there wasn't another until he spoke again. "I've got more if you want to come with me."

I looked to him. My once blue eyes now golden in color as I looked into his pools of the same color. It was something about this infection that changed a person. This disease that had cursed everyone on Earth was now putting people on a plane where they were bordering life and death. Just what was this? I nodded to him as I finally had the strength to stand once more. I reached my backpack and grabbed my bat from the ground. "How have you survived?" I asked of him.

"Pretty much the same way you have. Eating food that isn't human flesh. I couldn't stomach that. I'd seen that in voodoo tribes around the world even before this...this infection wreaked havoc on this planet," he explained. "Oh where are my manners? I heard you mention your name is AZ. I'm Cash - not sure if I wanna give you my real name yet. Former sales associate at Best Buy. Or at least I was until a kid came in and bit my manager." He helped me get in the van before he walked around to do the same. "Where ya from? You couldn't have gotten far on that thing." he asked before he started driving past my bike.

I looked in the back of the van only to find different canned goods and some lunchmeat that was sealed tightly in its packaging. My mouth seemingly watered at the sight before I decided to answer. "Actually, I'm from Philly. I was in a grocery store when an employee bit my manager. Honestly, he was a douche and bit me too." I looked back to the back of the van once more. I was drawn to that heap of food. My stomach was craving more. More like the infection was craving more sustenance. I spotted some gas canisters back there. Perhaps that was for the van.

He continued to drive down the road and then he looked over at me. He reached back behind the seat as he drove fumbling for something. He pulled his hand back around holding a package of high quality salami that was tightly packaged. "Here. I've got more where that came from." He smiled as he looked to me. "Seems we both had crap jobs and awful bosses," he chuckled. "But none of that matters. The ones alive want to kill us and the recently infected are turning into monsters."

I gasped as I looked to him. "Monsters? You mean like mutants? You've seen them too?" I took a bite of the meat after I had managed to open the package.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Some bitches and a few jocks turned into...into something straight out of a video game. It didn't seem right. They started chasing me and they damn near busted the windshield," he said pointing to a crack in the corner of the front window.

I nodded as I started to take smaller bites, hoping to make this food last - even though there was a bunch in the back, I didn't know if he'd keep me close for long. "A couple of women were wanting to eat me and before I decided to get away, one of them turned into a huge monster with the strength similar to the Hulk."

His eyes widened. "Damn, I haven't seen one like that yet. Wait...they wanted to eat you? Were you already infected?"

"Yeah, that's what didn't make sense. They said that living flesh was lost to them, that they would eat infected meat if they had to survive."

Cash shook his head. "That isn't the way this works. If someone eats rotting flesh that's already infected, they'll...they'll become something way worse. That's what the jocks did to the bitches that were already turned. Then they turned into those things."

He seemed to know a lot about this stuff. I wasn't sure if that was a comfort or not. I finished the salami that he had given me and looked ahead. "So...where were you planning on heading?" I wasn't sure where I was going, but something about a military base seemed welcoming. Hell, he might not even take me with him anywhere. He could have been just trying to get someone on his side and I'm not even sure if I'm on that yet. With the hunger within me subsiding for the most part, I looked to him. I was starting to believe that I could trust this guy.

He shrugged. "Not sure yet. Don't know if anyone would even want me the way I am. Survivors have been trying to steal my stash but in their attempts, I've almost lost my head. It's not even been a week yet since this all went down and it fucking sucks. I just want to be on my couch playing Call of Duty.."

I smiled sitting back, relaxing in the car seat. "I just wanna be playing Left 4 Dead, but it seems I'm already doing that." I chuckled at the notion.

"Wait..AZ...you wouldn't be the AZ that always fucks up survivors for fun as a Tank would you?" he asked curiously. "AZ, as in AtomicZombeh?"

I looked to him not sure how to answer. Then I remembered he had said his name was Cash. "The same. And you wouldn't be Cash underscore Henson would you? The punk who always thinks he can take on a Tank solo?"

He scared me a bit when he laughed out loud, his voice quite raspy because of the infection. "Oh fucking hell yeah! I can't believe this! I've got The AtomicZombeh in my fucking van! You are a legend on the forums. I've gotten laughs from hearing what others have had to deal with playing against you. What was one of them? 'Great teammate skills, but monster as an enemy!'"

I looked to him with a smirk. "I've got a rep huh? Heh, like it does me any good now."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Ah, don't worry about it. You've got a friend in me. I can't believe this.. AZ is a chick and she's in my van!"

He was having a nerdgasm in the driver seat as I looked over to him shaking my head. He seemed to be trusting enough. Hell, now that I knew it was Cash from my many hours of playing CoD and L4D, I felt at ease. Finally, someone that wouldn't want to kill me. It was seeming that not everyone wanted to fight alongside our kind either, even if they were one of us. We'd have to stick together for a while. I hoped he wouldn't turn into one of those things. But he said that it only happens when one of us eats another. As long as we didn't do that, we'd be fine. I finally found a safe haven, to a point. We'd have to keep going for as long as we could until we couldn't go anymore. That's where we'd stop. When we have nowhere else to go.