I wake up to the sound of birds chirping. Where the heck am I? Why am I sleeping on the floor? What happened? I wonder. Then the events hit me like thunder. Zombies. Lenny. Gas station. Chirp-chirp. The birds keep chirping. I wonder if they realize what is happening. Or if they just continue being birds. Do they stress about anything? I kind of doubt it. I think they just chirp and fly and eat worms and build nests.

Light is faintly streaming in through the blocked windows. Rolling over, I sit up with a groan. My entire body is sore and stiff. I'm not surprised, between fighting zombies and sleeping on the floor; my body has already been through the ringer. I pull on my eagle T-shirt and jeans, realizing that Lenny is already up.

Lenny was sitting on his chair, reading a book called The Old Man and the Sea. He looks over his book and says "Bout time ya got up, you need to start yer trainin'." Through running, I had learned to enjoy physical exercise, but I had never really trained unless my coach made me.

"Fine. I'll do your training program or whatever." I grunt.

"All righty then Eric, keep yer pants on and get ready fer Lenny's extra special trainin' time!" Lenny cries, clearly proud of his name.

"Wait, wait, what? Lenny's special extra - I mean, extra special trainin' what? That’s what you’re calling this?" I say incredulously. I count in my head rapidly. "Dude, that's like nine syllables, way too long. How about Z90X? It's only four syllables, much more concise, and it sounds a lot cooler."

Lenny whines, " But I like Lenny's extra special -"

"I know you like it dude. But it's just not a good name. Sorry. Z90X or no deal." I interrupt. Lenny's seems to deflate a bit. I could tell I had won.

"All right Eric, whatever, we can call it Z90X," Lenny says sarcastically. "But no complainin' bout nothin' I tell ya to do. You gotta be tough up here if ya want to be a zombie warrior." Lenny says as he taps his head.

With that, we get down and start doing pushups. Real original Lenny, I could've thought of this I think as I start reps. "Hold it right there partner!" Lenny yells.

"What, aren't these pushups?" I snap.

"Darn no they ain't, don't give me that bull-crap. You is hardly bending those elbows. Make sure your chest thumps the ground like this here," Lenny says as he demonstrates proper form.

"Whatever," I groan as I restart push ups, this time doing a more complete motion.

Lenny is right, I feel these more I think as my arms and chest started to ache. As I work through to rep eighteen, my muscles start to really burn. Come on you wimp! I try to yell at myself, but my arms give out and I hit the floor. Lenny keeps going, knocking out fifty reps without any discernible increase in breathing rate.

"Alright, I want you to do four more sets, try to get as many reps as yer first effort. You can have a two-minute break, which I'm timin'!" Lenny commands as he checked his watch.

"What! Five sets, that's stupid man. Most studies indicate that the maximum desired sets for weight training is-"

"There you go, trying to wimp out with your science crap. You want to survive? Then do the workout!" Lenny yells.

"Ahh, whatever man, " I moan.

After a two minute rest, I try to hit eighteen reps, but I die at rep fourteen. Lenny completes fifty again no problem. My next set is even worse, I only manage twelve. By the fifth set, my arms are shaking after just the second pushup. I struggle through five pushups, then collapse face down on the floor, sucking in air. Only one exercise and my arms already feel dead. This is going to fun day. "Are we done yet Lenny?" I plead. I hear a good-natured laugh and look up. Lenny is still cranking out reps like a pushup machine. "Heck no Eric, we's just startin' " Lenny says, hardly out of breath. Darn...

After Lenny finishes his last set, he sits up and burps. "Righty then Eric, now we do pull-ups"

Hah, this time I had won. There is no pull-up bar in the station. Without a pull-up bar, how are we going to do pull-ups? I rationally think. "Hey Lenny, we don't have a pull-up bar! Guess we have to skip this exercise. " I say hopefully.

Lenny chuckles and shakes his head. "Heck, I aint never used a freakin' pull up bar in my life. Just go on outside and do 'em on that there tree ya retard." Lenny says, pointing outside. Groaning, I limp out the door. I find the tree, a massive oak with a low hanging branch about a foot out of my reach. I leap for the branch, grabbing it with my palms pointed away from my face. I started my first set, and had just completed my second pull-up when I heard Lenny yell, "Eric! I don't want to see that bird-crap. Go deeper!" I sigh and started completely extending my elbows. 3...4...5... I struggle to complete my 6th rep. With a grunt, I clear my chin over the bar, and drop down to the ground, burning to catch my breath. I look around, trying to see where Lenny had gone. He is swinging a nearby pine tree, ripping out reps like a monkey juiced up on Monster. I briefly imagine a monkey drinking Monster. I wonder what would happen to it. I think monkeys are around the same weight as humans, right? So it probably would have similar effects. What about a bunny? They are pretty small right? If a bunny had a whole Monster, man the little thing would probably freak -- "Alright!" Lenny yells from across the parking lot. I jolt back to reality. "Two-minute rest, four more sets!" I sigh and mentally prep myself for more pain. A bunny on Monster.

I struggle through the next four sets of pull-ups, completing sequentially less reps each time. After my last rep, I drop to the ground hard, smacking my feet against the pavement. Taking a moment to recover, I sit down on the ground, panting like a worn-out West Virginian mutt. Lenny finds me and drags me off the ground, "Come on Eric, we got work ta do!"

Lenny half-carries me back to the station and throws a Payday bar at me; "fer protein" he yells. The Payday smacks me in the chest and I yelp. "Dude, why the heck are you throwin' crap at me? Why didn't you just hand it to me?!"

"Gotta keep up yer reflexes!" Lenny yells as he pelts me with another Payday. I try to catch the bar but I'm too slow. The Pay-day smacks me in the shoulder. I groan.

Then we start core work. I thought I knew what I was in for, but Lenny has a nasty routine that I'm not prepared for. A four-minute long plank marks the beginning of the routine. I hold on for the first minute and a half, then my muscles give out and I hit the floor, a sensation that I'm used to at this point. Lenny dives into crunches and other moves that I have never seen before, but they make my midsection burn. I try to hang with Lenny, but I'm forced to take countless breaks. After we finish the routine (well, more like after Lenny finishes the routine) my body feels as dead as... as dead as... heck, I dunno, a zombie?

It takes me a good twenty seconds to get to my feet, and before I can even think about complaining, Lenny cries "Alright kid, let's wrastle!" as he hops to his feet, as light as a sparrow.

"What?! You gotta be joking man! You're like nine times my size! How does this even relate to killing zombies? I don't get it!" I yell.

"I'll go easy on ya. Plus, sometimes you lose yer weapon. Ya gotta know how to shove them zombies around and not get bit"

I groan again and we start wrestling. In a frantic dive, I try to surprise Lenny and take out his legs. I try to move him with all my might, but he didn't even budge. Lenny then grips me with massive hands and drags me to the ground, pinning me instantly. He may have been going easy on me, but wrestling Lenny is like trying to overpower a 600 pound grizzly bear. Ok, maybe like a 300 pound grizzly bear, but you get the point. I can't win. "Guess I gotta go real easy." Lenny says with a crooked grin. After about twenty minutes of Lenny tossing me around like a rag doll, Lenny calls it quits. Day one of Z90X is over.

Entire body in pain, I moan, "Lenny, I don't know how long I'm going to last at this rate." This Z90X stuff is crazy.

"You'll do just fine. " Lenny says as goes to his truck. What is he doing now? Can he take a ten-minute breather every now and then? I wonder as I lay on my back, wanting to move as little as possible.

Lenny comes back into the room with a roll of paper. He sat down next to me and unraveled a diagram of some type. I gasp as I realized what it was. It was a hand sketched map of Charleston. There are numbers next to the names of certain streets. A few of the numbers had been crossed out, but most of them are still unmarked. "Here it is Eric, a map of the city" Lenny's said with a static spark in his eyes.

"I counted the streets we outta take back first. I already cleared a few of the outer streets myself when you was in yer coma, but there are still plenty of streets we need to get takin' back. Course, your gonna take bout a month of trainin' before yer ready to go into the city."

I stare at the neatly drawn map. Lenny had marked up to sixty streets, but only the first seven are crossed out. I point to number twenty four. That's my street. "Lenny have you found any survivors? Do you think we can skip some and do twenty four?" Lenny takes a moment to count, then replies. "I reckon I've rescued twelve people in total. Tried to get 'em to stay with me an' fight, but they all took off fer other places. Sure hope they don't go and get themselves ripped up by them zombies. As fer 24? I know that's where yer parents live and all Eric, but we'll be goners if we tried to go straight there. We need to clear out these streets first." Lenny says while he points to a whole block of roads. He takes a moment to plan a route. "Well, we can skip a few streets Eric, but we still gotta clear out 8,9,10,12,13,15,16,18,20, and 21." Lenny concludes.

That’s ten roads. It’s going to be tough, but if we could save my parents, it would be worth it. "Ok Lenny, sounds like a plan."

Our mission ahead? Clear out ten zombie infested streets.