Once we finish sketching the route, Lenny leads me to his truck. By his poorly concealed smile, I could tell he's excited about something. Lenny hauls four brief cases out of the bed of his truck and throws them on the ground. Thump. He flips open the cases like a boss. Weapons. Lots of weapons.

        "Gosh darn Lenny..." I grunt. The cases are loaded with a variety of guns, swords of all sizes, giant monkey wrenches, crowbars, lead pipes, baseballs, a slingshot and rocks, golf clubs, more knives than you could count, and even a bow and arrow. "Yup. I'm a collector," Lenny says with a crooked grin.

        Lenny briefly drills me on each weapon and how to use it. Lenny hands me a lead pipe. "It ain't rocket science, Eric. Heck, it ain't even science. Ya just wanna crack them zombies in the head bout as hard as you can. If ya can't get em in the head, go fer the chest. You wanna get strong so you can swing the biggest pipe or sword ya can. If it is a heavier weapon, it kills em better." Lenny says as he grabs an unbelievably large lead pipe from the bed of his truck. The pipe had been spray painted olive green with speckles of cherry-red. There was no way I could ever swing, let alone pick up, a weapon of that size. "I call this bad boy Zombie Smasher 5000." Lenny says as he gives the giant pipe a swing. "It knocks the shit out of them zombies".

        "What's up with you and your names man? Way too long." I reply.

        "Well, I ain't changing it. Already got it painted on the side." Lenny says with a proud grin. He shows me the side of the pipe. Blocky black letters spell "Zombie Smasher 5000". That probably took forever to paint, but it's cool. "Alright dude, I'm not going to lie, that's pretty sweet," I concede.

        We then move to projectile weaponry. Lenny grabs a sawed-off shotgun and says, "Like I said before, only use guns when ya have to. Wait, do ya even know how to shoot?" Lenny asks.

        "Well, I've played some Call of Duty, you know the first person shooter game on the Xbox? It's kind of the same general idea..." I mumble.

"Ahh come on Eric, don't even try that. Well, I guess I'm gonna have ta teach ya sometime." Lenny says as he exchanges the shotgun for his slingshot. "Now, this slingshot is great, cuz it kills zombies real good and ammo is just about everywhere." Lenny says as he gestures to the ground. "Just need rocks." Lenny then picks up a baseball. "You saw what I do with these. Just throw em as hard as you can." Lenny switches to the bow. "And this is my bow. Arrows are scarce, so I don't use her much, but when I do..." Lenny brought his finger across his throat. "I kill lots of them zombies." Lenny drops the bow. "Well, that's bout all ya need to know." Lenny says as he started walking back to the station.

        "Wait, wait, what? What about strategy? Isn't there some technique and stuff?" I ask.

Lenny just chuckles and shakes his head. "Well, stay as far away from them zombies as possible. If ya can, take em out with ranged weapons. But if yer outta ammo, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Remember, if a zombie hears ya, smells ya, or sees ya it's gonna come after ya. They never back up. They ain't gonna get scared, or run away. They just ain't human." Lenny says as he strolls back to the station. "Oh yea, I almost forgot, I found this on one of me raids, thought you'd enjoy it." Lenny said as he uncovers a Game Boy Advanced(GBA) from his pocket.

        My heart skips a beat. "Heck yes man! This is awesome!" I exclaim in joy. I scamper up to Lenny, grab the GBA, and gave him a big hug. I check the game cartridge and it's Pokémon Sapphire, a classic. Sweet. I can play this game for days nonstop and completely forget about the Zombie Plague.

        I rush back into the station, grab a bag of peanuts, and fire up Pokémon. A saved file already exists that was half way through the game, but I deleted it. I want to start fresh. Now, who should I choose as my starter... There is Torchic(fire based chicken looking Pokemon), Mudkip (water based salamander-Pokémon), and Treeko(leaf based lizardish Pokémon). I decided to choose Torchic. I like birds, and fire Pokémon are usually the coolest. With that, I dive into Pokémon, and time flew by.

        Next thing I knew it was time for dinner. I form a pile of granola bars and slim jims. Lenny gorges on of multiple packets of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups before engulfing several protein bars. I'm sure we would get tired of gas station food eventually, but for the moment; we were like two kids in a candy store. Wait, I guess we pretty much are two kids in a candy store.

        I had noticed that Lenny spent most of his time reading "The Old Man and the Sea", so I ask him about it. "Hey Lenny, what is up with you and that book. I didn't even know you could read?" I joke.

        Lenny laughs and replies. "Heck, I don't know why, but I like the way Hemmingway writes. You know that Scarlet Letter crap that Mr. Johnson made us read?"

        Oh gosh, I remembered struggling through that book like a knight in cast iron armor trying to wade through a pit of zombies. Every minute detail was described in full, making it a painful read. That may have been the thing back in 1850, when the book was written(Or at least I think it was written then-ish, I'm not really sure), but come on, this is the twenty first century. "Yeah, that book was awful, what about it?" I ask.

        "Well, Hemmingway is the complete opposite. He just says it like it is. The man don't screw around much. I'm almost finished readin' it." Lenny says as he showed me the page he was on. He had about 20 pages left. "You should read it after I'm done" Lenny adds.

        "Yeah, I might dude, if I have time between training and Pokémon" I said with a smirk.

        "Shouldn't have given you that Game Boy, you freakin' nerd. Next thing ya know, you gonna be wimpin' out on Lenny's special extra trainin' time. " Lenny says with a crooked grin.

        "First off, it's Z90X! And heck no, I ain't gonna quit Z90X. I'm a freakin' zombie warrior." I say. Wait, did I just sound like Lenny? This is bad, I'm spending too much time with him.

        We chatted for awhile, and then went to bed. Again, my blanket was scratchy, and the floor was hard, but I was exhausted from Lenny's training. I fell asleep in an instant.

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        I woke up to the sound of crows. I briefly wondered whether animals are immune to the zombie plague. Certainly, I had never seen any zombie birds or anything like that. Hopefully, I would never have to.

        I sit up. I didn't think it was possible, but my soreness had dramatically worsened since yesterday. Everything hurts. Muscles I never cared enough to think about burn as I struggle to my feet. Man, my glutes are freakin' sore too. Why the heck is my butt sore? That doesn't make any sense.

        I hadn't brushed my teeth in days, so I found a brush and some tooth paste. It feels weird to brush my teeth after so long, but I don't want to become some stereotypical toothless West Virginian, so I keep brushing. I down some Starbursts for breakfast, and found Lenny, who had just finished "The Old Man and the Sea". Lenny had tears in his eyes, but became stone-faced when I found him.

        "Ready for Z90X day two?" Lenny said as he got to his feet, wiping away the tears.

        "Yeah, whatever," I reply with some attitude, trying to sound more confident than I really was.

        With that, we go outside and start day two, which turned out to be quite different than day one. First, Lenny grabs a couple jump ropes and we started rolling. We complete 100 reps, taking 20-second breaks after each set. I don't know how long we go, but I'm almost as strong as Lenny, only having to stop for a break a couple times due to the intense burning in my arms.

        Next, we do handstands. I have no idea how handstands relate to zombie killing, but I have given up asking questions at this point, so I just try to imitate Lenny the best that I can. Lenny could hold a handstand for nearly thirty seconds, which was incredible due to his massive size. Lenny could also walk on his hands for a lengthy distance and perform a tricky one-handed handstand. I tried to maintain a handstand, but my arms would start burning, and I lost my balance quickly. After nearly half an hour of handstands my best was around two and a half seconds. Have to start somewhere I guess.

        We transition to balance. By "balance", I mean that Lenny and I venture into the woods, and Lenny finds a log that we can walk across. Lenny starts with the golden standard, nimbly traversing the log like a giant redneck ninja. I go next. I take a few steps and then slip on a wet patch. I tumble to the forest floor. My forearm is sliced open by thorns on the way down. "Shoot!" I yell, angrily checking at my bleeding forearm.

        "Quiet Eric, they probably heard you." Lenny says in a hushed tone.

        Right on que, I hear a rustling directly behind me. I turn around, scrambling for anything that could be used as a weapon. In a flash, I hear a moan, and before I can even run, a extra-large zombie in a full camo outfit tumbles out of the brush. Desperate, I kick him in the shin. The massive zombie's legs gives out and he topples on top of me, smothering me. Panicking, I flail with all my might to keep the zombie from crushing my neck. I can't breathe, suffocating under a metric crap-ton of meat.

        I hear a roar and I'm free. Lenny rips the zombie off the ground, holding him like an oversized hamster. With a grunt, Lenny throws the zombie at a tree, a feat of nearly superhuman strength. The chubby zombie lets out one last scream-moan and hits the tree head on, sending blood and parts everywhere. Lenny wipes his hands off and whispers "All right there partner? Go right ahead and get back up on that there log." I do what exactly he tells me.

        We alternate attempts to cross the log. Lenny makes it without falling nearly every time, and when he does slip he catches himself before he falls. Even when I'm moving as slowly as possible, I can never make it all the way across. Once, just inches from the end of the log, I panic and slip, landing face first in a pile of prickly grass. Finally, after I'm sufficiently frustrated and banged up from multiple falls, Lenny calls it quits. "Alright Eric, 'nuff of log balancin', we got other stuff to train." I sigh in relief and start following Lenny out of the woods, struggling to keep up.

        Once we get the station, Lenny yells "Wind Sprints!" and takes off towards the other side of the parking lot. Surprised, I take off after him. I’m gaining on him, but the lot was only about 100 meters, not long enough for me to catch him. By the time Lenny makes it to the end of the lot, I’m breathing down his neck.

"How many reps are we doing and how much rest we got?" I ask.

        Lenny is breathing heavily. "15 reps." He takes another breath of air. "20 seconds rest."

        With that we take off again. This time, he has no head start, so I run alongside him. I can tell by his breathing rate that he is already pretty tired; I know that if I run the same speed for the next 13 reps there is no way he would be with me in the end.

        For the next two reps I run with Lenny. With every rep Lenny's breathing grows louder and his form worsens, but he doesn’t seem to slow. Half-way through the fourth rep, I trigger a burst of speed and leave Lenny straggling behind. For the remaining intervals, Lenny starts with me, but he his speed always flags before the end of the sprint.

        I finish the last sprint in good form, air streaming through my hair as I plant my foot at the end of the pavement. Turning around, I see Lenny struggling to finish. He is gasping air as he swings his massive limbs in an ungainly manner, trying to muster all his willpower for final effort. Lenny reaches the end of the lot and sits down, his massive chest heaving, and then he starts laughing. "Well, it's bout time that you push me in sometin'. I was fraid that I would be doin' all the pushin'." Lenny says through deep breaths. I smile and think Yeah, I'm glad I'm good for something.

        Z90X has one last trick and Lenny brings me to the back wall of our gas station. It’s constructed of brick. I fail to resist the urge to make a sarcastic comment."Ok, what are we doing now Lenny? That's just a wall. What are we going to do with a wall?" Lenny slaps his hands together and retorts "Alright Eric. One thing ya gotta know bout them zombies is that they don't climb. So if ya know how ta climb stuff, you can get away." Lenny says as he kicks his shoes off. He then approaches the wall and grips the handholds between the brick. Lenny starts climbing, moving like a giant human lizard. I watch in awe, checking the size of the gaps in the brick. They are tiny, only offering enough room to fit the tips of my fingers. Lenny drops off the wall, hitting the concrete with a thud! "How do you do that?" I ask incredulously.

        "I got them strong hands from liftin' stuff," Lenny replies. "Even so, I couldn't get it right away. I got this big body to lift. Gotta practice."

        So Lenny has me take my shoes off and instructs me on how to grip the bricks. I fail to even pull myself off the ground, let alone climb the wall. He tells me to jump, and try to hang in place. I jump and can feel my arms straining while I’m in the air, but I can only slow my descent for a fraction of a second. Over and over again I jump, using my feet and hands in a hopeless attempt to scale the wall. Meanwhile, Lenny had climbed the wall at least ten times, taking brief rests after each completion.  The tips of my fingers are raw and painful from rubbing against the mortar, when Lenny says, "alright now, 'nuff climbin'.” I lean against the brick wall, worn out from jumping rope, hand stands, slipping off a log, getting smothered from a fat zombie, falling off the log again, wind sprints, and finally, completely failing at climbing a brick wall. Day two of Z90X is over.

        "Alright, that's my entire program. I'll switch things up if I feel like it, but fer now we keep alternatin' 'tween the two days." Lenny says with gusto. Alright, so now I more or less know the entire routine. In a way it’s helpful because I know what to expect, but on the other hand, I know just how tough the exercises are. I wonder again if I will be able to last, or if my body will just break down under this intense routine.