Steve and the others awoke to a scene of exhausted firefighters, exhausted fire hydrants and a partially flooded hotel lobby. The smell of steam and burnt duck still clung to the wood-carved scenery, and Steve sniffed with irritation as he walked down the stairs. Gore, however, grunted with approval.

   “They should make use of this indoor flood while they can and hold gladiatorial water battles,” Gore noted.

   Steve stopped at the bottom of the stairwell, stretching and yawning as he thought of how to reach the hotel exit without getting his socks wet. “It’s too early in the morning for gladiators, Gore,” Steve said. “Or talk about gladiators.”

   “Four shots of espresso apiece. Then fight to the death.”

   “What about the people watching?”

   “Nothing sharpens the senses for the day’s trials than a warm splash of blood in the face.”

   “I like my coffee blood-free, thank you,” Dawn said as she joined the others at the bottom of the stairs. She had a cup of hotel coffee in her hand and stared angrily down at it. “Ugh, but it might make this instant stuff they had in the room more tolerable.”

   “We stayed for free. Don’t complain about the amenities,” Steve noted. “Where’s Burney?”

   Burney screamed from the other side of the room, floating along in the shallow water via what remained of a metal-lined ambulance stretcher.

   “Good,” Steve said, hopping onto the hotel lobby bar. Using this dry path, he traversed the distance to the door without stepping on the water-logged lobby floor. Dawn followed close behind. Gore, meanwhile, splashed directly through the water and grabbed Burney, using the screaming man as a towel to dry his armor when they reached the front door.

   The firefighters made no attempt to intervene. They merely lay in the warm water, trying to stay upright and looking the opposite of concerned that the burning man was leaving and still on fire.

   In short order, Gore once more chained Burney to the top of Steve’s car, and the group drove toward the highway. Steve rubbed his hands against the steering wheel as they exited downtown Memphis, drumming a nervous rhythm.

   “Hunting, hunting,” Steve said. “Where’s the best hunting?”

   “The plane of reality where God stores monsters he may or may not unleash upon mankind in the hour of its destruction,” Gore suggested.

   “Not that kind of hunting. I’m wanting to make a sandwich. Like a duck sandwich, only one properly killed.”

   “Red dragons taste kind of like duck.”

   “I’m not asking what plane of existence we should go to. More like, right or left.”

   Steve pointed to the highway up ahead. There was a fork in the interstate that diverged in opposite directions. One green sign pointed toward the state of Tennessee proper. The other pointed toward Missouri and Arkansas.

   “Let’s go toward Missouri and Arkansas,” Dawn suggested.

   “Why? Good hunting there?” Steve asked.

   “No clue. But if this whole sandwich thing doesn’t work out, we’ll be closer to St. Louis and can get home quicker.”

   “I appreciate the bode of confidence,” Steve said as he turned the car toward Missouri, taking a moment to look back at the exit to Tennessee. His thoughts for a moment were fixated on the monumental impact such a small decision might have made on his future.

   “Do you even have a backup plan?” Dawn asked.

   “For the sandwich thing? No.”

   “They’re not going to give you a second chance if you screw this up.”

   “I’m trying not to think about it too much.”

   “You should have a backup plan.”

   “Or a strategy,” Gore added.

   “My strategy…” Steve said, turning back to glare at Gore as he changed into the fast lane, “is to find a place where we can hunt something. Or gather something. Get our own meat — make our own sandwich. That’s what we need.”

   “And when you realize that this will not equate to Damien’s experience when he eats the sandwich?” Dawn asked.

   “One thing at a time, Dawn. One thing at a time.”

   And so the hours passed as the car made its way once more into the Mississippi valleys around the borders of Missouri and Arkansas. Over the interstate they went and finally crossed into the Ozark mountains.

   Known for rolling hills, glorious scenery, lakes as pristine as they are plentiful, and the best moonshine and other home-cooked meals and addictive substances you’ll ever unwillingly discover. It’s also the birthplace of cashew chicken, which is an entirely strange and irrelevant piece of information.

   As Steve drove up and down the gloriously tree-strewn highway, he kept a lookout for signs of a place where he could seek out his own food. A fishing hideaway. A hunting lodge. Gore’s suggestions were becoming increasingly more violent and increasingly less helpful, so Steve finally asked that Dawn look up a place on her cellphone.

   Sure enough, Dawn found the one hunting or fishing or outdoor excursion service that advertised on Craigslist. It was called Prey of Birds, and was located in a town called Greenfield. It did not have further specific directions, and when Dawn dialed the listed phone number of this establishment, she got an answering machine that quoted a bible verse and nothing further before a very loud beep.

   Thankfully, Steve was intelligent enough to navigate even the most confusing of Ozarks highways. After only getting lost three times, they finally discovered the road to Greenfield. Three times might seem excessive, and it is. But that second time was just because Steve got distracted when they passed a town named Humansville, and he had no choice but to insist Gore annihilate all its residents for concocting such a stupid name for their town. Only discovering that there was a town called Needmore and Peculiar a few miles beyond prevented such a massacre from actually occurring, and Dawn’s vetoing of the endeavor.

   It was concluded that towns in Missouri were not intended to be taken seriously, and so such places as Normal and Personsville and Heywhatsthat-Madeyoulookville were all created to scare off potential tourists by putting them into a stupid-induced hysteria. Well, Steve wasn’t about to fall for that kind of defense.

Unfortunately, just because Steve had discovered the road to Greenfield and had successfully avoided screaming too much at the passing town of Humansville, he didn’t have the ability to find this hunting service. Nor were there any signs advertising Prey of Birds anywhere. When Dawn put the location into her phone’s map, her screen cracked.

   “This place looks odd,” Dawn said as Steve slowed to the thirty mile an hour Greenfield speed limit. A stern sheriff, sitting in a parked police car and holding a radar gun, glared at Steve’s passing vehicle. This made Steve wonder if the town’s tax revenue was solely generated through speeding tickets, which it was.

   The entire town existed on a single lane of highway. In fact, Steve had to turn around because he’d gone through and out of Greenfield before he’d realized he was in it. On the second pass, they were able to examine the sights more clearly.

   Single story homes lined every space of road. Each was painted a different shade of fading color, each a different shape or constructed from a different material. Half the homes proudly bore the American flag just above the flag of the state’s football or baseball or college athletic team. One house had a home-made cannon that was obviously lacking in structural integrity to be used. Comically shaped and likely more deadly to its hypothetical users than enemies, the cannon was placed beneath the American flag in a way that must have seemed a mark of military patriotism to the owner.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

   Greenfield had two gas stations, but only one of them had been operating since the nineties. The other was an empty building with a hot dog cart/ice cream stand/custom key maker and bait shop where the gas pumps used to be. There was another bait shop across the street.

   No less than three churches lined the highway, with steeples dotting further into the gravel-lined streets beyond. The sheriff was in the parking lot of one of these churches, and glared more intensely at Steve as his car passed a second time.

   “You think he doesn’t trust us?” Steve asked, reddening with embarrassment that he wasn’t sure where to go. He smiled at the sheriff. The sheriff did not smile back.

   “I think he’s trying to figure out if our car’s on fire,” Dawn noted.

   “Oh. Right.” Steve had forgotten about Burney, again.

   The sheriff was indeed staring at the burning item placed atop the four-door import. This wasn’t the first time a burning item had been placed atop a passing vehicle in Greenfield, however, and it wasn’t technically illegal. Plus, the car wasn’t speeding, so the sheriff merely blinked and allowed Steve to turn around once more and once more head back into town. As long as the burning item stayed on top of the car, the sheriff didn’t see any harm in letting it pass. Now, if it were another deer burning on top of someone’s car and had fallen off at the same instant the Baptist church was leaving after Sunday service, well, that would have been a completely different story.

   “You’re lost,” Dawn noted.

   “We’re not entirely lost; we’re just not sure where exactly this place is,” Steve noted.

   “That’s lost.”

   “What did the advertisement for this bird of prey place say again?”

   “Prey of Birds. And it didn’t say. Just said Greenfield. Someone needs to teach these people the proper methods of advertising.”

   “Look, there’s a café next to that church. We’ll go inside. Maybe that’s the place — I don’t see anything else around here.”

   “Why don’t we go to the gas station?” Dawn asked, looking back at the gas station they’d just passed for the third time.

   “I don’t want that cop seeing me turning around again,” Steve said as he pulled off the road and into the gravel parking lot of an aged, white-painted building.

   Trailers was what the café was called. It advertised food, propane tanks, ice, checks cashed, bait, and licensed accountant beneath a sun-faded sign. There were several cars parked at Trailers, all domestic models and all baptized with gravel and dirt. Half the vehicles were trucks, and of these not a one did not have some tool in the bed Steve had no hope of recognizing. One tool looked like a wrench, but had a hook that made it resemble a medieval war hammer. When Gore tried to test its combat ability, Dawn smacked him on the hand.

   “That’s used to clean pipes, Gore, not bash skulls,” Dawn said as they approached the café’s door.

   “All items can be used as a weapon,” Gore noted.

   “Stay here, Burney, we’ll be right back,” Steve told his chained friend, and joined Dawn and Gore inside Trailers.

   As the flame is snuffed from a smothered candle, so did the sound leave the interior of the café when Steve led Gore and Dawn past the bell-jangling door. Pausing a moment, Steve couldn’t help but gulp as a dozen faces stared at him from worn metal chairs.

   “Hi,” Steve said, paralyzed with worry that these people might notice the horns atop his head, or grow concerned of his present company. He didn’t know if people from the Ozarks carried shotguns in their blue jeans, nor did he have the present mental faculties to realize the physical impossibility of such a notion, but the imagined challenge of a dozen shotguns being trained on him made Steve suddenly have the desire to vacate immediately.

   Dawn, however, took one look at the people staring at her and gave a quick sniff. Then she turned quickly away from the farmers and ranchers and county employees on lunch break, and crossed her arms in front of the restaurant counter.

   “We’re looking for Prey of Birds,” Dawn said to the robust woman next to the cash register.

   “Sure,” the waitress/cashier/fry cook/CPA answered. She had tousled blonde hair, arms thick from making too many deep-fried chicken sandwiches and eating too many deep-fried chicken sandwiches. She took one moment to look Dawn up and down before turning her lips and brows down. “John.”

   “Yeah,” the man whom the waitress gestured to, replied.

   “Think you’ve got a customer.”

   “Well hello there,” John said, and rose from his open-faced roast beef and mashed potatoes lunch. He extended a hand toward Dawn. “John Michaels.”

   “Dawn,” Dawn replied, “This is Steve and Gore.”

   “Hello,” Steve said, and shook John’s still proffered hand. Steve was happy to have broken the tension between himself and the others in Trailers, and did his best to smile at all those watching the exchange. No one smiled back.

   “You looking to shoot some birds today?” John asked.

   “That’s the plan.”

   “Well you picked the right man. You ever… you ever shot before?” John made a guess about Steve and Dawn, but was thoroughly confused over what to think about Gore.

   One of the ranchers who’d been sharing a table with John smirked at his friend’s question. He looked away from Dawn and resumed eating his cheeseburger.

   “What? What are you all looking at?” Dawn asked, staring down those who’d recently been staring at her. Half those present looked down at their mashed potatoes and gravy and the other half stared right back.

   “You don’t need to be rude, Dawn,” Steve advised.

   “I’m not being rude. I’m asking a question.” Dawn crossed her arms and cocked her head, daring those staring at her to speak.

   After what seemed an abnormally long amount of time for one to be interested in their mashed potatoes, one of the younger farmers present at Trailers looked up from his food and asked, “That a robot or something?”

   Dawn turned, looked at Gore, and said, “Yes.”

   “I am not a robot,” Gore countered.

   “Shut up, robot.”

   “I am a knight in the armies of the…”

   “Of the robot costume brigade,” Steve answered, holding down Gore’s arm before he could do something violent. “It’s a, uh, group of people who go around dressing in metal robot costumes.”

   “What for?” the young farmer asked.

   “Does this look like a robot costume to you?” Gore asked.

   “Why would you dress up in a robot costume?” one of the ranchers sitting beside John Michaels asked.

   “He’s weird,” Dawn added.

   “I will show you how much of a robot costume this is,” Gore said, his voice rising as he unsheathed his blade.

   “Shouldn’t it be a laser sword or something?” the young farmer asked.

   “Robot costume looks kind of silly if you use an old sword like that,” another chimed in.

   “Are you a good robot or a bad robot?” the waitress inquired.

   “Listen to me and listen close—” Gore began.

   “Sound like a bad robot to me,” the farmer sitting next to John concluded. “Look, you can dress up as some kind of evil robot all you want, but don’t expect us to be nice to you when you wave your stick at us.”

   “Does this look like a stick to you!”

   “Gore!” Dawn shouted before Gore could cleave the farmer’s head from his neck. “Bad robot.”

   All present at Trailers chuckled at that.

   “You sure you’re okay, son?” John Michaels asked. “You should really listen to the lady if she’s trying to be the nice one around here.”

   “Despite his hideous mustache, the man has a point,” Dawn agreed.

   John rubbed his fingers through his mustache. His friends had a similar styled mustache, but he still felt suddenly ashamed of it.

   “Hold on, what’s wrong with his mustache?” the rancher beside John asked.

   “It’s hideous,” Dawn said.

   “Looks fine to me.”

   “Then you have as bad taste as Gore does in clothing,” Dawn said, and gave Gore’s armor a clang with her knuckles.

   Those in Trailers laughed at the sound of Gore’s dinging armor.

   “The lady has a point, John,” the young farmer at the other table added.

   “You could talk if you could even grow a mustache. Looked like a cow crapped on your face last time you tried to grow one,” one of the ranchers said.

   “That don’t even make sense,” another as-yet-silent rancher noted.

   “Neither does that he’s walking around like a robot.”

   “That’s not even an insult.”

   “You’re not an insult.”

   “I’m a what?”

   “You’re a robot.”

   “I am not a robot!” Gore exclaimed.

   “Hey!” the rancher replied. “I was talking to him.”

   The restaurant laughed as the rancher pointed to his obviously-not-a-robot companion.

   “Okay, okay, enough of this. Are you going to show us where the Prey of Birds is?” Steve asked John Michaels.

   “I will not stand here and be insulted!” Gore exclaimed.

   “No one understands what you’re saying, Gore. We don’t speak robot,” Dawn said.

   “Your death will be slow and agonizing!”

   “Beep boop, beep boop,” Dawn said and paused, looking at Gore. “That means calm down, Gore. I’m trying to speak your language.

   “Okay, okay,” Steve said, pulling Gore aside. “Go be a good not robot and play nice with the trash compactor or something.”

   The restaurant erupted in laughter to Steve’s unintended remark, then, and Gore raised his sword in preparation for a strike of fury when Dawn shouted, “Gore! Down! You’re not a robot,” and silenced all laughter.

   “Yeah, he is,” the young farmer said to one of the farmers at his table. “See? Got bolts and stuff on his head and everything.”

   “That’s mah hat,” an elderly man with a fishing cap full of hooks and lures said, shifting his cap. It looked enough like robotic instruments for those watching him shift uncomfortably to laugh at his reddening face. Then the old man smiled back, taking his cap off and rubbing a bald head. He made some beeping noises to play along, but no one heard them.

   “So I ask again,” John Michaels said when the laughter died down. “You ever shot before?”

  “We can learn, can’t we?” Steve asked.

   “Alright then,” John said with a smile. “You got a car?”

   “We do.”

   “My truck’s out back. Follow me.”

   “Thank you very much.”

   “How you doing, Burney?” Steve asked as he exited Trailers and walked toward the car.

   Burney screamed as a plastic cup turned to liquid and black smoke on his backside. A wad of paper came flying past Steve’s head and burst into flames when it touched Burney’s head. Steve turned in confusion, and saw a cluster of children who’d been throwing rocks and flammable objects at Burney for the last ten minutes.

   Burney screamed, sad to see the children leave.