As Gore ran off to find more blunt objects to hurl at the birds, John scolding him in pursuit, Steve grumbled and put more shells into his gun.

“You know you’re supposed to hit them, right?” Dawn asked.

“I know!” Steve said.

Burney screamed.

“I don’t want to hear any lip from you either, Burney!” Steve said. With a click-clack, Steve shoved the last shell into the gun’s chamber and slid it shut, readying the shotgun with a flat look of determination. “Let’s go get some quail.”

At that moment, Gore scared a covey of quail into the air and downed one with a pointy stick he’d found. Steve wasn’t fast enough to even attempt a shot.

“Can you just claim that one as yours?” Dawn asked as bird and stick hit the ground.

“No,” Steve said, watching where the remaining ten birds flew. They landed about halfway between where he and Gore stood, near a small stand of trees a short distance from a pond. It was the same pond where the chipmunk continued to sit frozen in terror.

Steve, Burney, and Dawn walked toward the birds. Two of the ten, however, did not land with the others. These two continued to fly in the opposite direction.

“Hey guys, watch this!” Gore shouted from the distant tree line, hoisting his reclaimed shotgun. Much to John’s vocal displeasure, Gore once again hurled the shotgun after the fleeing quail. The shotgun connected with the first flying bird, crushing it with all the force of a tragically lopsided and morally bankrupt retelling of the story of David and Goliath. Unlike the previous toss, however, the shotgun had been loaded. The shotgun fired upon impact with the first bird, and struck the second with perfect aim. The second bird exploded into a puff of feathers and all three objects fell lifeless to the ground.

“Two birds with one throw! Hah!” Gore shouted.

“That’s two birds with one stone, Gore,” Steve said, trying to hide how impressed he was.

“Oh, I can hit them with rocks.”

“No need, thank you.”

With quickened steps, and trying to ignore Dawn’s giggling, Steve made his way to the stand of trees where the remaining eight birds were hiding. The hunting dogs were still fetching the birds Gore had hit, and John was still yelling at Gore, so when Steve approached the tree stand he was the only one prepared to make a kill.

Steve’s half-demon heart pounded in his chest as he edged toward the trees. Gun held at the ready, his finger waiting beside the trigger, Steve took deep breaths to steady his nerves.

“I see one,” Dawn whispered, pointing at the trees. A slight shiver in the grass indicated something, indeed, was in the brush.

“So do I,” Steve said, spotting the clustered fowl, the birds perhaps thinking to avoid danger by force of numbers.

“Are you going to shoot them?”

“They need to get into the air first. Otherwise I haven’t earned it.”

“That’s stupid. Just shoot them. They’re right there.”

For a moment, Steve considered doing just that. The birds were gathered not fifteen feet from him at the base of a small cedar tree. One shot would probably hit three of them, and perhaps devastate them enough to only destroy two-thirds of the meat. He could make a sandwich out of that. But this was about more than just the acquisition of quail meat. It was about the thrill of the hunt. It was about the accomplishment. And that would taste much better than shooting a bird on the ground.

“Burney,” Steve finally said, “ask me what time it is.”

Burney screamed.

The burning man’s pain-ridden scream of chronic inquiry startled the quail into the air. Steve smiled that he’d succeeded in scaring the quail into flight, and took aim just at the beak of the first bird. His shot missed, falling behind and actually hitting a few feathers.

The second bird Steve took aim at took no damage as well. Steve led his shot too far. The third bird Steve locked in, let out a breath with the bird at twelve yards, leading him just enough, and fired. The bird exploded. Unfortunately, it did not explode because of Steve’s shot, but because Gore threw a rock at it. The rock ricocheted off of this bird and into a second, sending that bird spiraling down into the path of a third and breaking the quail’s neck when all three hit the ground.

“Hah!” Gore shouted. “Three birds with one stone! Change your colloquialisms, pathetic mortals!”

Steve lowered his gun in shock. There was a bit of shock from being impressed with Gore’s new-colloquialism-worthy throw, but it was mostly the shock of annoyance that he’d once more failed to kill his sandwich meat.

Only five birds remained. With a bead of sweat tracing his furrowed brow, Steve reloaded his shotgun and cast off toward where the last of the quail had landed. In that moment, Steve realized he’d never been more of a cliché, and did his best not to enjoy it too much.

In the midst of the cluster of birds flying and Steve’s failure to hit one, Steve had seen the other quail fly back toward the house. Dawn, of course, had easily seen their exact landing spot, but wanted to see if Steve could find them for himself. Gore, of course, was busy keeping Burney from petting John’s dogs.

“No, Burney, you cannot touch them!” Gore scolded as he shoved Burney away from the hunting dogs.

Burney screamed in indignation, stomping a foot that sparked a little fire in the brush.

“Of course I value the lives of dogs higher than those of mankind!” Gore answered.

“You keep him away from my dogs. They can’t catch quail if they’re running from this one,” John said as he kicked dirt on Burney’s little brush fire. “Walk careful, you. I don’t need a flare to stir up birds — dogs do it just fine.”

Burney screamed in response.

“An interesting proposal, Burney,” Gore said.

“He say something?” John asked.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Meanwhile, Steve and Dawn had made their way to the remaining five quail. Softly, so as not to frighten the birds till he was closer, Steve took leaf-crunching steps. The quail had come to a landing in a line of trees. Thick bundles of broken branches and untamed grass mixed with the occasional fallen tree. Right at the edge of it all lay a perfectly green fern. The fern was abnormal, serene almost, especially since Gore was yelling obscenities at Burney further into the field, and Steve could barely see the brown shade of feathers buried inside the fern’s wide leaves.

“Dawn, go around to the other side of the line of trees,” Steve instructed.

“Why?” Dawn asked.

“Because if the birds fly, I want them to go back into the field and not toward the house.”

“How am I going to stop them?”

“Just go stand over there, okay.”

“And do what, flap my arms and yell at them to go the other direction?”

“If you’re standing there, they’ll go the other way.”

“Or they’ll fly over my head as I flap my hands like an idiot.”

“Dawn…”

“Hey look, birds! I’m one of you! Don’t go this way, it’s a trap!”

“Dawn.”

“Completely ignore the fact that a hell knight with a shotgun is over there, actually in a trap.”

“Dawn!”

“Fine. You’re right. I’m probably over-thinking a quail’s cognitive reasoning abilities. Stand over there, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, rolling his eyes.

With a click, Steve readied a shell into the chamber of his freshly reloaded shotgun. While he hadn’t been much of a torturer in hell, and hadn’t left the city for anything more than a few farmers markets with Dawn, which always ended with Gore decapitating half the fresh fruit and forcing them to find different markets each time Dawn wanted organic baklava, Steve searched his experiences for whatever skills could support this hunt. He needed to ensure that he was successful in finding this sandwich. He needed to start the Apocalypse. He needed to save his own skin from hell. So he needed to shoot the skin off this bird and use its meat to make a sandwich and instigate the downfall of mankind.

And so, the idiot with a shotgun walked toward the red neck’s yard to shoot a bunch of tame quail.

Steve stepped around the edge of the tree, making sure Gore and the others would not be in his line of fire. Burney was chasing the dogs in the field, but not in the direct flight path the birds would hopefully choose. Steve had to twist a little so he could approach the fern while still facing the direction he wanted. Stepping like a man feeling his way through the dark, Steve edged a foot inch by inch toward the fern. The birds, tame as they were, simply huddled closer. Had they been wild, they might have been smart enough to realize that they should have flown when Steve stumbled and nearly dropped his gun. Instead, the birds shot into the sky right when Steve stepped on one of them.

Steve hadn’t seen one of the birds before it made a little squeak under his shoe. The shriek of fright from their feathered brother made the other quail immediately fly toward the field. Had Steve been expecting a bird beneath his foot, he might have just kicked it into the air and shot it. As it was, having a bird suddenly pop beneath his shoe quite unsettled his aim, and his first shot did nothing more than trim a few stray leaves on a nearby tree.

With five birds quickly fleeing, Steve stepped toward the creatures and let fire. Two, three shots he sent into the backs of the birds. The second shot went long and convinced the chipmunk by the pond to stay put as long as possible. The third shot ricocheted off a rock and disturbed a squirrel who was editing his third response to the anti-high fructose corn syrup manifesto. There was no way of knowing if the squirrel was adversely affected by this occurrence, but one might assume the fiery language he added to his anti-high fructose corn syrup manifesto addendums were in direct correlation.

When Steve quickly reloaded and sent up a fourth and final shot, he may have actually hit the birds. It may have sent a puff of feathers triumphantly exploding from the ruined creature. It may have allowed Steve to succeed in his hunt. All Steve would ever know, however, was that this may have happened. Because what did happen was Gore tossed Burney into the whole flock of birds. Burney, screaming, spiraled through the air. He spun so quickly that Burney shot jets of flame in all directions and incinerated four of the birds, setting fire to the fifth, before skipping across the field. Like a river stone across water, Burney bounced, screaming, along the ground and finally rolled through the tall grass.

Fire and oxygen and quite a few innocent woodland critters blended together to set the field on fire, and in moments a wall of flame was racing toward John and his dogs.

“Four birds with one Burney? Not much of a catchphrase, but I’ll take it!” Gore exclaimed.

“You stupid metal idiot! You set my field on fire!” John shouted as he stared wide-eyed at his burning land.