Not much was said for the first few miles. Not much could be said. The tank was very noisy, and Burney didn’t really know how to drive it properly. Gore knew how to drive the tank, but he couldn’t fit inside the hatch. This left him crouching against the turret with disgust that the tank’s engineers hadn’t considered the needs of larger passengers. He complained of discrimination once or twice, but no one really paid any attention.

Steve kept thinking, squatted on the flat back end of the tank, sitting on the swastika so passing cars wouldn’t think they were crazy. They were already getting crazy enough looks, driving a tank along the highway. Driving a Nazi tank would make things that much more awkward.

The slow tank churned its treads as fast as its half century-old engine could travel. It occasionally spat pavement backward in acceleration, but was still rumbling below the speed limit.

Car headlights would sometimes catch up to the tank, and often honk their horns in rage for the slow-moving vehicle. Then the fact that the slow-moving vehicle was a tank would hit these drivers’ road-raged minds, and the drivers would shut up and speed away fast as possible. The first three times this happened, the drivers’ reactions were hilarious. But it quickly got old.

The only real activity going on with the tank-born travelers was Dawn silently tossing bunnies in front of the treads. The series of squished bunnies, meant to further realign the balance of good and evil, dotted the tank’s progression like the most horrifying breadcrumbs Hansel and Gretel could ever dream of.

It had been an hour since the tank made it to the highway. The lights of heaven-fire raging in the battle had long since faded into the distance. While they’d escaped the maelstrom of that battle, there remained unfinished business.

“I’m still hungry,” Steve declared, which was the first thing he’d said since telling Gore to shut up about the tank hatch an hour ago.

It seemed the only thing to focus on, the only thing Steve felt in control of fixing after the chaos he’d experienced that day. “I’m hungry,” Steve repeated, his stress over either an impending trip back to hell or being smited by an angel fading with the routine maintenance of searching for fast food.

“Want Burney to flash-fry you a bunny?” Dawn offered, presenting a bunny to Steve by its ears. The white-furred creature wrinkled its nose at Steve with wide, unblinking eyes.

“No. Burney never cooks them evenly,” Steve said, scanning the highway for an exit.

“Suit yourself.” Dawn shrugged and tossed the bunny under the tank’s treads.

The tank had no headlights, so Steve could only see when a pickup passed them, honking its horn at the tank then slamming on its brakes when the driver realized he was honking at a tank. Before the truck pealed out and made a U-turn, its headlights reflected off of a sign that advertised an exit into Little Rock, Arkansas a mile ahead.

“Sign said there’s a burger place coming up,” Steven said. Thinking he had a bit of a say in what he experienced in life for the first time in days, Steve directed Burney to take the next exit. With this, Steve nodded, satisfied that he’d regained some measure of self-will.

“You’re not going to find a very good sandwich at a fast-food place,” Dawn noted.

“I’m not thinking about that right now, Dawn.”

“You didn’t seem to be thinking about it much back there, either.”

“Back at the battle?”

“You had a chance to get a sandwich and get away. Or at least kill some people in the name of your mission to start the apocalypse.”

“It wasn’t my idea to start killing people. And it wasn’t Gore’s either.”

“Had I known I could get away with actually slaughtering those people, I would have. Angels never play fair,” Gore sulked.

“I’m glad you didn’t, Gore.”

“Why?” Dawn asked, laying on her back at the front of the tank. She rested with one hand behind her head, the other stroking a bunny she held atop her stomach.

“What do you mean, why?”

“You seem to have an obsession with saving human life. It’s weird,” Dawn said, and tossed the bunny to its doom.

“I’m just trying to find a really good sandwich. That’s it,” Steve replied.

“So that you can start the apocalypse. Which would kill billions of people.”

“Finally, no more restraint. Glorious violence shall be mine!” Gore declared.

“Don’t get too excited, Gore,” Steve cautioned.

“Why shouldn’t he get excited?” Dawn asked.

Steve stared at the coming lights of Little Rock, not wanting to reply.

“Steve, do you even want to start the apocalypse?” Dawn asked, sitting up.

“I want to get a cheeseburger,” Steve said, propping up his tired head with his hands.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Gore demands grotesque violence on a biblical scale!” Gore said.

“Yes, Gore, we know. You can stop telling everyone,” Steve said.

“I’m just very excited.”

“See? Gore’s excited. Why aren’t you?” Dawn asked.

“I’m starting the whole thing, aren’t I? I’m breaking the Antichrist out of his addiction with a really good sandwich,” Steve said.

“Starting the apocalypse, yes, but without the will to do whatever it takes? Gore summoned an army from hell to make that happen. But all you did was criticize it.”

“So that wasn’t a bad thing?” Gore asked.

“No, Gore, it was horrible and you should be ashamed for having done that. However, I applaud your enthusiasm.”

“Gore shall accept this as an endorsement of my methods.”

“With an asterisk, perhaps.”

“Then Gore accepts this asterisk-amended acceptance of my methods.”

“I don’t accept them,” Steve said.

“Gore doesn’t need your acceptance,” Gore said, crossing his arms and looking away. Then he looked back. “Would you accept them with an asterisk?”

“No grammatical addition would make me accept you slaughtering people, Gore.”

Gore harrumphed and went back to ignoring Steve.

“You do realize the hypocrisy of what you’re saying, right?” Dawn asked.

“I’m not focusing on that right now,” Steve said, pointing out a sign indicating they were approaching the exit. Neon lights at a hill beyond the exit beckoned patrons to the fast-food restaurant. “That’s what I’m focused on. A cheeseburger.”

“There’s more at stake than a cheeseburger, Steve.”

“Not to me there isn’t. I’m starving.”

“Steve…”

“There’s no more discussion of this,” Steve snapped. “I’m getting a sandwich. That’s all that matters and that’s all we’re focusing on.”

Dawn spent a long time looking at Steve, her eyes scanning him from head to toe. She frowned at the half demon standing before her, eyes narrowed. “If that’s all you’re looking for, so be it.”

The exit came and Burney guided the panzer to the drive-through window of a Square Root of Sandwich fast food restaurant, its orange and red neon lights advertising comfort and stability in artificially flavored meat-like substances.

“Hold it here, Burney,” Steve said as the tank pulled up to the drive through ordering menu. A digital speaker/microphone greeted the tank’s occupants in front of a colorful display advertising what at least looked like food in large plastic letters.

The sound of the tank’s brakes crack-cracking to a stop must have startled the cashier at the other end of the speaker, because the first thing he said was, “Do you have a tank out there or something?”

“Don’t be silly,” Steve said. “I need four cheeseburgers with—”

“Gore demands his cheeseburger be a double,” Gore said.

“Three cheeseburgers, one double—”

“Extra pickles on mine,” Dawn added.

“Two normal cheeseburgers, one with extra pickles, one double—”

Burney popped his head out of the tank’s hatch and screamed.

“One normal cheeseburger, one with extra pickles, a double cheeseburger, and a frozen chicken sandwich,” Steve said. After Burney screamed again, Steve added, “Extra mayo.”

The cashier read back the order, along with the total cost, and instructed Steve to pull his car to the window. The cashier emphasized the word car, probably to appease himself. Unfortunately, he should have stuck to his initial instincts.

“Hi there, that was eighteen fifty?” Steve asked, holding out money to the wide-eyed cashier. The tank pulled up to the drive through window, with the crack-crack of the brakes striking the cashier frozen with fright.

“Here you go,” Steve said with cash extended. The tank, however, did not pull to a stop in front of the drive thru window, and the cashier did not take the money. Steve with his hand full of cash and his mouth smiling, slowly rolled past the agape cashier, who watched the tank move to the end of the restaurant.

“Burney!” Steve scolded, pounding on the tank’s hatch with his fist. “I said stop at the window! Go back.”

“Cursed burning fool. Gore can see his double cheeseburger in the possession of that acne-laced youth behind us. Return so that I can devour it!” Gore demanded.

“The burger, not the cashier,” Dawn clarified.

“That would depend on the proportion of mustard and onions present on my double cheeseburger.”

“Burney, go back!” Steve said.

Burney screamed in reply. A loud crack like the snapping of power lines echoed from the hatch, along with a worried scream from Burney.

“What did you do this time, Burney?” Steve asked, looking inside the hatch.

Burney looked back at Steve and screamed. The tortured soul was pulling at a loose lever. This was the braking mechanism, and no matter how many times Burney pulled and pushed at it, the lever caught no resistance. It simply flopped around uselessly.

Steve suddenly remembered back at Ivan’s battlefield someone mentioning the need for a panzer tank to receive a replacement brake line.

The Square Root of Sandwich was rapidly fading in the distance as the tank picked up speed. The cashier blinkingly watched the tank roll away, and, as if it would appease the situation, proffered the bag of greasy burgers into the empty air. When Steve was incapable of turning around to collect, the cashier, thinking his transaction completed, pulled his head back inside the window and promptly turned off the open sign.

The occupants of the tank, however, were struggling with why they were moving faster. Burney had to turn onto a road that led further into Little Rock, and screamed his frustration that the vehicle wasn’t cooperating.

“Gore, tell him how to make it stop,” Steve insisted.

“Turn this metallic beast around this instant!” Gore demanded, sticking his head inside the tank’s hatch. His barking orders echoed inside the tank’s innards in chorus with Burney’s screams. “No, that lever. Look! Look at where I’m pointing!”

Gore shifted around, his metal armor creaking in agitation with the steel hatch. Gore could barely fit his head inside, and squeezed his armored arm through so he could point out controls to Burney.

“That one! That’s the engine switch. Just turn it off!” Gore shouted.

Unfortunately, the engine switch was not a nice metal lever like the one Burney had been uselessly tugging at. It was a little switch set against the electric starting current and ancient circuitry. When Burney touched it, the switch not only melted, but the tank’s entire dashboard-like display of controls erupted in a burst of sparks. Puffs of blue smoke fumed from the frying wires as a fireworks display of burnt-out controls lit up around the burning man.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked after hearing the explosion inside the tank. Before Gore or Burney could answer, however, the tank lurched forward. Steve and Dawn nearly fell off the tank as it roared down the road at a previously unmatched speed.

“So, I have good news and bad news,” Gore declared from his position halfway inside the tank. His legs dangled vertically in the air and kicked about with the bumping progression of the panzer.

“What’s the good news?” Dawn asked.

“The good news is, I have discovered Burney can be skewered with multiple steel levers and not be seriously injured,” Gore said. “I shall make note of this and utilize it in future endeavors.”

When Burney made a painful scream, Gore added, “Shut up Burney, your opinion isn’t relevant to this news.”

“What’s the bad news?” Steve asked.

“The bad news is that the levers that Burney is now housing in his chest cavity control the tank’s speed and directions. Also, I’m stuck.”