Alice was 53 when she received her call-up. The army needed her because the enemy was everywhere, killing men and raping women. Alice no longer had children, her daughter had married an industrialist and Alice was no longer able to work in the factory.
Anyway, she could not refuse to be drafted, that would be treason, for which the death penalty would be imposed.
She showed up at the barracks with fifteen other women. They were weighed, given uniforms, one woman collapsed from a nervous breakdown and two soldiers carried away her weeping body. Alice tried not to notice. They herded the remaining fourteen into a barracks where there were two gruff men, one a sergeant, the other some kind of clerk. The sergeant looked over the women.
"Look out! You are now in the army. We’re going to start shooting practice today. Any questions? No, no questions! Shut up, Private, move to the range! That’s an order!
They all appeared in the long room. The floor was a filthy grid, the ceiling slabs that peeled away as the targets came in. Each board had a fluffy attached to it.
“Everyone pick up a rifle and shoot at the target in their row! Anyone unable to do so will be slapped across the face and repeated until they can’t follow orders, understood!” The sergeant did not ask.
“But sir…” asked a forty-year-old woman.
“What is it, Private? What kind of bullshit is poking your head in?”
“These… these are live fluffies…”
“Oh, forgive me your highness, I didn’t know there were such mimosas here. They’ll kill people in the war! They’ll have to learn to kill, and the best way to do it is with a little shit rat like this! You have your orders, fire!”
Alice hinted. The rifle was heavy, the fluffy must have been about five yards away. Pink with a blue stallion.
“Nuuu, pwease nice mummah, nu huwt fwuffy!”
“What are you waiting for! Fire!”
Alice pulled the trigger. The rifles weren’t large calibers, but the bullet was still too powerful for the tethered fluffies. The fluffy’s stomach exploded, its guts spilled out, the animal howled before it died.
The board rose, the next one came closer. A green unicorn with yellow hair, it writhed and cried and pooped itself
“Nuuu, fwuwwy wan out hewp heeewp!”
Alice could hear the boots behind her as the sergeant trotted along. He fired. It hit her fluffy leg, instantly ripping it to shreds.
“SCREEEEEE! WHY HUWT FWUWWY?”
Alice reloaded and fired.
“FWUFFY HAT-” body shot.
New fluffy. The yellow pegasus just looked sad and sniffled.
“Wan die.”
Alice felt her guts clench.
“Wan die. Wan die.”
“What is it, Private? We can’t stand the weak? The enemy will use this against you!”
Alice aimed and fired at the head. Instant death.
“Well done.” The sergeant patted Alice on the shoulder. “You’ll make good material if you keep this up.”
New fluffy. Alice refused to think, aimed for the head and fired. Instant death.
New board, new fluffy, new bullet, new head shot.
New board, head shot.
New board, head shot.
New board, click. The fluffy, who had been waiting in huddled horror, sighed before the board slid over to the next row, where a woman waited with a rifle held to her target.
“Good, they’ve learned to kill. Bajonettet on!”
The women followed the instructions. The boards lifted and new fluffs fell in their place. They begged and cried, beat themselves up or threatened.
The woman, who could barely shoot, burst into tears. Two soldiers took her away.
“They have to learn to kill someone in close combat. Attack! Stick the knife in them! The enemy is much better armed than a fluffy, so you can’t cammog, run or gun!”
Alice jumped over the sandbag and swallowed the lump in her throat. It’s them or me, she told herself, and skewered the first fluffy.
Three more arrived, all of them stabbed. She didn’t think.
“The last test is coming. The nine of you bode well.”
New boards. They moved, the tied fluffies shifted. Under fire, almost all died. Side walls opened and a pile of fluffies were tossed in by unseen hands or dropped down a chute. They were seen running headlong, jumping between the bullets, but most died. Alice took aim when a soldier stepped up beside her and put his hand on his rifle.
“You’re getting a new gun.”
Alice stepped back and as the gunfire stopped, she watched the soldiers gather their rifles.
Two soldiers put down two machineguns.
“Team up! One fires, one loads. You!”
Alice flinched, but the sergeant pointed to the woman beside her. “You shoot and the man with the lime loads.”
Alice knelt down by the gun and began to feed the bullets. They were heavy boxes, one of them a long stream. They were loaded into the gun, and she started firing.
Fluffies exploded into shreds. These bullets were larger calibre. Alice didn’t look, but the sergeant handed her a scope.
“At the front, you don’t just load, you aim. Control it. You’re both dead if you don’t! A hundred yards is a lot for a rat like you, but it’s no shit for enemy mortars!”
So Aice took the lead. She had nothing else to do because the gun had about a hundred bullets in it. There was a whole herd of horses running around in the crossfire of two bullets, and then after half an hour:
“Cease fire!”
The guns went silent. Alice looked across the dirty room. Dead bodies everywhere. A woman had vomited, the soldiers had taken her away.
“Very good. Swap! As if they were alive! Aim! Fire!”
Another half hour of death deal. Alice had to wait and watched the sergeant walk. A lot more fluff was thrown onto the range from somewhere off to the sides. Blood started to trickle down the sandbags.
“Cease fire! Fix bayonets! Kill all surviving hostiles!”
Alice did. It was getting easier. She ignored the pleas. She trampled the little tots. She pushed down the threatening ones. One of the fleeing fluffies ran, after her, another woman beside her, both stabbing with a battle roar, the two bayonets impaling the fluffy, then tearing it apart as they pulled out bloody knives… then shook hands.
“Good thrust!”
“Woman’s work!”
“All right, ladies! Lunch break in the canteen.” The sergeant smiled.
They had a real steak with potatoes, soft bread and beer. The beer was watery, but it went without a hitch. Alice didn’t know when she had eaten so well.
“Look out! Last shooting practice! Any questions?”
“Sir.” Alice raised her hand.
“No, no, let me guess who wants to make a move, huh?”
“No, sir. Just whether we can get extra targeting water, sir.”
Laughter. The sergeant laughed too.
“No, but good question. To the firing range!”
Everyone got a rifle, standard caliber. The hall was almost clear, only the bloody grilles hinted at the carnage that had been wrought. Eight women, almost comrades.
New targets, fluffies, tied to the board, wooden rifles at their feet. They fired, the enemy was blown to smithereens in a shower of bullets. Alice’s stomach turned, but she realised what it was all about. The weak are the ones who throw up. The soldiers will take that away.
They were not weak. The eight women killed a hundred fluffies, they shot at the ones running between the moving boards, the ones that ran close got stabbed. They got into a rhythm, the shots became easy.
Mad Alice saw something strange. She didn’t ask questions. She was ordered to shoot, so she fired at the dark green blob.
There was an ever increasing dark green fluffy in the distance. They were painted. They all looked like one patch.
Then he saw that the wooden rifles were taped to them. It was amusing as a bunch of fluffies tried to run towards them, wooden rifles at their sides, but they all died. One bullet, one death.
“Cease fire!”
They stopped. Some dark green spotted boards came closer.
“Congratulations, ladies! Welcome to the army.”
On the eight boards, blindfolded and gagged, hung eight dead men.
Translated by DeepL, th
Edit: I had asked for help to make this story as I wanted. I am not sure if her name should be released.