The archives

Anna: A Lovely War

Dawn bleeds across the craters and trenches and into the devastated forest. Explosions tear the ground. Mud rises and showers Anna. Men tumble headlong into open craters filled with rotting cadavers. Mangled human and horse flesh make a feast for rats. Other men are blasted to bits and pieces. Some drown in mud and blood. The brutal savagery of these human animals amuses Anna. She's never been so entertained. They are worse than hungry wolves fighting over a carcass. Some speak words she understands. Others speak words foreign to her ears. A pathetic scream like nothing she's heard suddenly startles her. She follows the source of the sound into the decimated forest where she sees a small canvas tent and Russian soldiers guarding foreign prisoners. She watches them all evening. She watches horrified when they execute one of the horses for dinner. So much meat wasted due to sloppy butchery. After dinner the Russians grab one of their foreign prisoners and crush his head with a shovel to pass the time. They laugh and make jokes. She watches them in the shadows and laughs silently. Not with them. At them. A shovel is clunky. The blows are awkward. The death... messy. These men are neither fish nor meat. Her mother taught her better.

She was going to search for another pack of human animals but something catches her eye. Something that reminds her of her father. Something perfect for her little Bushka. A gift. Anna hides in the shadows and fixes her gaze on the gift. The Russian soldier carves the gift as he guards and swears at foreign prisoners in the shredded canvas tent. They kill and torture each other because they cannot talk to one another. She remembers a book her mother once had. She pointed to the pictures and called them soldiers. They were the ones who butchered her father. Soldiers tear each other apart for reasons her mother could never explain. She watches them and doesn't understand. She's not sure they do either. Maybe they like the hunt, the scent of fear, the bloodlust. She stares at the perfect gift and wants to give them a little war they'll never forget. But there are too many and her mother suddenly appears before her with a smile and tells her little Anna she will need to thin the ranks. I can do that. I will show you. I will show you, and I will show them... where crawfish sleep.

The Russian soldier does a peculiar thing to his prisoner. He ties him to a gnarled branch by his ankle and lights a fire a few inches under him. She scrunches her brow. Confused. You kill the game before you roast it. But these soldiers enjoy his agony. She recognises the yelling and shrieking foreigner. Just a few moons ago he was torturing Russian prisoners in another tent. Just a few moons ago he was the tormentor. The Russian holds the perfect gift in his hands while the prisoner shrieks and squeals like a pig. She smirks. It's kind of a funny cry. It is. It's amusing. The Russians make jokes and imitate the squealing cry. She fights down explosive laughter. It's the most ridiculous sound she's ever heard. The sound of an approaching soldier suddenly startles her. She wheels to see a glittering bayonet rushing her. She evades and grabs the pathetic, scrawny man by the neck, curls her callused fingers around his bulging apple and yanks with devastating fury. With a choked gurgle he collapses and lies dead on the ground with his throat torn out. She returns her attention to the laughing Russians and the squealing human swine. She smiles. They'll all be making similar sounds when she's through with them.

Four Russian soldiers lurk around the tent searching for their missing comrade. Anna stealthily tracks one soldier, inching closer and closer with every step. Poor pea-green mule. He has no sense these will be his last few breaths. She watches him for a long moment then strategically steps on a twig. The crack makes him turn, but before he meets Anna's gaze, her axe splits his nose between the eyes, smashing his teeth and severing his tongue. She covers his bloody mouth with her hand as she rummages through his pockets for the perfect gift. Nothing. She raises her hand to let the choking, gurgling sounds lure the other three. Carefully they approach with bayonets raised and ready. She grinds her teeth in fury and bloodlust. She rolls their comrade's severed head in their midst. A moment of shock and it's all she needs as she leaps out and drops two soldiers with one lash of her axe. The other soldier rushes in with a scream and she meets him with a sweeping stroke that severs his head clean off the torso. A geyser of blood erupts as his headless torso staggers stupidly back and forth as though searching for its lost head. The torso staggers forward then pitches backward and collapses. The sounds of another attack reach her before the blade. She lashes left and right and the body collapses in mangled pieces. The soldier stares at the pieces of his body around him in terror. She laughs and thinks about that story her mother used to tell her. Sorry yaytso. Can't be put together again.'

Anna finds these soldiers curious. Where once the Russians and foreigners were roasting each other alive... they are now... working together to survive her attacks. They are calling her a ghoul, a monster, of the forest, saying she is a Bodark. Together the soldiers dig pits and sabotage their camp. Anna toys with them. She's outnumbered and she knows it. She weakens their senses by depriving them of sleep. Every night she approaches their camp. Sings a lullaby then howls like a Bodark. The soldiers wake in a frenzy and scuttle in terror as she returns to her cabin to sleep with her little one. She rests for a few hours then returns to her little war to reignite a cycle of terror. One or two sleepless nights and they'll be ripping each other apart. It will be a matter of walking in and taking what belongs to her little Bushka.