The shotgun blast hit the possessed rebel full in the chest. He staggered back. His rifle discharged into the wall beside me. The green lightning still flowed around the man's skin, and he didn't fall. His rifle swung back into line, but the machine gun in my left hand was already on target. Bullets ripped apart his chest, neck, and head as I stitched him from waist to hairline. The body fell back against the wall and gave a long hissing cry, mouth still snarling under a split skull as the green lightning slowly faded.

The chamber was four or five meters across and held a glowing jar the size of a water cooler on a pedestal in the center. It filled the room with an eerie green light. Glowing shapes swirled about inside. They shifted and moved in mesmerizing patterns. I studied it for a moment, considering, Then I tossed the shotgun in the air, caught it by the slide, worked the action one-handed with a quick motion, the tossed it to catch by the grip again. Showy, perhaps, but with this body's reflexes, it was trivial, and I wanted to save the ammunition in my machine gun and I didn’t fee like setting it down. I squeezed off a shot one-handed.

Boom! The jar cracked but didn't shatter. Shotgun pellets rattled off the jar, the walls and fell floor. I repeated my one-handed maneuver again and shot it a second time.

The vessel exploded in motes of green light that flashed out, swirling around the room. When they touched me, I felt my skin burn. The amulet on my chest flared a bright white light and then cracked. I could feel its power fading away, but it had done its job. The green lights were gone. The room was still, lit only by two feeble flashlights, one from my shotgun and the other lying on the floor beside the dead Russian rebel.

I stood there, staring a moment. Something heavy scraped in the hall outside. I spun as bone arms reached through the open door. My shotgun clicked down on an empty chamber, but the machine gun roared out its long staccato. Spent casings rattled off the walls of my stone chamber. Bits of bone chipped and shattered off the questing arm.

I dropped the shotgun and stepped backward quickly. The machine gun was dry. The pouch slung around my shoulders had more of the boxy magazines for it.

The groping arm, bare bone without flesh or clothes to cover it, reached into the chamber. It grasped the edge of the door frame and pulled the bulk of the bone monster into the doorway. It was a tight squeeze. All the while, I was scrambling to reload my machine gun. In my haste, I tore the belt off and had to start over.

The arm was brushing past the wrecked glass jar as I slammed the action closed. I brought the weapon up and triggered a long burst. Bullets ripped into the bone arm as it groped for me, and if they had an effect it wasn’t apparent. I continued firing, the barrel shroud growing warm under my hand. Shell casings ejected from the bottom of the Madsen and rained about my feet. Each bullet smashing into bone only did a tiny amount of damage, but together they chipped away at the mass until finally, it came apart at the wrist, then the elbow, as I walked my shot up the arm of the monstrosity.

A huge bony head in the doorway snarled at me with wordless fury. The barrel shroud was going uncomfortably hot as I blasted it in the face. The monster pulled back from the doorway, levering itself out of the opening with an effort.

I had had enough of being trapped in this little space. I charged forward through the opening the monster had left and smashed it in the face with the machine gun, which caused me to lose my grip on the flashlight I held between my hand and the barrel shroud. The small cylinder bounced off the hard floor with a crack, and the light went out.

I turned and fled through the door at the end of the tunnel, into the unknown. For the first few steps, I could see nothing, going only off of memory. Then my eyes started to adjust.

My shins slammed into something low. I fell forward. My fingers caught the edge of stairs, and I scrambled up on my hands and knees. There was a faint light from above as my eyes adjusted. Soon, I was able to get to my feet. I went up the stairs as fast as I could, coming out through an alcove that opened into a wide room.

Dim light filtered in through the grimy windows. It looked to be an opulent foyer of some grand structure. There was thrashing and banging as the bone monster started up the stairs behind me.

I took a few breaths to look around. A wall of windows and doors opened onto a wide terrace outside. The sun had not yet risen, but there was more than enough light to see by. Where did I go next?

I had destroyed the device, which hopefully would remove the barrier around the city. If that was the case, an assault force was supposedly on its way. How soon would they get here? Would they recognize me as friend or foe? I tried to remember the briefing. It had perhaps an hour before, but it felt like an eternity.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I was still hearing the noise of the bone monster trying to climb up the stairs from where I'd come. So, I headed straight for the doors and went out onto the wide patio. There was an ornate stone railing around the outer edge and a drop off to the street below.

The morning was cool, and a vile stench floated through the air. The fact that I had not been told a follow-up rendezvous point meant they had not expected me to survive. I knew there was a follow-up assault coming. There was something they were after. Something that gave Rasputin the ability to control zombies. I remember them mentioning that, and it had bothered me at the time. All the fighting had cleared my head. I realized with a start that Stalin would not destroy such a device. He would want it for himself. Natasha had said no one should have such a power. Certainly, that went double for Joseph Stalin.

I looked up and down the street. In the distance, I could see the distinctive domes of the church near the Kremlin, which was the only part of Moscow I recognized from movies. I set off in that direction at a trot. As I ran I dug into my ammo pouch, there was another Madsen magazine in there, which I had no use for, so I tossed it. Then I unlimbered the submachinegun from where it has been flopping around, slung over my back. It was a Russian copy of a German

The rumble of distant motors grew steadily louder as I went up the street. I also heard distant gunfire. There probably were more of those zombie machine gun nests around the city. Hopefully, the assault force was powerful enough to get past them.

I ran into one such machine gun nest on my jog, but avoided it by ducking into a series of alleys and coming out back onto the main road far enough beyond the nest they didn't have a shot at me.

The street opened out into a wide plaza. There were terraces on the side and glass domes on top of them that no doubt led into some subterranean shopping mall or subway. Were there subways in Moscow in the '20s? I didn't know. My briefing had been woefully inadequate. I should have brought a copy of “Seeing Zombie-Infested Moscow on 20 Rubles a Day”, but the rebels hadn’t thought to stop at a bookseller. Very inconsiderate of them.

The engines were getting closer. The gunfire was more frequent. I’d have company soon.

Across the plaza loomed a large red structure. It looked kind of like the Smithsonian, only four times bigger with spires jetting up. Beyond that, through the wide boulevard, was Red Square. I recognized it because of the bulbous cathedral at the far end. There were gun emplacements between me and the museum, if that's what it was. I stopped short by a decorative railing.

I was considering how to get around a gun emplacement manned by zombies, when a column of vehicles roared up. They were coming down the road behind me and must have driven right through the same way I had come. The convoy was made up of trucks and a couple of dilapidated armored cars. The men inside didn't wear uniforms. I assumed this was more of Stalin's bunch. A machine gun nest across the plaza opened up on them, and they returned fire. Fortunately, not in my direction.

They continued moving as they shot. I held up a hand as they approached. Hopefully, I didn't look too much like a zombie. The lead car was a do-it-yourself armored car with haphazardly strapped-on armor plates and an open top. They pulled up next to me, and Stalin eyed me from the back seat.

"So, you survived," he said, heedless of the bullets whizzing past as the other trucks in his convoy continued their shootout. The man next to Stalin waved the trucks past, and they roared off across the square towards the nearest gun emplacements.

"Perhaps you are more useful than I initially thought." He cocked an eyebrow in my direction. “Come, try to keep up. You may yet earn your parole."

He signaled the driver, and the armored car took off with a jolt, rattling across the square. The jalopy could never have been fast to begin with, but with the armor plates, it didn't move much quicker than I could jog along behind.

Something in the drone of engines sounded wrong. It took me a moment to place it, and then I looked up.

Looming overhead was a Zeppelin. Stabs of gunfire laced down from its lower turrets, exchanging shots with gun emplacements on the far side of the square. Other tongues of fire shot up from the roof of the Kremlin, looming in the distance. This was turning into a regular war zone.

I picked up my pace, hurrying after Stalin's armored car. His gun trucks had cleared the nearest machine gun nests. We broke through into the square, moving past the big red building I had thought looked like a museum. As I jogged passed it, I read a sign. It was a museum after all, and under the name it said, “Red Square”. I’d always assumed the place had been renamed after the communists took over, but apparently not.

The movies I had seen of Red Square and the surrounding buildings hadn't done justice to what a labyrinth of structures made up the center of Moscow. Everywhere I looked were stately old buildings and towering spires. It would have been quite a sight if they hadn't been all so dingy and surrounded by zombie machine gun nests.

Stalin's convoy pulled up in front of the Kremlin itself, and troops started pouring out of the trucks under fire from several points around the square. They shot back as they raced up the stairs and into the building, Stalin among them. He disappeared inside without a backward glance.

Up above, the Zeppelin was pulling alongside a particularly tall spire. It looked like they meant to moor there. They were still taking heavy fire from below, and several rents had appeared in the gas bag. I had almost reached the convoy when, on the far side of the square, a line of armored vehicles came into sight, rumbling past the bulbous cathedral.

These vehicles were not ramshackle, and I saw with dismay they were manned by uniformed Russian army. They didn't appear to be zombies, but I would have laid good money that they had the amulets, so it was only a matter of time.

This new convoy of vehicles was firing into buildings on all sides, targeting zombie positions. But as they came into view, they raked Stalin's convoy with machine gun fire. Guess that answered a number of my lingering questions. Several stragglers were cut down, and one of the trucks burst into flames. I ducked as the bullets whizzed past and then put on a final burst of speed to make it up the marble stairs and into the Kremlin.