The year is 1917 and the first world war is in full swing. Europe is ravaged. No Man's Land has become a legendary killing field, and the Geneva Convention has yet to be established. The Germans have made 2 prior attempts at capturing a Russian fort. The old stone walls and quarters are so thick that artillery has little effect. The fort is designed in layers so that it minimizes the size of the garrison there, but maximizes it's ability to inflict casualties upon an attacking force. Even if the Germans get inside the walls they will simply run into one barricade after another thus reducing their ranks with close in fighting and murderous gunfire, The Germans are frustrated and are determined to make one last attempt at laying siege to the Russian fortress.

The strategy

The answer this time is to lay down a long barrage of shelling and then release something that H. G. Wells made a futuristic prediction over. That is poisonous gas! In the novel entitled "War of the Worlds" H. G. Wells depicts a Martian arsenal that includes both death rays and clouds of poisonous gas. Sadly, both of these instrumentalities will be invented in time for war in the near and distant future. German intelligence has found that the Russian army has very ineffective gas masks at their disposal. A horrendous plan is set into motion by the German high command so that the Russian fortress can finally be taken.

Death in the air

After the most furious artillery shelling yet the Russian defenders emerge from their positions ready for an infantry assault when suddenly they see a bizarre sight. Green clouds hugging the ground slowly drift toward the fortress walls. The Russian soldiers frantically attempt to find and put on their inferior gear, but before they can get their masks properly strapped on they are enveloped in the Mustard Gas! The gaseous chlorine quickly turns to hydrochloric acid when inhaled into the lungs and then ingested into the arterial system. Soon the horrid effects of the deadly gas are being felt by the afflicted Russian soldiers.

Last gasp

Eyes chemically burned and discolored, lungs now regurgitating blood and greenish fluids, choking, even the skin is affected by the corrosive impact of the gas! The soldiers all know that they are mortally wounded. There is no way that medical attention can save them in time. A garrison of once 800 men is now down to one hundred survivors who are now literally walking dead! As they suffer and wonder what to do next the German infantry is moving in to finish them off and take a fortress that has cost them thousands in casualties already, but there's a problem!

The zombie scourge

Faced with certain death the Russians exhibit the same fighting spirit that their inheritors will use to defeat the Germans once again at Stalingrad. Just when the 11th hour has sounded at Stalingrad the German army laying siege there is finally beaten back for the last time and so it is in 1917! The hundred Russian soldiers looking like ghouls who have risen from the grave decide to fight to the death since death is their only alternative anyway. Like rabid dogs they challenge the swarming German troops! When their foes take a look at who they will be locked in hand to hand combat with, the Germans back down and flee terrified of the zombie soldiers who challenge them with garbled voices, discolored eyes, and burned flesh! Thousands of German fighting men retreat and refuse to re-enter the Russian fortress! The facility is saved even though its brave victors are doomed to die a terrible death. The zombie soldiers have prevailed!