The Morning After - The Fall of Man

By Jason Kruse

Two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, freshly out of boot camp and eager to explore the galaxy, Jacob took his first mission to discover the reason why the alliance had lost contact with one of its member worlds: Earth.

Upon his team’s arrival, a devastating virus had infected and killed nearly half the population within a day. However, that wasn’t the problem. The bodies of those dead somehow reanimated, becoming a cannibalistic creature which threatened the very existence of earth and possibly the galaxy. After years of fighting the infected, the virus was destroyed, or so they thought.

A few hundred thousand years later, Jacob, now a general within the alliance military, has returned to earth, fearing that the virus they once thought destroyed might have returned.

While on leave visiting a small town in Northern Washington state, the virus mysteriously appeared without cause or warning; and like before, millions of humans died. Two states away from his subterranean outpost, Jacob is forced to deal with the situation and fight the hordes of the undead, revealing the truth to an unlikely band of human survivors. He escorts them back to the outpost as the dead are hungry, and not all humans they counter are friendly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645314592

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The Morning After - The Fall of Man

Jason B. Kruse

Copyright © 2019 Jason B. Kruse

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64531-458-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64531-459-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Military log, February 2, 2037

Military log, February 2, 2037

It has been twenty-two years since the initial outbreak, and the world has changed. Since our arrival on this small planet in preparation for the events that were to come, I find myself at odds, thinking that perhaps I might have to leave this world, this earth. It has been, in fact, my home for almost forty-four years now; but as I have known from the beginning, this world belongs to the humans. And how much it might grieve me to leave them behind, we must obey their decision and their wishes.

Remembering back, I found it might be wise to catalog the events and efforts of what we have accomplished here. I do not know how the human council is going to vote in the next hour, and if we are asked to leave, I want something to remain of what we did here. I strongly feel that a written record to preserve the events that accrued is essential, if not for the humans, then for the alliance. Something left behind so we may learn from our mistakes and point out our accomplishments. We saved humanity from the break of extinction; that was no small task.

Sir, they are starting to gather.

I looked up to see a small, scrawny man dressed in a blue-and-black uniform standing in the doorway.

Thank you, Lieutenant. Give me about thirty minutes. I need to finish up on some notes.

Yes, sir.

Now, where was I? Oh, that’s right, a written record. I’m going to dictate this from the beginning, taking this document back as far as when we arrived here on Earth, shortly before the outbreak which caused the death of nearly seven billion humans and threw this world into darkness.

However, taking a moment, I do want to backpedal just a little bit further to give some background for the reasons why we ended up on Earth.

Roughly 250,000 years ago, the human civilization was far more advanced than now. You traveled the stars, interacted with many different worlds. You were part of a greater community, an alliance of star systems brought together in cooperation, respect, security, and with the universal principle that all life had a right to exist. Somewhat like that old television series—Star Trek, I believe.

For nearly a thousand years, humans took their place among the stars until a biological virus appeared, a plague not known, which nearly wiped humanity out. It infected the neural synapses in the brain, causing all autonomic function to stop, thereby killing the host. After death, the virus took control, reanimating the corpse with a drive and instinct to feed on the same species it inhabits. There is no intelligence, no comprehension of moral or ethics, just below-average motor skills and a primitive hunger to feed on the living.

I was there when the plague first consumed earth 250,000 years ago. A raw recruit in those days, just out of boot camp. My squad was tasked to investigate the reason why we had lost contact with earth. There were wild reports from fleeing ships of some kind of sickness, but the information seemed scratchy and unbelievable.

So our orders were simple: go and investigate the planet, contact the local government officials and ascertain if they need assistance, verify if a virus had broken out on the surface, and help the general population.

We arrived about five rotations later to find the surface in chaos. We witnessed cities burning from orbit ships trying to flee, and we immediately received orders to stop all outgoing traffic.

On the surface, death was everywhere; and if I did not witness it for myself, I would not have believed that the dead had returned to life and was attacking the living.

In short order, we began the evacuation of the planet, and for the most part, the government was gone, wiped out in the initial attack before earth defense could mobilize. In interviews later, it was determined that the virus appeared out of nowhere. Unknowing how it traveled or infected the population, the reports mentioned that people all over the world just dropped dead where they stood. It didn’t matter who they were, what they were doing, or where. Some died in their homes, others at work or on the streets. There was no logic or cause, no correlation that appeared obvious; and within ten hours from the first cases, nearly half of the human population was gone.

We extracted the remaining members of the government to the orbital stations above the planet and set up operations. My squad was first to be sent back after the officials were secured to coordinate search and rescue teams and extract noninfected civilians off the planet.

We landed, and in minutes of touching down, the fighting began. The dead attacked us in waves of uncoordinated masses. The newly reanimated ran toward us as they seemed free of the pain and restraint of when they were alive. Their coordination and motor control seemed a bit off; regardless, they moved like predators chasing cattle in the fields.

Within seconds of our first engagement, we found our standard-issue weapon: the EL286 EM pulse rifle mark, one which was the worst rifle in technology for the period. The rifle used the old sentinel system that everyone hated. Its slow rate of fire touchy trigger system had soldiers modifying these rifles constantly to something more useable.

The infected saw us and charged immediately. We open fired as our rifles had no affect on the dead. Some of us had the notion we just pissed them off, but we knew these zombies, a term the humans will later use, had no reasoning skills, no emotions to feel. We attempted to retreat, but we found ourselves quickly surrounded.

My first lieutenant Vor’n had made modifications to his weapon before we arrived planet-side. We all tweaked our rifles here and there, trying to fix the known issues the gun had. In this case, the lieutenant did something a bit different; he supercharged his rifle, removing some of the safety restraints from the power supply, feeding the energy directly into the emitters.

The lieutenant changed a couple of settings on the panel then aimed. The power supply buzzed around us as we could almost feel the energy. I don’t know if it was safe, but as the rifle fired, the results were undeniable. The disruptor neural bolt discharged like a streak of lightning striking the creature. From the point of entry up to the skull, the body appeared burnt. Its eyes melted from within its sockets as it fell over. It seemed permanently down. We all tried to retreat, but only the lieutenant’s weapons appeared to have any effect.

The creatures continued as we kept moving until we found ourselves cornered between a couple of buildings. We prepared for the worst, but when the dead approached to about five, six, feet from us, they just stopped for no apparent reason.

For those humans who do not know what a pulse charge does, from the point of impact, an electrical plasma charge travels through the nervous system, disabling or destroying the transmission neurons throughout the body. As the energy carries through the tissues, it can stun or kill a person depending on the setting. With the modification the lieutenant made, that stun became disabled. The raw energy doubled, hitting the brain stem, whereby destroying all neural pathways and physically liquefying the occipital and parietal lobes of the brain, which causes the virus to cease killing the creature.

The dead stared at us as we did not know how to react. The mucus-filled eyes, bloodstained skin, torn pieces of flesh stood motionless as we tried to figure out what was going on.

I studied the corpses as the presence of decomposition was apparent in the bodies, but it appeared to subside or slow at least after a given point in the reanimated state.

Later we determined that after death, several natural processes continued for a time even when the body reanimated and attacked the living. The decomposition process continued until rigor mortis. Something within the virus combined with the chemical breakdown and release after effects of rigor mortis stops the process, preventing the continuation of protein breakdown and cellar decay. Rigor mortis is also the direct cause of why the dead could no longer run after its victims but only shamble at a slow to moderate pace.

As we stood in front of fifty undead creatures, the infected did not continue nor try to attack us. One of the guys next to me even touched it, grabbing its arm. The dead did not bite or do anything hostile. However, several minutes later, as we tried to figure out how to get out of this situation, a human saw us and attempted to get our attention. The creatures turned and, in a frenzy, immediately went berserk. Like a pack of wolves, they attacked without hesitation. We watched the human try to run, but there were too many. They grabbed him, took him down, and began ripping him to pieces as they tore and chewed chunks of flesh, feeding like a pack of uncontrolled animals.

After that day, we reevaluated the situation and made the necessary modification to our weapons. We spent over a year evacuating the humans, going from city to city locating them and doing what we could. A lot of humans hid in the forests, mountains, countrysides, away from the large communities, which now stood in ruins. When we finished, less than five hundred thousand humans survived.

We contacted the Advocacy, the ruling council of the alliance, to inform them of what transpired. There following orders, instructions were to make sure this unknown virus could not reach other worlds. A scorched earth policy was authorized to eradicate the infection.

For five years, we tore the earth apart. The dead were killed off; the cites destroyed, torched, burned as nothing could remain. After a time, the policy we enacted appeared successful, and the advocacy proclaimed the world infection-free and removed the quarantine. Humans returned to earth, and shortly after, we received news that sent shock waves through the alliance.

Every world is free and independent. Joining the alliance guarantees each society had the freedom, rights, and liberties to govern how they see fit within their system.

After the humans returned, they decided to separate themselves from the alliance, to stand alone and rebuild. There were those who protested, saying humans needed our help in their darkest hour.

Without resources, earth decimated, the likelihood humans surviving was low. I also had my doubts that the planet was free of the virus despite what the council had said.

I suppose I should pause for moment—to explain for the record why I sacrificed so much to save humanity and the influence I have with the Advocacy.

What I am going to admit is not easy, but considering what is to come and what may be dictates that the truth must come out.

Only the Advocacy, along with those humans and officers I have served with for these years, know the full story of why I returned to earth. I suppose, here in these final days, I should go on the record for the alliance and humanity.

Humans no nothing of the history of your galaxy. That knowledge was been lost to them long ago, but for the Brunal, one of the charter members of the alliance and the thousands of other species in this universe that have taken a stand for what is right, this may shed some light in the dark.

I may look human. I may look Brunal or Gorgaon—they do look similar on the outside, for this is one reason we walk among humans so well. However, I am neither. I have passed myself off as Brunal for a long time with the help of those in power to hide my true self. That must now change. I am of a race which no longer exists. I am one of the last of my kind who chose to live among the Brunal to serve the alliance to keep the peace.

I am an Elemental. In human history and that of millions of different worlds, we were the gods of creation. We are the oldest of the old. We seeded many planets in this galaxy and far beyond. We brought life from nothingness. Just as we brought life to the Brunal, we brought life to earth and hundreds of billions of other worlds in the universe. Before there was light, we were here. Before dust and rock collided to form planets, stars, we roamed the universe, seeding the very fabric of our essence among the building blocks. We were old when this universe was young.

We are not immortal; no creature in the universe can be. It is against nature, against the very fabric of life, for Elementals are the light and the dark.

I have lived among the Brunal for almost three hundred thousand years. The Brunal is also a long-lived species, reaching nearly a thousand years.

I say this now, for I do not know what the future will bring in the hours to come. However, what transpires here today will affect the galaxy for the next thousand years. Humans need to retake their place among the stars. They must, if we are to survive.

For those who know, you understand I will not take any more time, so let me get back on topic. After we returned the humans to earth, we left. I petitioned the advocacy to allow us to at least keep track of the humans to make sure the virus does not return. For all the species in the universe, humans are the most short-lived, weak, and helpless. They have not blossomed into their full potential. For this, I felt obligated to help them, to make sure they had a chance to grow into what I knew they could become.

Humans see the universe as an unknown. They are explorers, thinkers, and dreamers. They are violent, crazy at times, exorbitant, egotistical, with no morals or ethical values, but they can be so much more once they grow up. They build communities, help those who cannot help themselves. They care about others and feel great pain for those in need. They, at times, are contradictions unto themselves, yet they survive and flourish even in the hardest of times. Therefore, I will fight to help them.

It took several years before the Advocacy finally agreed to allow a small expedition to earth to check on the humans’ progress. For 250,000 years, that is what the military did.

In time, humans had forgotten about us, forgotten who they used to be. The ravages of the world destroyed the old, buried beneath countless ages of dirt and dust. They had lost all memory of the plague, and slowly throughout the thousands of years, they started to rebuild.

In every expedition to earth, we scanned the planet for any signs of the virus, took samples from humans to verify that the virus wasn’t dormant or had changed. In every expedition, we found nothing; and after time, some began to question our reasoning why we kept returning to the people who expelled us. They were no longer suitable candidates to be part of the alliance. Their technology destroyed, they were not even considered a class-zero civilization, literally thrown back to the Stone Age.

The galaxy moved forward as the humans stood still in their primitive state. I couldn’t help but watch, saddened by the events unfolding.

For the sake of time on this record, let’s move forward several hundred thousand years to the modern era. We return to find that humans had grown quite a bit since our last visit. Technology had advanced as well, leading the way to electricity, cars, computers. They could fly again, and slowly they were reaching to the stars. It took them nearly 250,000 years, but they were bouncing back.

It was the early 1960s by earth calendar when we returned to earth. We conducted our regular scans, took our normal samples from the human population. Humans had grown quite a bit since our last visit.

Our visits usually run about two years; however, with the expanded population, we extend our timetables another couple of months to gather all the data we needed with additional scientific teams on the ground comprised mostly of Brunal and other humanoid-type species that could pass off as human.

The work was slow and tedious due to how widespread the humans had engulfed their world. On the last couple of weeks on earth, the scientific teams had nearly completed their report. However, we still maintained several seeker probes on the planet surface to search until the last minute. In the afternoon one day, with one probe scouting in the Antarctica, something unusual was detected beneath the surface. The region was encased in ice, which had been slowly melting over the past decade according to scans. This thinning revealed something just beneath the surface, something old and decayed, containing remnants of our virus. It appeared dormant, frozen, barely registering with the probe.

Immediately we sent a team to investigate and confirm if it was the virus or not. If it was, our orders were to destroy it quickly. When we arrived, we found that we were too late; the humans were already there. They had set up a small research station on King George Island, and now they were sitting on top of whatever was beneath the ice.

We could not go in and remove the humans by force. We had our own laws and rules to obey, a noninterfere law which forbids us from taking any action against a species. We backed off and attempted to contact the human government through third parties that controlled the island. Without exposing ourselves, we tried to gain access using money and lies, which, however, only piqued their curiosity to ask more questions we could not answer. We could not stop them, but we did warn them in our way, telling a bit more of the truth to back the lie.

We left earth and returned to the alliance to confront the Advocacy of what we discovered, explaining our actions. One council member told me, They most likely would have found virus regardless, if not directly, then indirectly, when they dug into the ice or if the ice melted, freeing whatever was down there. Furthermore, we tried, but we cannot interfere in the events of the humans since they are no longer part of the alliance. They stand alone.

I became angry, which was an understatement. I understood the rules, but I couldn’t live with the idea of having humanity destroyed over arrogance and the decision of people long since dead. We can help, but the Advocacy chooses not to.

I guess that’s what led me to do what I had to do. In open counsel, I protested. My voice carried weight, but still, it fell on deaf ears, or so I was led to believe at first. I decided to go out on my own.

I drew up plans for several small teams scattered throughout the planet. Every man that went was aware of the danger, the risk, and what the mission would be. I was aiming for maybe a thousand volunteers, people I knew I could trust and could endure this type of task.

The Advocacy got wind of what I was planning, and in short order, they summoned me before the council. I reiterated my case, being upfront and blunt in what I was planning to do. I was not going to deny it. I didn’t care. I was not going to watch the destruction of the entire race because people long since dead chose to isolate themselves from the universe. Was it wrong to leave, perhaps? But those humans cannot speak for those who are alive now. How can we punish those who had no say in the matter?

In the end, I guess I swayed one or two of the council members, and in a closed session behind locked doors, I was given a hesitant go-head. I, however, was on my own. The mission was off the books, as the humans would say, so everyone was a volunteer.

I went back to all those I served with, whom I have known for centuries, if not longer. I slowly began to build a team. The Advocacy, several months later, offered to help unofficially with some equipment for the long term. We would remain on earth until the eradication of the virus or if the human population was dead. I did not know it at the time, but there were individual members of the Advocacy that were pushing for the latter. That would come back to us later.

Resources and equipment came to us in short order to build and maintain several outposts on the planet. These facilities concealed from the human population due to the human governments and the fear of alien invasion: a paranoid human subculture that has developed over the years.

The facilities would mostly be underground. That would not be hard to achieve with a starship. We can quickly build and maintains the infrastructure for generations. We have used them on other worlds. With large and securable housing, the units can hold about ten thousand if necessary.

For the smooth reading of this report, I’m going to be speaking in terms, locations, that the humans can understand and what I had learned in my time in this world. I will leave reference notes in the back of the report to translate for those in the Advocacy and others who do not understand the names, terminology, or locations.

Along with the structures, we also received several Namaqum generators, weapons, food synthesizers and rations, medical equipment, and a few vehicles land base and flying of various types, however, most importantly, tracking and communication equipment. It was more than what I expected or ever hoped.

My last task was recruiting officers and commanders that would be willing to take on this responsibility. There is no telling how long they would be on earth, and what I was asking from them would be a great sacrifice, so I had to make sure I had the right people for the right reasons.

For several months, I scoured the ranks, going to old friends, recruits just out of the academy. I didn’t realize how much my reputation preceded me until I started talking to some of the newer officers graduating. Most would have signed up in seconds, but I had to be a bit selective. I needed proper officers, good soldiers who did not have family and was willing to stay in a hostile world for years, if not longer, people that could blend in with the native population without revealing who and what we were, and most importantly, those who could think for themselves and make decisions on their own.

My very last task before leaving was to visit an old friend, one of those people that I entrusted with my secret. He was a medical doctor—damn good one, if I might say. He was also a microbiologist who studies diseases and viruses. He had never seen the zombie virus firsthand but was well familiar, reading everything there was about it. If there were answers out there, he would be able to find it. Dr. Ejawn or Doc was my nickname for him. Also, he knew human biology and was utterly familiar with human medicine since he participated in several expeditions to earth.

With our teams, supplies, and crew, we went back to earth. For the record, it would be the earth year 1994 when we arrived in orbit. It took two weeks of travel from the supply depot from the Perseus arm to the sole sector. We had found their technology expanded exponentially since the ’60s almost by leaps and bounds. I found it particularly curious how humans could grow so technologically advanced in such a short time. I later found the reason for this, but let me continue.

We quickly made sure that we were invisible to the current radar and detection devices they had in orbit. We scanned the planet by monitoring their communications, television, and radio and found no sign of infection as far as we could tell. We had not yet tested the human biologically, but to be honest, we had no real frame of reference of how the virus spread 250,000 years ago. When we arrived, most of the planet was already infected, and we at that point knew how it was transmitting, but we could not map the chain of contagion. We couldn’t figure out how the first people became infected. All we knew is, at some point, nearly half the human population dropped dead.

We sent a covert team to the location in the Antarctic. It was unknown at the time if the humans had located it as well. However, the ice had stopped melting, which somewhat mitigated the risk of natural exposure, at least for now.

It took us about six months to set up our operation. We spent the first several weeks scouting the continents of North America, Asia, the United Kingdom, Africa, and what is the Middle East. We found several suitable sites for our outposts, and we found the humans were quite easily persuaded to sell us the land. A common mineral to the universe known to them as gold was quite valuable to the humans, so purchasing the property and bribing the local or state officials to look the other way was too easy. As I think back to the event, it saddens me how easy it was. Humans, at least some of them, had lost their moral and ethical way.

Since most of us appeared human for the most part, I allowed the men to go in small groups to the cities and towns near our installations to interact with the populations. I don’t regret that policy. We had secure protocols in behavior while out on these expeditions. I felt the men needed to know why they were here; why, if the plague returned, they would be asked to fight, possibly even die, for a race they hardly knew. I would say the endeavor was utterly uneventful, but that would be inaccurate for my report. There were a few minor incidents which I’m going to leave out at this point due to the nature of the issue.

It was the end of the second month when the ships finally left earth, leaving us behind. We were doing pretty good. We managed to arrive on earth without being detected by the primitive but quickly advancing technology, and build and construct our outposts, which I will go into detail in a minute, and we were able to conceal ourselves from the locals.

Now going back to the outpost, each commander was in charge of their station. They had flexibility in how they wanted to operate. The main facilities would need to be underground with infrastructure on the surface to hide what was beneath the dirt.

The facilities had two entrances, the main entrance located in a warehouse-style building or large Victorian-style homes. I left that up to the commander in charge to decide which they wanted or what appeared normal for their area. There was also a massive aboveground facility which would be built is sections with several buildings depending on the location; these would be residential or business.

The last bit of installation was the ANCITS system. ANCITS stood for artificial neural computerized interface tactical system. A living machine, a supercomputer which was capable of handling just about anything in my option. It was a programmed artificial intelligence which connected to external system. We activated the system as it interfaced with the human-computer systems on earth. This made things useful when keeping us up to date on events going on around the world. If there was any sign of the virus returning, we should know about it first, allowing us to respond quickly.

We finished the small details and had everything online. The facility was a little over two mile long and a quarter mile underground. It had three levels with all units built to standard three-bedroom-style apartments. We had room for about ten thousand people and perhaps another couple of thousand plus on the surface if needed. All the units were furnished with standard human appliances. They were updated as new technology came out. The power system converted to alternating standard current, which was a bit of a task building an interface from the Namaqum generators located just below the facility. We kept all the units offline except for the inhabited quarters and command and control.

To go further and to give the illusion you were not underground, all the hallways and the exterior apartment had large fake windows with real-time images of the landscape, creating the illusion that you were still on the surface. The scene would change as the day progressed and even go dark at night.

The construction of the outpost was into three major sections. The second and third levels were mostly living quarters for survivors. There were quarters on the first level, but those were for the soldiers and officers. Also, the first floor had command and control, medical, communications, tactical.

Food storage, water storage, recycling were divided between the three levels at the far end of the complex. These were off-limits except for authorized personnel.

On the surface, the outpost had several buildings, even houses, scattered about on the property. The land above covered about one-hundred acres with a vast field for crops, small areas fenced off for cattle and livestock. We even had a lake with a small stream going through one part of the property. We later built a playground, but I am getting ahead of myself. These were all phase one projects.

In any case, this should be enough background to give a general idea of how this began. I will now jump ahead and start the actual report in how I saw events, the officers under my command, and the accounts of survivors we rescued over the years.

When you have lived a good portion of your existence going from one place to another then suddenly finding yourself confined, one might find this a bit unnerving. Without checking, I believe it’s now March 12, 2015, on the earth calendar. Without calculating, approximately twenty-one years have passed since we arrived on earth and began our mission. For humans, this might seem long; and I admit, there were times when the days seemed to drag on, as the humans say, but we had learned and witnessed a lot in our short stay here.

Many tragic events happened while we were here. A part of me wishes we could have done something about them, from the terrorist attacks in New York, England, and across the European countries, to earthquakes and natural disasters that caused mass casualties on so many different regions across the globe. We, however, are bound by rules and regulations not to interfere in any event unless it directly relates to the virus.

We have also witnessed great kindness and empathy, heroes among men who rose above their standing to fight in your darkest hours. Those people and their actions have given hope to me and others who have been watching in silence. We know you can grow and become more than what you are.

Making that statement, I find it tedious waiting for the apocalypse, having to watch such tragic events unfold across the globe. We have reached a point when we can monitor nearly any event from any given location.

In one of our earliest endeavors, we determined that the location in the Antarctic was an ancient burial ground, remnants of the first infection frozen within the ice. The virus remained dormant, intact, due to the cold inhibiting the virus from dying out long ago.

With consent surveillance of the region and some cooperation we obtained from foreign governments, we took steps to eradicate everything that remained in the Antarctic. With our newly found allies among the humans, we were able to place operatives within the major powers around the world. These people gave us hands-on information within many of the governments and kept us up to date on any suspicious activity.

Saturday evening rolled around as the base was status normal, or in other words, calm, quiet, and boring. Several of the command staff were in town on leave as a small skeleton crew remained in command and control to keep track of the information coming in.

I nearly always volunteered to work the weekends, allowing the officers time to pursue their interests. Most of the men frequented the nearby town of Gustine and Los Banos spending their day at the San Louis Reservoir or state park.

I entered command and control and made my way toward my office as I noticed our doctor and my second-in-command, Commander Grasson, still on base in his office. That wasn’t abnormal for the most part, except it was the weekend;