American Messiah by North Star Publications

Synopsis

The story opens with a black boy being chased by an angry mob near the banks of the Mississippi river. The event results in the tragic death of the boy, who is hit by a passing train as he tried to flee his attackers. 

 Thomas “Stony” Jackson, an ex-soldier turned teacher, is still haunted by the image of the boy’s mangled body all those years ago.

 Unbeknownst to him, that event would place him at the center of an apocalyptic storm and render him all that stands between America’s survival and nuclear annihilation.

 Twenty years later, America is on the brink of economic collapse and fighting a losing war with half of the Middle East. Thomas loses his grip on reality when a mysterious book, thought to be a age-old myth, finds its way into his possession. 

  Haunting dreams accompany the book’s arrival, conveying grisly scenes of America’s cities in ruin and her heartlands laid to waste. When federal agents show up at his door, Thomas searches for someone who can interpret the meaning of the primordial text. However, everyone who tries to help him turns up dead. 

  As fate would have it, he crosses paths with Allira, a young woman who is as stubborn as she is beautiful. When her father, a renowned professor of Ancient Cultures and Religions, is killed, Allira and Thomas are joined at the hip. Strong feelings quickly blossom, like a rose in winter, between Thomas and Allira.

   While Thomas is in Washington DC seeking help from a friend who’s employed at the CIA, the capital is the target of a bio-chemical attack. Hundreds die and the city is placed under quarantine. Coinciding with attack, America suffers it worse military defeat in its history. 

 An ancient and cryptic order, backed by powers beyond the grave, seizes the opportunity to launch a military takeover. With one of their own, General Haze, seated in the Oval Office, they moved to retrieve the book and tighten their hold on the nation.

Civil War erupts when supporters of the Constitution rally to the side of the embattled president, Delores Dryden. As the war goes badly for the president, her staff uncovers a plot by the other side to locate and kill a certain captain.

More intriguing was the order to retrieve a weapon of unspeakable power in the captain’s possession. Dryden, grasping at straws, authorizes a small force to find the captain before the enemy does. 

 Following a lead obtained from his CIA contact, Thomas makes his way to an address in Harlem, New York City. Finding travel nearly impossible, he is forced to turn to his former drill sergeant, Francis Mason. Though crude-mannered and ill-tempered, he’s just the man you want beside you going into battle. 

   The address led him to a sagacious old blind man with bizarre powers. Though the old man, Thomas learned of the book ancient origin, dating back to the dawn of man. He also learns of the evil forces in desperate search of the book and the ruthless extent they will go to get it.

  The blind man set Thomas upon a perilous journey to the Nile Valley in the Sudan to unlock the book’s secret and perhaps save his country.

 But, before Thomas could leave the city, the streets of Harlem are transformed into a war zone. Trapped and outnumbered, Thomas forges a dubious alliance with a group of street savvy youths, led by Midnight, ex-drug dealer and thug. Against staggering odds, the group makes it to an island in the Caribbean, completing the first leg of their journey.

 On the island, Thomas is surprisingly joined by members of his old outfit, supplied with a cache of weapons, and provided with transport across the Atlantic. As luck would have it, they landed safely in Nigeria, but smack-dab in the middle of a violent coup. 

Commanding a team of misfits, Thomas continues his daring trek across a landscape plagued by war, famine and disease. With a young African girl as their guide, the team battles to stay ahead of the Dragon’s Breathe, an army of fanatical assassins. 

He and his team play a high-stakes game of cat and mouse as Nigerian militia joins the chase. Driven by a force beyond comprehension, Thomas crosses into Chad in route to the Sudan. There, he is instantly embroiled in the regions on-going conflict.

 When all seemed lost, the president’s small but expert force arrives in the nick of time, pulling Thomas and his team from the jaws of death. Thomas slowly undergoes an iconic transformation, reinforcing African prophesies and attracting thousands of followers as his reputation spread across the continent.

 With war raging around him, Thomas reaches his destination.

  During a mystical ceremony far beneath an ancient pyramid in the Nile Valley, Thomas is ferried across oceans of time back to the dawn of mankind. Standing on the shores of infinite possibility, he discovers the world’s deepest and darkest secret and the truth of the black boy’s death.

Using the totality of his new powers, Thomas leads a refugee army in the mother of all battles against the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed militia, an Islamic terrorist force bent on the extermination of the Christian population. 

  He soon learns that the president, in her fortified refuge in Washington State, is under siege by a Russian invasion force. With the doomsday clock about to strike midnight, Thomas heads back to the U.S.

With the U.S. military in disarray, Thomas enlists the special skills of L.A. street gangs, criminals and convicts in an effort to save the president and repel the Russian invaders. Mobilizing his patriot army, he marches north to a date with destiny.   

Thomas finds himself standing face to face with a mortal enemy who wants to conquer the U.S. and a harbinger of death who wants to destroy it.

 The future of the United States and the world hinges on the outcome of the final battle.