Gods Beneath the Earth: Cycladian Tales, #1

By Jess Thornton

Simon Stanton, archeologist, has tumbled into the underground world of the Neanderthal, who call themselves Cycladians. Amazed at their cultural achievements, he studies under their tutelage. Along with a beautiful Cycladian girl, he travels above ground into the city of Chicago, and discovers the decadent mess that has become of that city, and actually all the world.

As a cloistered, small college Iowa professor, he had had no idea of the utter depravity that has overtaken urban America, and especially the black race. From deadly confrontations with the corrupt police, and with a racially charged University professor, he is running for his life, unearthing rampant corruption and liberal white racism towards their own wherever he goes!

In addition, he has found that the white race above ground does not have long to live, since the Cycladians have learned long since that the sunspots and radiation is very damaging to those with light skin and Neanderthal/Cycladian DNA. And the sunspot activity is markedly increasing...

Without the incredible advanced technology of the Cycladians all of the white race is doomed- and even then, perhaps most of those who live aboveground are doomed already. 

While this is a fantasy book, much of Simon's adventures depict very real problems amongst out present day cities, and in most of our culture today. Sometimes, there is more truth in the fantastic of fiction than is reported in the journalism and academics of our current day!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moos Publishing
• Release date: Mar 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386108672

Jess Thornton

Jess Eden Thornton is the author of several books on family, the post office past and present, and Americana.  His writings espouse traditional family values, while displaying the underlying humor in the family, neighborhood, and of working life. He also has written a few fantasy stories, one in collaboration with Robert E. Howard, the inventor of Conan. He resides in the driftless region of Wisconsin, deep in an isolated coulee.

Book preview

Gods Beneath the Earth

Also by Jess Thornton

Afterlife series

Driftless Afterlife

Atlas of Atlantis

Atlantean

Conan Returns

King Conan and the Stygian Queen- Beyond the Black River

Cycladian Tales

Gods Beneath the Earth

Jess Thornton Detective

The Witch of Grandad Bluff

The Queen and the King

The Portrait

Tomb of the Viking

The Witch of Grandad Bluff and Others

Mailman tales

Driftless Mailman

Milky and Soupy

Mailman Tales- a Memoir

Mailman Tales

Mailman Tales

People of Light

The People of Light

Standalone

Soupy’s Joke Book

Watch for more at Jess Thornton’s site.

Gods Beneath the Earth

Cycladian Tales

Jess Thornton

Moos Publishing

Contents

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1. Archeological Exploration

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2. The Cycladians

3. The End of the White Race

4. The Collapse of Western Civilization

5. Englewood Chicago

6. Out of the ghetto

7. Shelby

8. Simon Stanton

9. The Future

10. Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois

11. Millenium Park Confrontation

12. David Burnstein

13. The Art Institute of Chicago

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14. Northwestern University

15. Simon's Lecture

16. Back to Cycladia

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17. Watching the End Unfold

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18. China Takes Over

19. Aftermath

20. A New Beginning

Last of the Whites

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Jess Thornton

Copyright © 2019 Jess Thornton

All rights reserved.

ISBN:

ISBN-13:9781793816863

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

To Miriam Rose, Abram Peter, and Stay-Puft

1

Archeological Exploration

Peering within the dusky entrance, Simon felt exultation swell his chest. Long had been the road to gain this cave entrance, but he knew now it had been worth it- a cave deep in an isolated part of southern France, incredibly ancient, and undiscovered! As a researcher of all things archaic, this classicist was as excited by the discovery as a typical man would be by finding a chest of glinting gold coins and precious gems of shimmering colors.

All alone he had gone on his quest, led on by reading obscure ancient texts, many banned by church and state alike, in arcane and ancient tongues. The only son of a wealthy family, he had used up most of his treasure in pursuit of his historical pursuits; namely pursuing ancient artifacts, an all-absorbing study of the learning of the European ancient world, and a tireless seeking of all things old.

While all those about him of his young age were absorbed in the here-and-now, amusing themselves with the latest electronic gadgets and devices, and totally committed to finding ways to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible, and with the least work involved as possible- Simon Stanton had spent most of what he had to discover as much as he could about the past. And this cave was the portal to something far more ancient than anything he, or anyone else in the modern world, could have ever imagined.

Squeezing his muscled upper torso through the gap he had dug in the hillside, Simon trained his flashlight within. A long, totally black tunnel stretched before him, narrow and yet smooth on all sides, as if painstakingly chiseled out of hard, dark rock. The walls of that tunnel were so smooth as to appear almost polished, and in his excitement and total amaze he pushed himself all the way within- and began sliding! Slow at first, but quickly picking up speed, he plunged down along the slick rock chute, completely and totally unable to control his rapid descent.

He retained his grasp of the flashlight, but that was all, as he shot quickly down, deeper and deeper into the ancient earth. He thought ruefully of his pack left behind, of his gear, cell phone, and charts; everything really that had guided him on this great quest, this adventure that was going out of control despite his careful preparations. The bright blaze from his electric torch reflected wildly as he plunged with ever greater speed, showing an obsidian black all about, only the bright sheen of the reflections temporarily blinding him as they shot back into his bright blue eyes.

He strained to slow his downward spiral, planting his rubber-soled shoes against the rock, to no avail. Briefly, he wondered at the skill required to engineer such a smooth path of stone, and knew that his original supposition had been right- this ancient cave, of undeniable Neanderthal origin, given its age, showed the intelligence of this once denigrated ancestor of modern humans- but, with that thought, suddenly he was launched into the air, deep within the earth! He steeled his muscles as he hurtled through the deep, subterranean vault, as his torch illuminated all at once not only a huge hall, but statues of vague, anthropomorphic shapes lining gargantuan walls of not just black, but green, azure, and crimson colors! Amazed, he still tensed himself manfully against the fall, curling himself into a knot of muscle, knowing his life depended upon it.

Simon struck hard, as he knew he would, striking the rock floor that broke his fall while tensed into a muscular ball, his head bunched against his chest, his strong arms and legs all curled together. The impact would have killed a lesser man, but Simon Stanton, despite being a cloistered scholar, was also very much a physical culturist. He spent as much time improving his body as he did his mind, following the advice of the ancient Greeks to have a ‘strong body in a strong mind.’ The erudite professors with whom he communicated via computer and the mail would have been astounded to see the massively well-built man that they assumed was a spindle-shanked scholar such as themselves, the type that hunched over books and screens, and never gave a thought to their physical bodies.

Slowly rising from the rock floor of the large cavern he had shot into, Simon was lacerated and felt as if shot from a cannon- but his limbs worked, and he was alive. He stood, gazing out upon a scene that momentarily made him doubt his very survival. For what he saw was a vast, colorful cavern; a great Hall that looked engineered, with columns supporting the massive weight of the arched roof, and shadowy, gigantic forms- huge statues, that stood along the walls. And all was lit with a light that emanated from within large crystals set in the walls; yellowish multi-faceted gems of a sort that glowed with a golden light. Standing there, Simon was an image of primordial man, unconquered, looking out upon a mystic hall of the gods, gigantic and awful, that gazed down upon him with strange faces of perfection.

For Simon knew, from his many and arduous studies, that what he saw now vindicated his long suspected theory- that the ancients, those that modern men called ‘Neanderthals’, were not of a sub-human, ape-like people; no, rather they were quite the opposite. For what he saw ranged about him, the statues that ringed this vast hall into which he had plunged, were the statues of gods, of beings that, although undeniably human in aspect, were in reality more than human. It was as if the pantheon of the Greek gods had been carved into gigantic statues- there was Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, lithe, deadly and agile. And over there- Apollo, with more than human beauty and holding a lyre and a bow- ready to sing a song using the one, and a more deadly sort of tune with the other! And so it went, as Simon paced about that huge hall, he saw statues carved with more than human skill, depicting the ancient gods and goddesses with a realism that was fantastic.

This was beyond what he had hoped to discover. Simon knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt from his laborious research and endless studies, that the ancient ones, the so-called Neanderthals, were not lowly pre-humans, slaughtered by the invaders from Africa and replaced by them as homo-sapiens. No, he knew that their brain capacity far exceeded our own of the present, and he knew their suggested simian features were far from the truth- but this! He continued pacing the hall, which had gained the aspect of being a museum, a repository of ancient truths and wisdom. He was eager to explore it all.

It was like a dream, exploring a hall of such antiquity. He knew that the age of this subterranean vault was far more ancient than any of the current scholars would believe, hundreds of thousands of years was his considered opinion. He knew his spindle-shanked colleagues would gasp with incredulity, but he also knew he was right. He knew too that the skill to create such a subterranean hall, and imbue it with a strange light over the eons, was far beyond what modern man was capable of, even now in the age of computers and nuclear weapons. Simon walked like a man in a fantastical dream, looking at the very mythical gods that he had read of and revered in his youth as the avatars of the perfect men and women of mythology. And here they were, depicted realistically in stone!

Eerily, it was similar to the ancient cave paintings he had seen before in the south of France and Spain, and in Croatia- those paintings had been of animals, aurochs and many extinct species of mammals- and they had seemed to move, to be given life, in the light of torches within the darkness of those caves. And that was wonderful, and impressive beyond belief… But THIS! These huge statues appeared to live, and the light that leant them this aspect of life was engineered by these same folk to illuminate this hall. The implications made his mind reel.

He saw the entire pantheon of the ancient Greek gods, from Neptune, to Pluto, to mighty Zeus himself! All were huge, and yet somehow true to life, as if modeled on actual men and women who had strode the earth long since. And all were of awful antiquity beyond the ken of men! He paced on, and on…

And he saw figures, carved like the others, and yet unrecognizable to the scholar within Simon Stanton. There were statues with the heads of cats, and the bodies of women. One had the evil aspect of a baboon, and four legs like a goat. Some were like lionesses, and others like spiders. But the most hideous was the serpent god, with glowing red eyes like those of an evil madwoman.

Quickly turning around, Simon raced back to the main hall, within which were the main gods of the Hellenic pantheon. They seemed like familiar friends to him, as he sat at the foot of Zeus. The yellowish-golden light suffused him here, as if he were in a dream. He wondered what to do now- his pack was outside, he had no means of communication; in fact all he had of the outside, modern world was a flashlight! He was exhausted, having spent months finding the entrance to this cavern, and his head spun, knowing that not only did no one know where he was, but that what he should do next was hard to fathom, since he had