A brief synopsis for Martin Goes To Hell
PROLOGUE
A demon named Blupox arrives from Hell to claim the soul of a man who lies dying in an emergency room. After the hospital staff leaves the dead man and draws the curtains, Blupox violently rips the soul from the lifeless body and throws it down a gaping hole that appears in the floor and leads to Hell, itself. Before Blupox leaves, he catches sight of the new widow and watches as she breaks down in grief. The demon enjoys watching someone suffer like that until the elderly woman looks up and appears to actually see him, despite that fact that he is supposed to be invisible to the eyes of mortals. Somewhat unnerved, he returns to Hell.
CHAPTER ONE
Martin is a twenty something who lives with an overbearing mother and works in a busy credit card call center for his overbearing boss who he calls the Big, Fat, Sweaty Head. Martin goes home early after a difficult day and that night has a dream about being embarrassed by a beautiful woman at the office. In Hell, the archangel Gabriel in on an assignment and meets an old man in a picket line that is blocking Hell’s administration building and he also comes across a grumpy demonic janitor. Gabriel is charged with personally requesting that he come to Heaven to personally ask God’s forgiveness, but the devil always refuses and this particular time he is preoccupied with watching certain events unfold on Earth.
CHAPTER TWO
Back on Earth, Martin sadly looks over the remains of a collectible superhero action figure that was chewed up and mauled by his mother’s dog, Bigley. He also fantasizes about a more thrilling life that includes a passionate love affair with an alluring comic book adventuress called the Black Cat. In Hell, Gabriel tries to convince the devil to return with him to Heaven but instead gets caught up in a discussion about freewill. When Martin goes back to work he is informed by Millicent, the boss’s nerdy but pleasant secretary, that the Big, Fat, Sweaty Head has broken her leg and will not be around for a couple of days. Without his bullying supervisor around to torment him, Martin has a great day on the job and even works up enough courage to ask the cute secretary out afterwards.
CHAPTER THREE
When Martin returns to work he finds that Millicent’s schedule has been changed because the Big, Fat, Sweaty Head is trying to end their relationship before it starts. Martin has a difficult day and ends up hiding out in the restroom thinking about whether his previous bad job as a dishwasher was perhaps better than the one he has now but then his boss tracks him down, has him summoned to her office and proceeds to berate him on his poor job performance. Back in Hell, Gabriel is trying yet again to get the devil to go before God and perhaps this time say that he has suffered enough but the devil still resists. On his way out he again meets Epicurus who asks the arch angel if God wants to prevent but can’t, or is it that he can but just doesn’t want to. Later, the devil visits an abandoned cemetery, due to a secret portal that exists there between Earth and Hell, and remembers a woman who he once and still does love and longs for.
CHAPTER FOUR
Martin finishes another long day at work and he tries to sneak out without the Big, Fat, Sweaty Head noticing. He gets off of an elevator on the wrong floor in an attempt to get away from his boss and ends up at a retirement bash and ducks into a side office where he meets Lil, a beautiful girl who has been privately entertaining men at the party. Martin thinks he has met the girl of his dreams and Lil immediately recognizes that Martin is somebody who will do just about anything she asks. They quickly leave together, neither of them wanting to be seen by anybody. Millicent sees Martin in the lobby but is afraid to say anything, because he is with another woman.
CHAPTER FIVE
The two go back to Lil’s apartment where she begins to seduce him in order to get him to do what she wants. Back in Hell, a condemned soul named Bill, visits a restaurant known as The Lake of Fire Bar & Grill where both demons and damned frequent. Blupox is also there to meet the devil to discuss a new opportunity for the demon to make great strides in his career by influencing and empowering Lil while at the same time making sure Martin is willing and available to help her in anything devious. While talking with the devil, Blupox can’t help thinking of his own failed love life, his less than enjoyable time as a student demon and his poorly kept secret of sneaking off to the material world to go roller skating in his downtime. While at the restaurant, Blupox witnesses the arrival of new condemned souls, known as inmates, who are brought by bus and then are led through the front and then out the back to the actual Lake of Fire which is located behind the eating establishment of the same name.
CHAPTER SIX
Back in Lil’s apartment, she fakes a breakdown to win sympathy from Martin, who readily gives it, as she relates the hardship she has had to endure from her controlling rich aunt and she convinces him to go over to her aunt’s house, break in, and scare her hoping to convince the old lady that she is too old and feeble to live alone and that she should transfer everything she has, especially her bank account over to Lil. Martin does as Lil asks and he notices the same blue cat at her apartment and at the aunt’s house and when the cat starts to cry loudly at the old lady’s house, the aunt sees Martin and screams. As Blupox rides the bus that will take him to Earth he remembers talking with his close friend Gabriel about going to work in Hell after completing his celestial studies because the demon believed that God was too picky, overly dramatic and unstable as opposed to the devil who seemed very accepting and does not discriminate. Gabriel did not agree with Blupox and the two parted ways but they still remained friends and manage to see each other from time to time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It is revealed that the blue cat is really Blupox in disguise as he is there to kill Lil’s aunt but he loses his nerve remembering the other old lady in the emergency room and is therefore possessed by the devil himself who causes her to trip and fall down the stairs to her death as Martin, who believes he is to blame, watches in horror. Blupox returns later that night to claim the aunt’s soul but is interrupted by Uriel, a female junior angel, who Blupox used to be school friends with and he watches as she calmly and gently lifts the soul from the body of the old woman. When the soul appears it smiles and it is able to see Blupox and the demon thinks back to how the widow in the emergency room seemed to also notice him. A distraught Martin returns to Lil’s apartment and tries to explain that her aunt’s death was an accident and Lil convinces him to forge a suicide note that they will leave with her aunt that describes how she is too scared to go on and that’s why she threw herself down the stairs. Back at the aunt’s house, Martin plants the fake suicide note while Lil gives him a drink which turns out to be poison and she explains how the note is really for him and that she will tell the police that he killed her aunt and then himself out of guilt.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Martin wakes up, finds himself at a sort of crossroads in the afterlife where he meets the demon Blupox and boards a bus bound for Hell that takes him to the Lake of Fire Bar & Grill. The other souls on the bus are herded through the restaurant and out its backdoor to the actual Lake of Fire but Blupox takes Martin to a private room to meet the devil who warmly greets him and welcomes him to Hell. Martin witnesses the devil become enraged at Blupox and watches as the devil transforms into a hulking monster that destroys Blupox.
CHAPTER NINE
Blupox recovers from the devil’s assault, Martin meets Gabriel the arch angel and the devil tells Martin that despite the fact that he lived his life eating bacon and shrimp and wore mixed fabrics, the real reason he is in Hell is because he just did not believe in God but Hell is actually full of people who led moral lives. Martin is given his roommate assignments and then is promptly thrown in the real Lake of Fire, while on Earth Millicent overhears coworkers gossip about Martin’s murder/suicide as well as endures the Big, Fat, Sweaty Head mocking him. Back in Hell, Martin is taken to meet a beautiful woman named Selene who tells him that the devil will ask him to do something and that no matter what happens he should refuse. Later in Hell’s cafeteria, Martin meets Roubideaux, who is waiting for his friend Blupox so they can go do yoga together. Roubideaux, who is not an inmate, explains that the devil Martin met is only the current devil and through time there have been several.
CHAPTER TEN
Roubideaux tells Martin that the last devil was a female named Hecate who he had made a deal with by allowing her to use a crypt in his family cemetery as a portal between Hell and Earth in exchange for not claiming his soul and also, even though Hecate is gone the deal is still upheld by the current devil. Roubideaux continues by telling a story about how he outsmarted Hecate to save his own father’s soul and reveals that her last name when she was human had been Selene, which shocks Martin as he realizes he just met her. Blupox arrives at the Sisyphus Administration building in Hell to meet the devil but first he encounters a suspicious janitor who tells him that the picketers outside are misunderstood and that one day they will be a force to be reckoned with. The devil offers Blupox another job to eliminate Lil’s second aunt, Edna, who inherited all of Aunt Ethel’s money and is determined to make a godly woman out of her niece. The devil admits that what he really wants is Lil’s soul.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Blupox is back on Earth where he possesses a man driving a car in an attempt to run over Lil’s aunt who is remembering how she and her sister have felt responsible for Lil ever since her mother took her to daycare one day and ran off. As Blupox is about to hit Edna with the car, the spirit of Aunt Ethel appears, asks him not to do it which causes his resolve to falter and he flees before he can harm anyone. Later, Martin overhears the devil complaining to Blupox about his poor job performance and the devil persuades him to return to Earth to help claim Lil’s soul by the use of a cursed necklace that condemns the wearer to Hell, but the devil does not tell him that whoever gives the necklace also receives the same fate.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gabriel comes to meet the devil after Martin and Blupox have left for Earth and reminds him that Martin and Millicent had been meant to be together and, also, if he just let matters play out on their own, Lil would probably end up in Hell, anyway, but the devil says he doesn’t want to leave it to chance. On Earth, Martin and Blupox follow Lil and Edna to a museum where Millicent is also at. Because of a mishap, Martin loses the necklace and Millicent almost picks it up when Blupox has a final change of heart and intervenes. He tells Martin to go live his life with Millicent, disguises himself as a human, and presents the necklace to Lil who grabs it from him, thus condemning her to hell and the two disappear, leaving a bewildered Aunt Edna behind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Blupox is waiting outside of the devil’s office where the janitor is emptying out trashcans. The devil is furious that Blupox allowed Martin to go free, Blupox hands in his resignation and the devil turns him into a pillar of salt then tells Gabriel and Uriel, who have just arrived, that he is finally ready to go meet with God. Then, a powerful demon named Mephistopheles who has been disguised as the janitor appears, claims he has been sent by Hecate as part of her revenge, kills Gabriel and defeats Uriel and the devil, even after the devil assumes his monster form, but the devil uses his power to come and go at will and disappears. Mephistopheles, dragging the body of Uriel behind him, goes in search of the devil. Lastly, a glowing form appears, picks up Blupox, and then leaves.
Targeted Age Group:: 15 years plus
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I have been a reader and a writer all of my life. At 8 years old I was sent to live with my extremely religious and conservative grandparents who took me to church every
Sunday and even though the church was large enough to have a big youth group my grandparents insisted I go to service with them. I was the youngest person in that service by at least 50 years and sat there soaking up the unwatered down and unapologetic word of god Sunday after Sunday, year after year. Then I went to college and took writing and literature classes as I worked on my English degree. In all the countless works and novels I read, Dostoevsky stood out probably the most and influenced much of what I wrote in my writing workshops. While an undergraduate, my own experiences (especially from childhood) mixed with new ideas and circumstances I encountered in college. Everything seemed to come together on its own and Martin Goes To Hell almost wrote itself.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
Many of my characters come from real life experiences. Three of the characters are different aspects of myself.
Links to Purchase Print Books
Buy Martin Goes To Hell (Greetings From Damnation! Wish You Were Here! Book 1) Print Edition at Amazon
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All information was provided by the author and not edited by us. This is so you get to know the author better.
