Synopsis: Gateway to Hell

Gateway to Hell is a romantic horror novel, in the vein of The Scarlet Pimpernel meets The Stand. In brief, the story is about Michael Meade, a movie theater projectionist with a penchant for old movies, who learns that the Julie Howard, the woman of his dreams who works at a local factory, is the victim of a secret military mind control experiment – along with most of the rest of the inhabitants of the small mid-Missouri town. Michael is still a young man, in his early 30’s, but is in a profession where he is surrounded by teenagers. Instead of keeping him young, it makes him feel old and out of place. He fantasizes about having a perfect life, where he is the hero, just like the stories that are played out on the big screen in front of him every night, but in reality he is meek, mild and a bit of a geek. He’s not overweight, but is a bit soft, largely due to the comfort food provided by his mother every day – did I mention he still lives in his parents’ basement? In his heart, however, he knows that he is a hero, just waiting for his moment to shine. In Gateway to Hell, it’s going to be difficult for Michael to bring the mind control experiments to a halt and expose the power-hungry General Mitchell for what he is – a psychotic murderer with plans to create hell on earth – because he’s been invisible his whole life, a nameless, faceless geek that no one knows.
General Shawn Mitchell isn’t really a general at all. He was sent to military school during his troubled teen years, where he learned the importance of discipline . . . and how to walk the walk and talk the talk to blend in. After breezing through college in three years at the University of Illinois, he got a job working at the corporate offices of State Farm Insurance. During the deep recession of 2009, he was laid off and took a stop gap job as a janitor at a local University. There, he discovered that lab space was actually leased to the United States Army and they were conducting mind-control experiments on prisoners. He began taking notes, pilfering files, and copying computer files. He experimented with using lights, sounds and images and created a program within a movie to turn people into zombie-like shells, ready to be activated as his soldiers when the time is right for him to take what he sees as his rightful place as leader of the Western world.
When the story opens, Michael is in the movie projection room watching The Scarlet Pimpernel on his portable DVD player while a full theater of teenagers watch the latest horror flick, Gateway to Hell. Moans and groans filter up to the booth and he looks out upon a scene of stretching flesh, eyeballs bulging and mouths open in silent screams . . . and that’s not on the screen.