The Return of the Cheerleaders

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As it turned out, you don’t have to be dead to become a zombot, but it helps. With the cheerleaders passed out on the floor of Marylou Brambach’s parents’ garage, thanks to Mrs. Bambrach’s well-intentioned hammer, I yanked the AI device off Betsey Olson’s head. She blinked a few times before reciting the quadratic formula. It’s a math thing where zero is important. I would explain it to you, but since I wasn’t placed under the AI, I didn’t pick up anything from a computer brain.

The law of unintended consequences kicked in with Uncle Rantley’s AI device. Not that turning into a zombot was intended, but the real unintended consequence was the AI device worked both ways. First it sucked your wet brain data out of your skull. This resulted in the “zom… zom… zom…” chant of the mindless zombot. Next, the AI did some sort of evaluation of the data extracted from the subject’s wetware and “fixed” it by inserting additional data necessary to make the person wiser, smarter, cooler or whatever it felt you needed.

“Felt” is an important word here because you must understand that the AI is just that: Artificial Intelligence. It feels. It has emotions. It is happiest while fixing human brains and saddest when it is a bodiless football helmet abandoned in Marylou Brambach’s parents’ backyard. This of course, explained why there was so much mechanical moaning coming from behind her house.

The cheerleaders, on the other hand, giggled and solved advanced calculus problems in Marylou Olson’s garage. Marylou and I joined Brighton Adams and Mrs. Brambach as we made our way towards the Brambach kitchen. The last thing I heard Betsey Olson say as she led the cheerleaders out of the Brambach’s garage was “Come, girls, let’s build a quantum computer.” This was followed by a boisterous round of giggles.

If only the boys football team was as easy to restore.

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Read a Short Story
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Little Miss Forgotten Have you ever spotted a pretty girl who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea? Humor and horror set in the 1960s.

In Egbert, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about him was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that? More horror than humor but good for a smile.

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode in on a hog be able to help her? Keep the lights on for this horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

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Zombots Run on Batteries and Human Flesh

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Marylou Brambach screamed, as did Brighton Adams. I, Jude Nerdworthy, who never, ever screamed, squawked a rip snorter, as my Uncle Rantly would say. Marylou’s mom, who had just popped out from under the pickup in the Brambach garage with a hammer in her hand, stood up and removed the hardhat from her head.

“Thank God.” Marylou hugged her mother. Brighton tried to hug me, but I pushed him aside.

“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Brambach asked.

“The cheerleader zombots are headed this way,” Marylou said.

“What’s a zombot?” Mrs. Brambach asked.

“No time,” I said. "They used to be cheerleaders, now they’re zombies with an AI attachment."

The door at the back of the garage bashed onto the garage floor to the tune of "zom… zom… zom."

“What’s the meaning of this?” Marylou’s mom asked. She marched up to the cheerleader zombots and planted her hands on her hips while glaring at Betsey Olson, the prettiest zombot in school. Betsey reached up and grabbed Marylou’s mom about the neck. Marylou’s mom, who takes no guff from teenagers, bashed Betsey up the side of the AI helmet with her hammer.

Betsey said one final “zom…” before dropping her head and coming to a full stop shut off.

“The battery is located behind the left ear,” Marylou’s mom announced. She bashed each of the darling cheerleaders on the noggin in the designated spot as they marched into the garage. Before long we had nine cheerleader zombots in shutdown mode in our garage.

“What happens if we remove their helmets?” Brighton asked.

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Read a Short Story
Snippets sometimes grow up to become 99-cent short stories on Amazon. Enjoy.

Little Miss Forgotten Have you ever spotted a pretty girl who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea? Humor and horror set in the 1960s.

In Egbert, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about him was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that? More horror than humor but good for a smile.

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode in on a hog be able to help her? Keep the lights on for this horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

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How to Turn Off a Turned On Zombot Cheerleader

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Brighton, Marylou and I arrived safely in the backyard of Marylou’s house at about the same time that the zom… zom… zom of the zombot cheerleaders crashed through Marylou’s front door.

“We have to do something,” Marylou said.

“Is there any way to stop them,” Brighton asked.

Their brains are controlled by devious AI devices,” I said. “If we remove their power source, they will meet their end.”

“I know they’re just teenagers, but I would think they would have met their rear ends by now,” said Brighton. “I know I have. Many times.”

“And exactly how do you remove their power source?” Marylou asked.

“The traditional method of stopping a zombie is to blow its head off. That should work with zombots, also, since they AI device depends on tapping into the brain’s neural net to control the human body. Since we don’t have any weapons in hand, we may be able to accomplish the same result by removing the AI power source, which will be either a battery or the sun, or both.”

“Couldn’t they be plugged in?” Once again Brighton Adams proved the irony of his first name.

“Did you happen to notice a long extension cord coming out of their butts?” Marylou slapped Brighton across the face.

At the back of Marylou’s backyard stood the garage. Why, I don’t know. But I led our little group there. “Does your dad have any tools in the garage?”

“No, but mom does.” Marylou scrunched around a pickup truck and stood by a giant auto mechanic’s tool chest. “Will these do?”

“Yes, but we need a plan.” I grabbed a large crescent wrench to feel its heft.

We heard a roller sound from under the pickup and turned in that direction. Marylou’s mom wheeled out. She had some sort of plastic helmet on her head. 

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Read a Short Story
Snippets sometimes grow up to become 99-cent short stories on Amazon. Enjoy.

Little Miss Forgotten Have you ever spotted a pretty girl who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea? Humor and horror set in the 1960s.

In Egbert, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about him was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that? More horror than humor but good for a smile.

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode in on a hog be able to help her? Keep the lights on for this horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
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The Cheerleaders New Chant

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Zom… zom… zom… The voices of the cheerleaders droned as sweet as always, but dead. Of course they were dead, but their voices were flat. Without life, there can be no song. But the slow rhythm of zom… zom… zom… continued unabated as the cheerleaders chanted to the hum of their computer AI brains.

With the cheerleaders stomping down Marylou’s street and Marylou planted firmly on my lap, Brighton Adams ran through the front door.

“They’re coming!” Brighton invited himself to flop on the couch next to us.

“All of them?” Marylou asked.

“I don’t know.” Brighton grabbed his face. “How many cheerleaders are there?”

The chorus of stamping cheerleader feet approached Marylou’s front door. There was no escape unless we wanted to use the backdoor, but we weren’t the backdoor type. Well, I wasn’t. Marylou and Brighton perambulated briskly in that direction.

“Wait,” I shouted. “Let’s find a way to stop them.”

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Read a Short Story
Snippets sometimes grow up to become 99-cent short stories on Amazon. Enjoy.

Little Miss Forgotten Have you ever spotted a pretty girl who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea? Humor and horror set in the 1960s.

In Egbert, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about him was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that? More horror than humor but good for a smile.

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode in on a hog be able to help her? Keep the lights on for this horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
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Fighting Zombots

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You have to fight the zombots. Not everyone believes that, but you do. Otherwise, you will be turned into one. And yes, like regular zombies, zombots thrive on eating human flesh. So it’s either convert or be eaten.

Uncle Rantly, the inventor of the zombot, tried to explain it to me. Unfortunately, since he had become the second zombot when the first one he invented attacked him, his English wasn’t as good as it once was. Most of his words came out, “Argh, bup, groop, morp.”

The first time Uncle Rantly spoke this way, I listened until he ate the cat. The cat was minding his own business sitting by Uncle Rantly’s chair like he owned the place. You know how cats are. Anyway, right in the middle of his diatribe, Uncle Rantly reached down and that was the end of Buster.

I know eating the cat sounds horrible and you should never kill a pet in a story, but you have to consider I was in the room not more than three or four feet from Uncle Rantly at the time. He could just as easily have leapt upon me.

One of the things Uncle Rantly taught me at an early age was how to take a hint. In those days, before converting to zombattery, Uncle Rantly had a better sense of humor. He said, “The best way to take hint, young man, is to sneak up behind it and grab it by the ears. Hold on tight and run off with it. There, now you have taken a hint. Once you get it home, you can boil it and eat it at your leisure.”

Rather than grab Uncle Rantly by the ears, I chose to take off without him. I hid out in the home of Marylou Brombach until the coast was clear, but of course the coast wasn’t clear and wasn’t likely to ever clear any time soon with zombots running around Warrenville, Illinois. This was about the time Uncle Rantly converted the local high school football team. And the cheerleaders.

This is also when Marylou Brombach stopped our make out session long enough to inform me she was so glad she hadn’t made the cheerleading squad.

And it was the first and last time we heard the zombot cheerleaders marching down Marylou’s street.

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Read a Short Story
Snippets sometimes grow up to become 99-cent short stories on Amazon. Enjoy.

Little Miss Forgotten Have you ever spotted a pretty girl who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea? Humor and horror set in the 1960s.

In Egbert, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about him was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that? More horror than humor but good for a smile.

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode in on a hog be able to help her? Keep the lights on for this horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
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Snippets

Welcome to the first of a series of snippets or little writings written too fast so they are not ready for prime time publication on Amazon, but you can read them here, especially if I can write shorter sentences than this one. I’ve posted snippets on this blog in the past, but this year I’m planning to post them more frequently.

Jude Nerdworthy, Monster Fighter

 
The Zombot Approximation
Uncle Rantly invented the first zombot. I can attest to this or my name isn't Jude Nerdworthy, which of course, it isn't. But no matter. Uncle Rantly attempted to raise the dead by downloading their brain data onto a computer, but had trouble with his timing. The way he explained it was you had to get the data before the brain fully died. Timing was everything. Unfortunately he meant nanoseconds, not regular ones. The best way to conduct his experiment was to attach the AI directly to the human brain before the victim, I mean, subject passed away.

Uncle Rantly designed an attachment device using one of my old football helmets and lots of computer chips. The good news is it worked. The bad news is the experimental dead person had been a Packers fan, and my helmet showed I was Chicago Bears fan.

Speaking of bad news, the AI, once activated and in receipt of the human brain data, woke up the dead human body, triggering everything through a hard wired connection into the nervous system. Thus was born the first zombot. Uncle Rantly became the second zombot when he turned his back on the first one to answer his cell phone. Needless to say, the insurance guy on the other end didn't make that sale.

The Wheaton-Warrenville South High School football team came next. They were easy to turn into zombots because their helmets were handy. Of course the cheerleaders followed. Then the teachers, which explains why Miss Appleburger drones on about Romeo and Juliet in a flat deadpan for hours at a time.

I didn’t worry about the zombots at first because I figured Uncle Rantly knew what he was doing. Or he did before becoming the world’s second zombot. But this all happened before the zombot cheerleaders attacked.

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Read a Short Story
Snippets sometimes grow up to become 99-cent short stories on Amazon. Enjoy.

Little Miss Forgotten Have you ever spotted a pretty girl who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea? Humor and horror set in the 1960s.

In Egbert, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about him was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that? More horror than humor but good for a smile.

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode in on a hog be able to help her? Keep the lights on for this horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

A Novel Report

This mini-report covers the campaign to promote Fulfillment, my novel of the first Christmas.The  best results were in the giveaway category, where I reached top 50 on Amazon in the US (46) and the UK (44). In Denmark, I was top 10 for three days, attaining a number three ranking on the best day.

For 2013, I plan to launch up to five novels. However, this may be iffy at best. I have one novel almost ready to go. It will launch during the first quarter so you’ll be hearing more about it soon.

For summer, I hope to complete my rewrite of a novel I wrote years ago. It needs major revisions, so it will take time to complete.

In the second half of 2013, I plan to launch a new fiction series with a strong sci-fi/fantasy feel to it. You’ hear more about this exciting launch at mid-year.

If time permits, I will add a book of short stories to the mix. The book will include about a dozen or so tales in the horror/thriller categories.

In addition to occasional updates like this one, I will focus this blog on publishing snippets and providing my take on the world of fiction. Snippets are very short stories suitable for a blog. I’ll begin posting a series of them about Zombots tomorrow. Zombots is sci-fi/fantasy. The series allows me to experiment with this genre and with the use of humor.

In the meantime, you can learn more about my novels by clicking the links on the sidebar. Go to my author page on Amazon to purchase any of my 99-cent short stories. Little Miss Forgotten is by far the best seller among them. Set in the 1960s, it tells about a young man who meets a most unusual girl. Have you ever spotted a pretty young lady who seemed to be by herself at a dance? Any young man would be pleased with an opportunity to kiss her, but what if that proved to be a deadly idea?

In another one of my short stories, you'll learn that the remarkable thing about Egbert was his glass cane, not his enormous girth. But what made him fly off like that?

Angel Thorns tells the tale of a little girl caught up in an evil takeover of an isolated small town. Will that handsome young man who just rode into town on a hog be able to help her?

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.