In Search of the Lost Cheerleader Solution

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We would have learned the location of the helmet factory from Betsey Olson except for Albert Bringlebaum and his father’s stash of semi-automatic weapons. After popping off a thirty-round clip of NATO rounds, he had everyone’s attention. Even the kid serving as disk jockey stopped the music.

The silence lasted about ten seconds before Albert said, “Does anybody know where the helmet factory is located?”

Betsey Olson raised her hand, “Oh, I know this one. It’s where Daddy works.”

“Where exactly is that?” Who knew that Albert had such leadership qualities. Give one point to the National Rifle Association for turning deeply disturbed juvenile delinquents into leaders. Who would have guessed that all you need is a few guns and a couple thousand rounds of ammunition to qualify as a trailblazer? Albert now had that much ammunition strapped to his body in the form of about a half dozen leather ammo belts.

Betsey said, “Oh, but it’s kind of hard to find. I’m not sure you’re bright enough to follow complex directions.”

After emptying another thirty round clip into the ceiling, Albert, our fearless leader, said, “Come with us.”

Betsey gave one of those rare quizzical looks that suggested she just heard a marriage proposal from an alien slug creature armed with neutron bombs, which is another story that we don’t have time to go into what with Albert’s trigger finger as itchy as an NRA lobbyist at a Republican Congressional Caucus meeting. Betsey must have reached a decision because she leaned her head to one side, straightened up and said, “Good idea, let’s go.”

That’s when  Albert let loose with another thirty-round blast.

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You are reading Jude Nerdworthy, Monster Fighter in the Zombot Approximation. It's the product of my  morning writing exercises rather than polished work like my novels and short stories.

By the way, if you're enjoying this series, try Hags for less than $3 by clicking here.

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 standing alone 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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The Cheerleader Solution

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We loaded thee large wooden crates of pipe bombs onto Mrs. Brambach’s pickup truck.

Albert rode on back to keep an eye on the pipe bombs. I was concerned that he might want to drop a few on passing vehicles as we headed for the helmet factory. On the other hand, they might come in handy if we ran into the high school football team.

“Let’s roll,” I said to Mrs. Brambach once I climbed into the front seat.

“Now, one moment, young man,” said Mrs Brambach. “Where exactly is this helmet factory of yours?”

“It’s… well… it must be somewhere close by. A place where they could make helmets. I don’t know? I’ll ask Albert.

When Albert said he didn’t know, I knew what was coming next.

I dreaded the answer, but Mrs. Brambach asked it anyway. “Let’s ask the cheerleaders, maybe they’ll know.”

Back inside the Bringlebaum house, a crowd of teenage boys whooped around hollering to loud music. Mrs. Bringlebaum, obviously delighted that her son had finally made some friends, was serving Rice Krsispie and marshmellow squares. A pitcher of Kool-Aid sat on a coffee table with a stack of paper cups nearby.

The cheerleaders sat around the dining room table discussing something that sounded like quantum physics and teleportation and, well, other stuff that went over my head. Maybe asking the cheerleaders wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

The party was loud even around the cheerleader table where high school kids too nerdy or too out of shape for high school football tried to pick up the cheerleaders. Unfortunately, either the boys were too weak or the girls too heavy, although most appeared to be just right, if you ask me.

I started to ask Betsey Olson where the helmet factory was located, but she blew me off with a quick recitation of the quadratic equation. Seeing the problem, especially with all the other guys hitting on the cheerleaders, I asked Marylou to ask Betsey about the helmet factory, but before she could respond, a series of shots rang out which stopped everyone cold.

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You are reading Jude Nerdworthy, Monster Fighter in the Zombot Approximation. It's the product of my  morning writing exercises rather than polished work like my novels and short stories.

By the way, if you're enjoying this series, try Hags for less than $3 by clicking here.

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 standing alone 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.

What in Dignation?

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Mrs. Brambach floored the pickup. Three cheerleaders fell off the back from the sudden lurch.

“You’re going to get a ticket,” said Marylou.

“I don’t think a ticket is valid when all it says on it is zom… zom… zom…” Mrs. Brambach replied. She screeched the pickup to a full stop so the fallen cheerleaders could climb back aboard. Meanwhile, I passed the first aid kit from the glove box back to the girls so they could repair their scraped knees.

“We have to put a stop to this nonsense,” I said, feeling my own invitation to be in Dignant, Nebreska.

“How do you propose we do that?” Mrs. Brambach started slower this time, but soon roared back down the four lane Rt. 59 heading south towards Naperville. She swerved around a crashed tractor trailer and three empty sedans but didn’t lose any of the precious cargo in back.

I jammed one hand against the ceiling of the truck cab and the other on Marylou Brambach’s right thigh. “The zombots can’t convert you to zombottary unless they have one of Uncle Rantly’s special helmets. We have to find out where they’re producing them.”

“And then what,” Marylou smiled at me.

“We blow it up.” I replied.

Mrs Brambach snuck a peek in my direction with a face that said, “What, are you nuts?” That’s when she said, “What, are you nuts?”

“No, I’m people,” I replied but it went over her head.

“We need Albert Bringlebaum,” said Marylou.

“Of course, Albert Bringlebaum,” I repeated. It must have been the beans we had for lunch.

“Mrs. Brambach, turn left on Butterfield. I’ll show you the way.” I pointed left, but apparently Mrs. Brambach had already figured out what direction left was.

We pulled into the driveway of a brick bungalow in the old part of Warrenville. Warrenville had two parts. The old part consisted of the houses built in the mid-nineteenth century before the railroad decided to go to Wheaton and West Chicago to the north and to Naperville and Aurora to the south, leaving Warrenville with no railroad. Since the towns in our area developed around the railroad lines, no more development occurred in Warrenville until about the nineteen seventies. Thus, the town had an area of old houses and one consisting of a number of now aging “newer” sub-divisions and town houses. Maybe I should have said, "All Warrenville is divided into two parts, the old part of town and the even older part of town, but you got the idea, right?"

The cheerleaders ran into the house without so much as ringing the bell. Albert Bringlebaum came running out of the house.

“What’s going on?” he asked, which goes to show what kind of guy he was. Anyone else would be inside entertaining the cheerleaders. A guy shouldn’t question a gift like that.

“We have to blow up the helmet factory,” I said.

“I’ve got a load of pipe bombs in the garage,” Albert said, again confirming the kind of person he was. To make matters worse, his father was an avid gun collector. Why is it that the gun collector dads are the ones with the destructive teenage sons?

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You are reading Jude Nerdworthy, Monster Fighter in the Zombot Approximation. It's the product of my  morning writing exercises rather than polished work like my novels and short stories.

By the way, if you're enjoying this series, try Hags for less than $3 by clicking here.

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.

F-Wording the Zombots

Do you want to start at the beginning of this series? Click here.

“Forget about it, Mom,” said Marylou Brambach in response to her mother’s inquiry concerning her make out habits with me.

“Why should I forget about it?” Mrs. Brambach asked.

“Because that cop is pulling you over,” Marylou exclaimed without an exclamation mark at the end of her sentence which was sure to upset Mrs. Appleburger, the sophomore English teacher. She didn’t really teach the sophomore English class. She taught the junior class, but she was a sophomore at Northern Illinois University, which is, as they say, another story.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Brambach pulled over for the police officer. The officer stepped out of his patrol car. He wore a black uniform with a large Glock on a black leather belt as his most noticeable accessory, except for the shiny badge on his shirt and the big white helmet on top of his head. About fifty feet behind the police car marched a gaggle of high school football players singing the zom… zom… zom… fight song.

“May I help you, officer?” Mrs. Brambach sounded indignant. You’d be in Dignant too if you lived there, but that’s not the point, is it? Well, it would be the point if you were looking at a large map of the state of Nebraska where you might find a point or dot next to the name Dignant.

The police officer stared admirably, if a bit cold, during the entire paragraph above, obviously waiting for a break in the conversation. When one appeared, he said, “Zom… zom… zom…” He even got all the little dots in the right place as he reached for his gun.

Click here to continue...

By the way, if you're enjoying this series, try Hags for less than $3 by clicking here.

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.

The Zombots Strike Back

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The giggle girl cheerleaders weren’t gone more than five minutes when the doorbell rang at Marylou Brambach’s house.

“You answer it,” Marylou ordered.

“I’m not answering the door,” I replied.

“Jude Nerdworthy, you answer that door this instant or there will be no more make out sessions with me,” Marylou said before she remembered her mother was in the room with us.

“Marylou!” Mrs. Brambach said.

“Ding-dong,” said the doorbell right before it flung open and the high school football player zombots marched in.

Their chant was deeper and richer in tone than the rather tinny and shrill cheerleader chant, but the words were the same: “zom… zom… zom…” What the three little dots were for after every  “zom…” I’ll never know, but there they were.

My first impression of the word “zom” as spoken by the high school football team zombots was that it roughly translated into “skedaddle.” Some may argue that it really meant “Seattle,” but those people I knew who made that argument, like George Howbert and Iorg Baring from my English class, were now zombots.

To me and to Marylou Brambach and even to Mrs. Brambach, “zom…” meant “Hit the road, Jack,” whether you included the three little dots or not. And of course, “Hit the road, Jack,” was just another way of saying “skedaddle.”

The three of us escaped out the backdoor, into the garage and into Mrs. Brambach’s pickup truck. It didn’t start at first, but once Mrs. Brambach screwed the oil pan back on and filled the engine with fresh oil using the cheap stuff from the local convenience store rather than the good stuff from the auto supply, we hustled away.

We caught up with the cheerleaders and offered them a ride. At first they declined, thinking we were strangers. But when they saw the high school football team closing in on us, Betsey Olson said something along the lines of “the square root of 14 plus or minus the delta of sigma equals…”

I’m not sure what Betsey had in mind, but the other cheerleaders took it to mean get your sweet little buns on board the pickup and hope it goes faster than a charging tailback.

One of the cheerleaders, Gloria Beeswax, opted to forgo the pickup ride. Instead, she calculated that one cheerleader plus one high school football team added up to a good time was had by all. She charged the team. Well, she tried to charge the team, but they weren’t buying in their hyper mind state. Instead, they absorbed Gloria back into the zombot cause. The last we heard of Gloria Beeswax was “zom… zom… zom…”

Meanwhile, the light at Rt 59 and Batavia turned green and Mrs. Brambach floored it. As we headed south towards the semi-permanent construction at Butterfield, Mrs. Brambach took a quick peek at her daughter. “What do you mean making out with this boy?”

Guys say the stupidest things at moments like this, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I prayed concerning the soul, spirit, mind and heart of Marylou Brambach, “Please, please don’t use the F word.”

She did.

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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 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
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.

Zombots Run on Batteries and Human Flesh

Do you want to start at the beginning of this series? Click here.

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.

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