Enter the Secret World of the Strangers and Monsters Among Us

Delve into the secret world of the monsters and strangers among us. Here are examples from my novels:

Fulfillment: Satan and his minions; Nathan, an evil-possessed killer posing as a would-be lover; and Bezalel, a Captain of the King’s Guard who would kill anyone on the king’s orders, including innocent babies.

Hags: Denise Appleby, a hag as old as the middle ages and as young and pretty as a girl of twenty; Lionel Langdon, a merciless serial killer and rapist; Ahlman Brown, a demon posing as a wealthy philanthropist; Barbara Mathers, an attractive  young lady with a deep, dark secret; and of course, Micah Probert, the new guy in town who has a past.

Steel Pennies: Yes, there are strangers among us that we don’t recognize, killers and secret evil doers. Steel Pennies will test your prejudices and deductive reasoning skills as you learn who the killer is in this mystery thriller, hopefully before someone else is murdered.

Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters: With a title like this, you know you’re in for visits from strangers and monsters. Snpgrdxz is certainly a stranger with a name like that, but does this teenage alien shape shifter stand for good or evil? Throw in Turpelator in all his out of time manifestations and you have a daemon bent on trouble. Don’t forget all the creatures who go bump in the night in this nonstop action adventure, horror, scifi, fantasy, romance – yeah, you get the idea. And is Jennifer Hawkins the most dangerous evil-doer of them all? Or is she a sweet, innocent teenager? Or both? Find out when you read the Snpgrdxz series.

Offbeat writing
My offbeat writing style combines noir with a twist of humor. Here are the opening lines to get you started:

Fulfillment: A loud roar shook the house. 

Hags: From the mattress on the floor of the back bedroom of his antique Victorian fixer-upper, Micah Probert heard a far off scream.

Steel Pennies: I gawked at the eye holes, gasped, and dropped a chunk of somebody’s skull at Bob’s feet.

Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters: From where she stood at the foot of my bed, fifteen-year-old Jennifer Hawkins couldn’t miss, but would this sweet girl shoot me?

Is this place for real?
My stories take place in real neighborhoods, perhaps one near you. The exceptions are Fulfillment which is set in the ancient world and Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters which starts in Wheaton, an ordinary suburb of Chicago but moves quickly to an underworld that can best be described as Dante’s first circle of Hell. From there the time travelers, including a teenage space alien shape shifter, end up back in Wheaton but the time is 1923 and the strangers and monsters abound at every step of the journey. Hags is set in modern day Naperville, Illinois. Steel Pennies takes place in 1960 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which is a university town located about 30 miles west of Philadelphia.

Characters who talk the way real people talk
Dialogue brings a story to life. Here’s a sample from Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters:

By the time we escaped Lincoln High that afternoon, the sun waited for us, the trees stirred, and the ninety-plus temperature blasted our faces. I offered Jennifer Hawkins a ride home.

“I can’t, Bryan. You have to stop asking me for a date.”

“It wasn’t an invitation for a date. It’s transportation. Gilbert will ride with us. We’re safe.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to ride in cars with boys.” Gilbert’s falsetto pierced my ears as he tossed his backpack on the backseat of my mom’s Malibu.

“Gilbert, you ride with me every day.” I opened the front passenger door for Jennifer.

“Oh, right. What about Jennifer?” Gilbert jumped in the backseat.

“I don’t mind riding in cars with boys, Gilbert. I’m not sure I’m supposed to, and I’m forbidden to date them until I’m older.” Jennifer threw her backpack into the Malibu.

“How much older?” I asked.

“Not until I’m forty.” Give Jennifer credit. She kept a straight face.

I could feel my jaw bounce once on my chest.

Jennifer noticed I wasn’t breathing. “I’m kidding, Bryan. I’m supposed to wait until I’m sixteen.”

“Oh. So that’s why you said no to me?” I fumbled with my keys and dropped them.

“It’s a reason.” Jennifer hopped in the front seat while I put my tongue back in my mouth and pushed my jaw closed. My heart resumed beating. I took in the aroma of sweet flowers that wafted into the Malibu with her.

I located my keys by crawling under the car to coat myself with hot tarmac and gravel. Back in the Chevy, I drove north on Main Street through downtown across the railroad tracks and past the coffee shop and other stores of old Wheaton. Jennifer asked me to turn right at Jefferson. A few blocks later, she said to make another right. She pointed out one of those Victorians from the Middle Ages near the college and asked me to drop her off.

I pulled over to the curb and stopped.

She unlatched the door, but didn’t open it. Instead she gazed into my eyes. “Just because I’m not allowed to date doesn’t mean I don’t like you, Bryan Ganarski.”

She leaned across the seat and planted one full on my lips. I forgot about Gilbert in the backseat while Jennifer and I made out for a few minutes. We pulled back from each other. Jennifer flashed the biggest smile ever aimed at me by a girl, giggled once, and stepped out of my mom’s Chevy.

“I never did that before.” She galloped up to her front porch and disappeared inside her house.

I about peed my pants a minute later when Gilbert said, “Guess you guys are like a couple, now.”

I had forgotten about him. But it soon turned crazier. Not as insane as the midnight visits to my bedroom, but almost. As I pulled up to Gilbert’s house, Daniel Brickmaster said, “Hey, this isn’t where I live.”

I slammed on the brakes and checked the rearview mirror. Brickmaster grinned at me. Gilbert had vanished.

Interested? Click here.

A Modern Warrior Woman

Jennifer Hawkins discovers her role as the warrior attracted to a cowardly boyfriend in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. Jennifer protects and lifts up her boyfriend while displaying the courage to become the only female member of the time travelling team searching for the lost Maria Gonzalez. She serves as the conscience of the group while retaining her nickname of Wild Thing. It’s Jennifer who dispatches two of the mobsters who attack in 1923, and she is the one who serves as nurse to a wounded Bryan Ganarski. (BTW, you’ll want to check out this scene as described in a first-person point of view by Bryan after he is wounded in the head. It makes for an interesting Tour de Force.)

Jennifer meets herself on her time journey and the two Jennifers travel together without having the time-space continuum collapse. Apparently the universe can abide a paradox. 

One of the things to watch for as you read my Snpgrdxz (pronounced like it's spelled Snip-grid-ix) series of novels is the way the two main Jennifers (there are others that pop in from time to time) grow in two different directions with one becoming a strong female warrior while the other descends into evil.

By having two versions of the same strong female character, I’m able to explore the way any of us can choose evil or good actions. Snpgrdxz also provides a humorous way to examine the theme of good and evil in our modern culture which dismisses this kind of contrast as primitive Bronze Age thinking. In a world that approves of our actions as “lifestyle choices,” the Snpgrdxz novels show that not all choices are for the good and not all actions give life.

Read the free portion of the first novel in the Snpgrdxz series, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, by clicking here for the book on Amazon.

And while you’re on Amazon, be sure to download the Kindle version of my most downloaded short story Little Miss Forgotten. It reached number 33 on Amazon this morning and today is the last day it's free.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: How can a Christian write a story where a character commits a murder? Take a deep dive into a philosophical issue. Click here.

What Holds Your Attention in Speculative Fiction?

Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror and those creepy stories that don’t fit into a box with a genre label. Think of Twilight Zone and you get the idea.

What is it about speculative stories that hold our attention? A story works because the author blended the elements into a beautiful tapestry that delights and entertains the reader.

A well-told tale is located in a specific time and place. The author may change both as the story progresses, but the locale has to be believable. The location doesn’t have to be an actual place. Some of the best writing takes us to made up worlds like that galaxy far away that serves as the setting for Star Wars. Or you could tell a tale set in a real environment but with a dystopian twist like London after the zombie invasion has wiped everyone out except for a small band of intrepid survivors.

Stories revolve around characters. Ordinary stories feature ordinary characters in ordinary situations. Speculative fiction may have its share of ordinary characters, but you also find a few extraordinary characters in extraordinary places doing extraordinary things.

Speculative fiction moves at a pace appropriate to the tale. Science Fiction tales may need extra time for the author to create the fantastic world of the story, including an explanation of the science behind space travel, time travel, atomic fallout’s contribution to the size of insects, etc. But once the story is setup, it takes off at lightning speed. That because fantastic journeys are rarely languid. There’s simply too much going on to maintain a slow pace.

Location, characters and pace are three of the many elements that form the fabric of a good story. They provide clues to solving the mystery of my new novel Steel Pennies. The location is a working class neighborhood of a small Pennsylvania town in 1960. The characters are a group of teenagers whose summer is destroyed by a serial killer. The pace is fast as you might expect from a thriller. Check it out on Amazon by clicking here.

The Vampire’s Wife’s Rant

So you think it’s cool to be a vampire? You’d like this living forever thing? Let me tell you, vampire is not so hot. I mean it’s cold if you want to know the truth. Always cold. Think about it. The man sucked my blood out. All of it. Blood is what keeps you warm. I’m cold. Even in summer I’m freezing my tush. I’d go out in the hot sun, but what would happen? I'd disintegrate, that’s what. And tan lines? Forget tan lines and nice complexion. A ghost has more color than a vampire.

And don’t even get me started on hair. You ever have a bad hair day? We’re talking Night of the Living Dead Hair day here. I’m dead, you know what I mean? The vampire sucked my blood out 723 years ago this coming July. Couldn’t even wait for school to start. No, he has to kill me in the middle of summer break. At the shore. In my medieval bikini. Yeah, we had bikinis back then. The kind with the special locks so you know you couldn’t mess around so much. But hey, we made out okay until that vampire hit town. Geez, I’m telling you.

Speaking of hair and complexion, think about checking yourself in the mirror. I mean, give me a freaking break. A girl’s gotta look, but what does she see? Nothing. Nada. No image. Not even your old dead face or a skeleton nor nothing.

So why does he make a girl a vampire? He wants a wife, he says. Someone he can love forever. You want to live forever? Join a church. Look, he sucks my blood out and then expects me to look good. You ever see a blonde with no blood? Not a pretty site, let me tell you. Dead looks gray and ashen. Your eyes don’t look so good rolled back in your head. Your boobies don’t have any lift. They just kinda lay there.

Dead. I’m dead. Every day I’m dead. I haven’t seen the sun for 723 years I’m so dead. So at night I come to life. Life? Give me a break. We’re talking undead here. Live forever? Walk around maybe, but alive? Alive means you can feel. You ever try to feel with dead fingers? You know what it’s like to have a long dead cold probe stuck in your you-know-where from an undead guy who thinks he’s hot but all he is is long dead? Cold dead. Dead, dead, dead. The only way he fills the thing up with blood is to go suck it out of somebody else. Now he’s doing me with someone else’s blood holding him up. You call that manhood? Give me a break. By the time he gets it going, it’s long cold and dead. Like screwing a bolt. Okay, a big bolt, but still a cold steel bolt.

Okay, I got off track there for a minute, but give me a break. How do you love a guy who sucked your blood out so he could get it on with somebody else? Anyway, I’m dead. He’s dead. And we’re stuck here. You think he murdered me for my looks? He says he did, but my looks aren’t so hot, you may have noticed. A little makeup maybe I’m not so so bad. I go from the look of a morgue babe to OD’d hooker with a little makeup but that’s as good as it gets. But he likes it. Okay, a lot of makeup. And it would be nice to check the old makeup job once in a while with a mirror. But no. Mirrors don’t work. I mentioned that, right?

He only took me because he wanted my body. Now, I’m his love slave. Hate slave is more like it. I mean, really. He never tries to carry on an intelligent conversation. It’s all about blood and sucking. It’s all he ever is interested in. Like I’m dead. Doesn’t he get it? I’m not exactly interested in messing around with him. Rigor mortis, despite everything you read about it, doesn’t make you horny.

To him, I’m just a love object. He just wants my body. Why he wanted it so cold is beyond me. But what do I  know? To him, I’m just another brainless zombie vampire wife. But I’m not a zombie. I’m a vampire who wishes someone would stake out her heart. I mean a little rest would be nice at night, you know what I mean? Every night it’s making with the bouncing springs and then the blood lust. Geez, if I never suck another person dry again, I’d be a happy camper. I mean, look at me. Do I appear like the kind of girl you’d ask out on a date? I mean, maybe like 700 years ago, but today? Take a gander at my teeth for crying out loud. Check out these ugly fangs. Can’t hardly talk straight with these things hanging out.

And no mirrors. Did I mentions the mirrors? And when you’re dead 700 years, don’t try to run a brush through your hair. I mean come on. If I find one more fly larvae in my hair, I’m going to scream. But let me tell you about mirrors…

…Will you shut up down there already.

Sorry, dear. Didn’t know you could hear. I was just talking to my supper.

You are staying for dinner, aren’t you?

For your reading consideration

My novels 
Have you ever run into evil incarnate in your local coffee shop? Or combine latte with lust? It happens to Micah Probert in Hags.

Did you ever wonder what Satan was up to while God was going about the business of sending Jesus to save the world? Find out in Fulfillment.

My Short Stories
Love may be just a  kiss away, but what if the kiss is packed with... well, Little Miss Forgotten is a short story so I better let you find out for yourself. Sorry Rick and Ilsa, but the fundamental rules don't always apply as time goes by.

You've known people who just fly off at the smallest things, right? Find out what set Egbert loose in this short story. What lurks in the darkness of Lower Wacker Drive?

Angel Thorns is a short story about 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? Horror with overtones of spiritual warfare.

Visit my Amazon author page by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
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A Cheerleader Miscalculation

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

The pipe bombs and bullets fired in the direction of the factory workers started having an effect as they changed their tune from “Zom… zom… zom…” to “Moz… moz… moz” and retreated back into the helmet factory.

The cheerleaders made short work of the football players, using their hammers to cause the football players' batteries to malfunction.

“That was close,” said Mrs. Brombach.

“What is going on here?” asked Chief Martin.

“It’s the Zombot Approximation,” said Albert Bringlebaum. "They’re not exactly zombies and it’s not the apocalypse, but it’s not good either.”

Harry Wagfoot, the high school quarterback, removed his dysfunctional dystopian football helmet. “What happened?”

“You put on the wrong helmet,” I said. “Now we have to shut down the helmet factory.”

“Any ideas on how to do that?” asked Marylou.

Albert Bringlebaum waved a pipe bomb. “I’d crash the factory with the pickup filled with pipe bombs. I’ll time one to blow at about the time the pickup makes its way through that open truck entrance next to the main office. When the pipe bomb blows, it’ll make the rest of the bombs explode with it. Bye-bye factory.”

“And it’ll kill all the zombots inside?” Mrs. Brombach asked.

“Most of them. The rest we can either shut off with a hard smack to the helmet battery or simply shoot them. I’ve got enough guns and ammo in the pickup.” Albert Bringlebaum distributed the weapons while Chief Martin called for backup.

The explosion flattened the building. Turned out there were some highly inflammable chemical compounds used in the manufacture of helmets.

Later that evening, Mrs. Brombach cooked dinner while Marylou and I made out in the parlor. Albert Bringlbaum and Betsey Olson necked along side of us. We heard a loud truck noise outside on the street. Since Marylou and her mom lived on a quiet sidestreet, the four of us took a gander out the window.

We saw one of those eighteen wheelers rolling by. The side of the trailer was emblazoned with the helmet factory logo and a giant football player wearing a helmet. The driver looked a lot like Uncle Rantly.

"Daddy!" Betsey cried while hinting at another story best left unspoken considering Uncle Rantly's bachelor ways and Mrs. Olson's second husband Oliver who worked night shift at what used to be the helmet factory and my own tendency to write long sentences like this one.

The End… for now.

Zom… zom… zom

You have completed Jude Nerdworthy, Monster Fighter in the Zombot Approximation. It was the product of my morning writing exercises rather than polished work like my novels and short stories.

By the way, if you enjoyed reading this series, try my full-length novel 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.

The Square Root of Slow

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

“Cake?” I answered when Chief Martin asked Albert Bringlebaum and me what was in the back of Mrs. Brambach’s pickup.

“And some pipe bombs,” said Albert whose human relations skills wouldn’t register on a Cool Meter let alone a Nerdometer.

“What kind of cake?” asked Chief Martin who owned shares in the local donut shop.

“Not my truck,” I said.

“And we have about half of my dad’s gun collection which should come in handy right about now.”

“Why now?” Chief Martin asked.

“The Zombot Football team for one and those cheerleaders headed this way with a crowd of helmet-manufacturing zombots in hot pursuit,” said Albert.

Chief Martin pointed his glock at the cheerleaders which could have had serious repercussions in a different kind of story. As the cheerleaders approached, we spotted Mrs. Brambach huffing behind them.

“Start the engine,” she yelled.

“What did she say?” asked Chief Martin.

“Something about stuttering penguins,” said Albert.

I jumped into the cab of the pickup, but the keys weren’t in it. “No keys,” I yelled.

“Use the pipe bombs, the cheerleaders miscalculated, called Mrs. Brambach.

“Hurry, the square root of slow is equal to the mass of digital helmet minus our brains,” yelled Betsey Olson.

As the cheerleaders reached the truck, Chief Martin opened fire while Albert Bringlebaum tossed pipe bombs at the helmet factory workers.

Meanwhile, the high school football team reached the back of the pickup truck while continuing the battle hymn of the zombots, “Zom… zom… zom.”

Click here to continue...

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.

Betsey Olson Seeks Daddy

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

We piled into the pickup with the girls up front. Albert Bringlebaum and I rode in the truck bed with the pipe bombs and Albert’s stash of weapons.

We arrived at the helmet factory in about ten minutes. Someone had left it in an industrial park in Naperville.

Albert jumped off the truck with his rifle at the ready. “Stay behind me. I’ll do the shooting. Jude, you bring the pipe bombs.

I placed a hand on Albert’s shoulder from behind. He jumped about three feet off the ground.

“Dude, don’t do that!” Albert said.

“Sorry, but before you open fire, maybe we should ask Betsey to check things out. Her dad works here.”

Mrs. Brambach, Marylou and Betsey caught up with us.  They each carried a hammer.

“This is woman’s work,” Betsey Olson said. “You boys wait here while we calculate the best way to shut down the factory.”

Betsey placed a finger to her temple while scrunching up her pretty face. This lasted about ten seconds. “Piece of cake,” she said. “Follow me.”

“Wait, I’ve got cake in one of the bomb boxes,” said Albert.

“Won’t be necessary,” I said. “Let’s hang out here and let the ladies do their thing. We can always blow the factory up later.”

We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Albert is not the kind of person you can hold a conversation with. I asked him how he thought the Cubs would do this year and he replied, “Yeah.”

While that may have been an accurate portrayal of the Cubs chances at winning a division title, it didn’t do anything to extend the conversation in the way a comment about the team’s first basemen may have.

I heard a car on the street. When I checked it out, I spotted Chief Martin in his patrol car. He pulled up to the pickup truck and climbed out.

A commotion down the street caught our attention. The high school football team marched towards us singing their new fight song, “Zom… zom… zom….”

Chief Martin said, “Weird way to practice football.” The chief poked about the boxes in the back of Mrs. Brambach’s pickup truck. “So what do you boys have here?”

Click here to continue...

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.

In Search of the Lost Cheerleader Solution

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

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.

Click here to continue...

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.

The Cheerleader Solution

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

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.

Click here to continue...

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?

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

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.

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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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F-Wording the Zombots

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“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.

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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.

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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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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.