The Seamstress

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

She sat quietly, stitching the final stitches in the glow of a dying candle. Months had passed since she’d begun the arduous task, but she was finally finished. Time and time again, unhappy with her work, she’d ripped portions out and re-stitched them. The quilt needed to be perfect.

Her fingertips caressed the beautiful creation. The hint of a smile curled the corners of her mouth. With her new blanket–one side a patchwork of varies pigments of human skin, the other an amalgamation of the scalps of her victims–wrapped around her shoulders, she stepped out onto the balcony.

—

When I first looked at this photo, I thought of a woman being stalked by a man, but the woman turns out actually be hunting the unsuspecting man. I’ve written that story before, probably several times, so I moved on. Next I thought of werewolves, but didn’t have any idea of where to go with that. So I moved on to my next thought: Frankenstein. But I wanted to go a different route than the traditional monster stitched together from corpse pieces, and thus the Frankenquilt was born.

Written for Friday Fictioneers.

Click here to read the stories from the other Fictioneers.

Advertisement

A Conversation with Frank

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Jean L. Hays

“Let me be frank, Frank.”

“ARRRRRRGGG”

“You’re an abomination.”

“ARRRRRGGHHHHHH”

“Do you know how long I’ve worked on stitching you together–how many hours I spent digging up graves to find the various pieces I needed? You don’t, do you?”

“GRRRRRR ARRRRRR UHHHH”

“All that time and effort was wasted. You can’t even talk.”

“AHHHHHH ERRRRRGGGG”

“All I wanted was a companion… someone I could talk to… someone who could talk to me.”

“ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH”

“It gets lonely up here at the castle, Frank.”

“GAAAAAAAHHH.”

“At least make yourself useful and go steal me a woman or two from the village.”

—

Written for Friday Fictioneers. This prompt gave me a bit of trouble. I didn’t get any horror ideas, probably because I’ve been writing so many horror drabbles lately for the second volume of 100 tiny tales of terror, which will likely be out in December and would make a perfect Christmas gift for yourself or a loved one. *wink wink nudge nudge* Anyway, so instead of horror I envisioned a conversation between Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, who I realize doesn’t actually have a name but I called Frank for the purposes of this story.