Author's Note : Genre - horror Prompt - a piece of sporting equipment
Word limit - exactly 300 words. (not counting this note)
"Mum? Have you finished them yet?" Sam's young voice floated up the stairs.
"In a minute," Mary called back. Guiltily, she put her book down. She had almost finished a rather chilling Native American based story about shape-changers by her favourite author, but she had promised her son she would have the jockstraps finished by tomorrow.
Sam was only ten but ever since he had seen a program on TV about professional baseball players he had been nagging her to make jockstraps for his young team.
Touched that he had felt confident enough to ask her, Mary had made a rash promise. She looked wistfully at her book, but climbed the stairs to the attic in search of a suitable piece of cloth. She was pretty sure she had some old sheets stored in the trunk upstairs that would do the job well enough.
She rummaged through items which had been stored there for years, some of them must have dated from her mother's time. She tossed aside a pretty floral sheet, Sam would be horrified if she used that, then caught sight of a corner of cream linen which, naturally enough, was at the bottom.
She dragged it out and carried it downstairs to her work bench. Picking up the scissors, she snipped the sheet into nine pieces. Her mind drifted back to the story she had been reading as her fingers worked, sewing nine simple versions of a jockstrap suitable for young boys.
What stuck in her mind was that, unlike werewolves in western mythology, this particular flesh eating spirit occupied inert objects. In the story, it had been a sheet of old cardboard.
Finished, she packed them away in Sam's sports bag and returned to her book.
In the bag, eighteen red eyes glowed in the dark.
YOU ARE READING
Sun Spots (short story collection)
Short StoryA collection of short stories and Flashfiction for various tags and challenges - for Aim 2 Engage, Challenge Corner etc Includes Horror, Historical, Humour, and Contemporary shorts
