It was a bright and sunny afternoon in Miami Beach. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was a pleasant 78°F with wind from the southeast and some truly epic surfing conditions. Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with this story.

No, this story takes place in Pennsylvania, where it was a dark and stormy night. Yes, I do know how cliché that is, but we can’t all be surfing in Miami and getting a nice tan, can we? The sky was dark, thunder boomed, and flashes of lightning highlighted the dark and dreary castle where our protagonist awaits. Yes, there are castles in Pennsylvania, I did my research, so can we please stop nitpicking and get to the story?

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, deep within the castle, Dr. Frank N. Stein laughed maniacally as thunder boomed once more and he looked upon his creation and screamed in excitement, “It’s alive! It’s aliiiiiive!!!” No, I am not plagiarizing Mary Shelley. This is a homage, I tell you, a homage!

Frank looked down upon the hulking behemoth that he had brought to life, noting the steady rise and fall of its chest. It had taken him ages to piece together that massive, manly body from the corpses of football players. The brains had been too damaged for his purposes though, so he had to find one of those elsewhere, but it wasn’t like whatever cadaver it came from was going to miss it. Besides this was for Science, and there was no greater cause.

His creation’s eyes, one green and one blue, fluttered open and Frank quickly covered another maniacal laugh before it could manifest. He couldn’t have the creature think he was laughing at him after all since it could probably snap him in half. The creature grunted, steel manacles snapped as if they were made from cheap plastic, and then the creature sat up on the operating table.

Frank coaxed the creature to his feet and watched with pride as the behemoth took its first steps. Everything was going perfectly, better than he had ever dreamed. That is until his creation saw the mirror. When the patchwork giant saw its reflection, it screamed in existential horror at what it saw looking back.

For the next two weeks, Frank was very put out. Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to get Frank Jr. to speak to him. If he was going to show off his creation to the world, he needed to be able to show that it at least possessed a modicum of intelligence, and being able to converse would show just how great Frank Jr. was. He could not figure out why his creation would not speak though, he knew that he possessed vocal cords, he had installed them himself.

Frank Jr. would not speak though. He wouldn’t even go on a proper monstrous rampage, which was a huge disappointment since Frank had spent so much money insuring the castle. No, Frank Jr. just sat in the lab and sulked.

Frank was at his wit’s end. Finally, he sat down beside his gargantuan creation and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Then it spoke. The word was quiet and more than a little moody sounding, but Frank Jr. said, “Nothin’.”

For over another week, that was all that Frank got from his creation. He would try to figure out what was wrong, and Frank Jr. would reply with, “Nothin’.”

Finally, things came to a head as his creation became more and more depressed and moody as time passed. “Come on, Junior, did I do something to make you upset?”

“If you don’t know what you did wrong, I’m not going to tell you,” his creation said as he turned away to sulk once more.

He had done something wrong? Whatever it was, Frank just couldn’t see it. “I gave you life! I gave you a body that any man would envy!” he snapped, allowing his frustration with his creation to show.

“Yes!” Frank Jr. snapped back with teary eyes as he began to sob. “Y-you gave me a m-man’s body, b-but my… brain is a w-woman’s!” The poor creature broke down as her entire existence of three weeks in that hideous male shell and being called Frank Jr. became too much for her to bear.

That was when Frank realized that he had really screwed up. Maybe he shouldn’t have bought the brain on eBay. He sat down, put his arm around his colossal creation, and awkwardly patted her on the back. “There, there. We’ll get through this together. So… Frankie… how do you feel about a vacation? We can hit the beach, catch some waves, and… maybe I can dig up some beach bunnies to make you a new body you’ll be happy with.”