Friday Flash: Zombie Gloss By Eric J. Krause
Sarah giggled and headed out the door for class. If she stayed, her laughter would only betray her, and Angie would know something was up. Angie was the best roomie in the world, but April Fools’ Day meant those nearest and dearest had to get pranked. It was law.
She found a tube of joke lipstick online called Zombie Gloss. She customized it to look like Ang’s favorite, Ruby Red, in every way except an hour after application it would make her lips appear rotted. As Sarah reached her nine A.M. econ class, she had to take deep breaths to keep from busting out in laughter and looking like a loon in front of everyone.
Angie didn’t meet her for lunch. Crap. Was she mad? But didn’t Ang know it was illegal to get pissed about pranks on April Fools’ Day? She’d smooth things over tonight by springing for a pizza. It’d take away some of her fun money for the weekend, but she’d just hit a frat party or two to save some cash. Heck, she and Ang might have done that anyway. But when Angie didn’t show up to their dorm room later that afternoon, Sarah started to worry. She tried her cell again, but only got voicemail. Even her numerous texts went unanswered. Ang wasn’t a big fan of pranks, giving or receiving, but she’d never been this pissed about one. Maybe something was actually wrong. Should she call the campus police? The city police? The hospital?
Before she made a decision, the door to their room jarred. She leapt up and ran to it. “Ang? Is that you?” She threw it open and stumbled backwards. That was Angie, but what the hell was wrong with her? Her lips were the awful rotting color the website promised, but the rest of her skin had the same tinge. Sarah would have attributed it to make-up and a counter-prank if it wasn’t for Angie’s face. It looked, well, droopy. Unless she’d made sudden friends with a make-up wiz in the drama department, she couldn’t have pulled this off.
“What’s going on, Ang? What happened to you?”
Angie didn’t answer, at least with any intelligible words. She gave some sort of guttural grunt and lurched forward. A hand reached for Sarah’s face, and as it did, one of the fingernails dropped to the floor. That did it; Sarah belted out a scream from the depths of her soul.
She turned to dodge Angie’s hands, but as she did, her feet entangled, and she went down hard. Angie kept moving toward her and leaned down. Sarah gagged as the nauseating stench of death pouring off Angie assaulted her. She tried to scream again, but it came out in rasps and coughs. Her first, though, had brought movement from the hallway, but before she could hope for salvation, one of Angie’s hands latched onto her jaw and pulled, bringing a sickening crack, while the other hand jammed itself down her now-gaping throat.
As her world faded to black, she almost lost herself in a laughing fit despite the blinding pain. After all, Zombie Gloss had come with a disclaimer that proved not to be the joke Sarah thought it was. “Warning: May cause zombieism.”
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April Fools! The story you just read appears here on my blog as a part of the Great April Fool’s Day FridayFlash Blog Swap, organized by Tony Noland. You can find my story for today at Eric J Krause’s website, http://ejkwritingspot.blogspot.com/2011/04/fridayflash-made-up.html To read all the dozens of stories swapping around as a part of the GAFDFFBS, check out the GAFDFFBS index over at Tony’s blog Landless. For hundreds of thousands of words of fantastic flash fiction stories, check out the FridayFlash hashtag on Twitter. It happens every Friday!
GAH!! When pranks go bad: a cautionary tale! Really gross, Ewic! Well done!
Euw! I think that is one of the best disclaimers I’ve ever read 🙂 Thanks for being my swap buddy Eric, and for your patience! x
This would be a good advert for all of those people against animal testing. Makeup really is murder.
Never trust something called “zombie gloss” if you’re in a fiction! Sheesh, the idiocy of some characters. It’s like they don’t know they’re made up and doomed.
Always, always, always read the fine print!
Gross and great!
You can’t say Sarah wasn’t warned. Nice work Eric!
Did you two agree that lipstick would be the catalyst beforehand or was that just coincidence?
Hi Harry,
We were given the prompt by Tony Noland who organised the swap. It was “Lipstick that makes a woman look bad” – I’m glad you enjoyed our interpretations!
Em x
Ha! Zombieism – now I Have heard it all! Great fun story Eric!
A tale of caution for those who don’t heed warning labels! Lol
The scariest zombies are those you know. Love the ‘disclaimer’ ending.
Eric:
You do it to me every time, man … You both did such a great job with this one!
Always read the fine print! Great April Fool’s story!
This one was giggle fits from beginning to end. Great job Eric.
Really great work with the prompt, love the story and the implications. Nice job.
Ew and awesome. Thanks Eric, Emma and Tony!
That’s what happens when you order pranks online. The sickening crack was really well done, Eric. It made me cringe. Thanks for the April Fools story.
Great story, Eric. A perfect April Fools tale!
fantastic!!!
(why am I being told that was too short? when a machine complians it ruins my breakfast!! – I’m only kidding do you think I have waffled enough for the machine to accept the comment.
Fantastic!!!
HA! That was fabulous! Awesome! Hilarious! Loved it!!!! I kept thinking that Ang did get some help from a make-up artist and it was all a joke but it wasn’t, and how cool is that!!!
Too funny – I was thinking a counter-prank too … watch out for those side effects 😉
Thanks for all the great comments! When I first sat down to write this, Zombie Gloss came to mind, and I planned on making it a foolish, fun story. As I wrote though, the horror elements decided they wanted to take over, so I went for it. I’m glad you seemed to enjoy it! And thanks to Emma for hosting the story this week!
This was pretty funny, in a gruesome sort of way. Some people just can’t take a joke…
She should have bought the hypoallergenic stuff, maybe. This was both funny and frightening, Eric!