Prank from the Other Side

[WP] For Halloween, you decide to dress up as a crazy person wearing a tinfoil hat. However, once you place the hat on your head you hear a strange voice: “Finally, the gamma waves are gone! Now listen up, we don’t have much time!”

*****

“Oh yeah, the Halloween party. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget this time. Yeah, I’m sure you will love my costume this year. I put a lot of work into it. Ok, see ya, Brittany.” Brian hung up the phone, dropping onto his bed with a loud sigh. “I had all week to plan a costume, but what did I do? Rather than putting together a costume, I spent the entire week watching horror movies. I’m screwed. They probably won’t even let me in. They were planning on doing spooky photos and everything. I’m just going to look out of place.”

Brian pulled himself from his bed, searching his wardrobe for anything remotely scary looking that might pass for a Halloween costume. Despite his taste in fashion being horrific, it wasn’t the type of horror that made people scared, instead it only made those around him concerned, which wasn’t the type of feeling he was going for. He tossed aside a few articles of clothing before glimpsing himself in the mirror.

His yellow ‘Honk if you like to party’ shirt was coated with holes and his pants looked as though they were one long stretch away from ripping. His bed hair still fizzled, giving him the look of a mad scientist that had just made a terrible mistake in their lab. This could work. If he just pretended to be crazy, he could use that as his costume. “OUR LEADERS LIED TO US, THEY TOLD US WE WOULD HAVE COKE IN THE DRINKING FOUNTAINS AND DID THEY EVER LIVE UP TO THEIR PROMISES? NEVER!” Brian said, planning his crazy talk, using his grievances against his school captains ten years ago as fuel for his crazy talk.

He was nearly ready. The only problem was, he needed something more. At the moment, he felt like a well-cooked plate of food, but every fancy restaurant knows that a plate of food needs an artistic blob of sauce or a few pieces of parsley to complete the dish. What would be his blob of sauce? “Ok, crazy person. What do crazy people wear?” Then it hit him, tinfoil. He galloped into the kitchen, unwrapping his leftover sandwich, carefully licking the small droplets of mayo off the tinfoil before he wrapped it around his head. At first he heard nothing, which was to be expected.

“Ok, messy hair, clothes and a tinfoil hat. My crazy costume is complete.” He said as he headed into his bedroom, giving himself one last look over in the mirror, only to hear a voice.

“Finally, the gamma waves are gone! Now listen up, we don’t have much time!” The nasally sounding voice said, speaking from somewhere in his room.

Brian went over to his tv, checking to see if he left one of his horror movies on. After a quick inspection, he found only a blank screen, the voice not from his tv, so where was it coming from?

“Can you hear me? This is urgent, a matter of life and death.” The voice said, this time with a more frantic tone.

“I can hear you. Where are you?”

“I’m in your head. I’m agent…” There was a pause for a moment before the voice continued. “Agent John Smith.”

“Agent Smith? How did you get in my head?”

“Through our own special waves of energy. Listen, you are the chosen one. Only you have figured out the correct way to wear a tinfoil hat. Your genius will save humanity. May I ask, what did you do differently with your tinfoil?”

Brian thought about it. What had he done differently? “I had some mayo on it. Maybe that worked?”

“Mayo? Uh, yes mayo! What a brilliant idea. I will get my top agents to redesign our current hats to adjust to this new revelation. Now listen closely. I need you to take your tinfoil outside and expose people to my voice.”

“How will I expose them to your voice?”

“Simple, once you put the tinfoil hat on them, the gamma rays will clear, allowing me to speak to them. Just convince them to wear it and I’ll do the rest.”

“I don’t know, won’t I sound a little crazy?”

“Crazy? No, you will sound like a hero. You’re the person who will set them free and expose them to the evil waves of energy that are rotting their minds. I believe in you, Brian. You’re our hero now. Can I trust you to perform this task for me?”

“Well, I guess I have to. I didn’t choose this life, but it was clear that it picked me. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that I wore this tinfoil today. Life was just pushing me towards my destiny.”

The voice fell silent, a few gasping breaths were heard before being muffled. After a few seconds, the voice spoke again. “Exactly. Now go out there and do us proud. Once you have enough followers, I’ll tell you the location of our headquarters.”

“I won’t disappoint you.” Brian rushed outside, grabbing whatever tinfoil he could find before covering each bit of the tinfoil in mayo, prepping the tinfoil for whatever followers he would win over. When he shut the bedroom door, the voice broke out into laughter, being followed by the sound of other voices laughing along with it.

“Did he actually believe it? I can’t believe he forgot to hang up the phonecall. There’s no way he didn’t notice where the voice was coming from, right? He was just messing with us, wasn’t he?” Brittany said, still choking back muffled laughs.

“He sounded pretty convinced. Your fake voice was perfect and that bit about gamma rays. How could someone not believe that?” Jacob said, laughing along with her.

“Gamma rays are pretty generic sounding, though. It’s what scifi writers use when they can’t figure out how to explain their technology. What even is a gamma ray?” Everyone was silent. Trying to work out what a gamma ray was before Brittany felt a tinge of guilt. “Brian? You didn’t believe us, did you? If you’re listening to us now, you can say something. The jokes over.”

The silence lingered for a little longer than everyone was comfortable with. Suddenly, their prank was sounding like a bad idea. They waited a bit more before exchanging nervous looks.

“Um, I should probably check on Brian. Just to make sure he’s alright.” Jacob said, grabbing his jacket as quickly as he could, not wanting to give Brian too much time to get himself in trouble.

“Tell him I’m sorry if he got himself in trouble. It was meant to be a little of payback for ruining our Halloween plans. I didn’t think he would actually do it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t do it. He’s probably just sitting by the phone laughing at us.” Jacob didn’t sound convinced of his own words when he said that, already rushing out the door, heading towards Brian’s house.

“I can’t believe he believed that. He watches way too many horror movies.” Brittany said to herself as she hung up the phone, hoping Jacob would get to Brian before he tried to convince anyone to wear a mayo tinfoil hat.

*****

THE END