Short answer: Because I get carried away… and I am really good at them.

Let’s look at a few examples, shall we.

Back in ‘the day’, when I was a teen, we decided we should have a contest to do the most disturbing practical jokes we could think of. The rules for winning this contest were simple. Whoever could make the most people run away screaming and/or vomit would be the winner. And I won. More than once. Are you interested to find out how?

You know that my friends and I used to hang out in a cemetery. It was like a park, only less crowded. Especially at night. So naturally we used to bring new members of our group in there to party and hang out.

Sitting in my room at home I had a plastic human skull. It was just something I had found somewhere and thought it was cool. That was the basis for my first joke. If you want to play this on some of your friends, here is how it works…

You need;

A full-sized human skull… (real or fake, your choice)…

A big tarp or ground cloth.

A big plastic bucket.

A fake human hand… (or a real one, once again your choice… a foot will also work… get creative)…

A whole bunch of blood… (you can use fake blood, but I got real blood from a butcher shop… get to know a butcher, it comes in handy… trust me)…

Some cow bones, legs, ribs, whatever… (see, I told you a butcher comes in handy)…

Some old clothes that you rip up with a knife.

Some hamburger meat.

A cemetery.

Here is how it works. To set it up, you find a nice dirt area in some trees… not a grassy area…  Lay the tarp down flat on the dirt. Cover the tarp with a thin layer of dirt so you can’t see the tarp. Now put the skull on the hidden tarp. Smear some hamburger meat on the skull, then dribble it with blood. Now use the cow bones the same way. And the ripped up clothes. You get the idea. You are staging a crime scene. Use your imagination. Have a cow bone, covered with blood and meat sticking out of the leg of the ripped up pants. Put the ribs inside the shirt, showing through the rips. Try moving the torso a few feet from the legs so it looks like the body was pulled in half. Put the fake body parts wherever you like. Now just go crazy with the blood. If you do this right, it should look like a guy ran into a whole pack of werewolves.

Have one of your friends stay hidden in the trees with the plastic bucket where he can’t be seen. You may be wondering about the trees. Why not an open space? Because this joke has two elements that really make it work. First, it works best if the victims ‘find’ the scene just as the sun is setting. Timing is everything. That is when your eyes are switching from color to black and white. There is a five-minute window that is perfect. To early and they have too good a view in the bright light. Too late and they will not know what they are seeing. You can use a flashlight to direct them to the spot, but then you don’t get the overall effect. The trees are good because you want the victims to spot the carnage on their own even though you led them there. You also want them to see it from a few yards away, but not so soon that they don’t get close enough to get the full shock.

Don’t worry, I didn’t do it perfectly the first time. It took two more attempts before I started an actual stampede of running, screaming, barfing victims. So be patient.

Now, the rest is simple. You meet up with your group of new friends. Don’t bring too many victims. Three to five is a good number. And be sure to have at least two or three people with you that are also in on the gag. If people are about to panic and run, or start blowing chunks, all it takes is for them to see someone else running and they will get pulled along. So lead your little group around, showing them the views from the cemetery, and the places where you all like to party. Keep your eye on the sun. Remember, timing is everything. Lead them to the grove of trees at the proper time. Take them close to the scene of the ‘crime’. But keep them distracted with a funny story and keep them close together. You don’t want one person to spot the horror before everyone is close enough to see it. And make sure you let one of the victims spot the actual ‘body’. If they feel they are being led somewhere, they will be more suspicious.

As soon as one of your victims spots the carnage, while their mind is still trying to make sense of what they are seeing, you and you merry pranksters start acting a little panicky. But let all of the victims have a good look. Trust me, they aren’t going to get any closer. Now is the moment. You and your prank crew just have to start screaming, and turn around and run. Don’t wait for them. They will be right behind you. Listen for their terrified screams getting closer, because they are going to run right past you. They think it’s real and have adrenaline shooting through them. And if some of them are spraying vomit, I guess you won that bet, didn’t you?

You may have been wondering about the guy you left hidden with the bucket. This is the beauty of my plan. Because chances are that your victims will be calling the cops. As soon as you all flee, your cohort comes out, picks up the four corners of the tarp, and folds it up in a big neat bundle like a crap-filled diaper… bones, blood, clothes, dirt and all. Then he sticks it in the bucket and goes away. If you did it right and didn’t spray the blood outside the area of the tarp, the cops can show up in five minutes and there is nothing there but dirt. In the old days we didn’t have cell phones, so it took longer for the cops to get there, but I like to leave a clean crime scene. I have manners. This just makes the cleanup so much easier.

*Note* If you are really trying to go for the ‘vomit’ score, have one of your friends hide a zip lock bag full of split pea soup in his pocket. While your victims are riveted by the bloody corpse, he can pour a mouthful of soup and then all he has to do is bend over and ‘vomit’ the soup. He should be very noisy about it. I guarantee that seeing this will make someone in your group of victims fall prey to sympathetic vomiting. It is all in the little details.

If you liked this story, stay tuned for one that is even more shocking.