The Death of Dave
A pearoast from the Evil Pranks QOTW.

Back in College (all of 3 years ago now, how old I feel), the second year was fantastic. We felt like we owned the college - we'd been there an entire twelve months, we knew all the staff, how to blag free food from the canteen, who in the smoking area sold weed, everything. And so owning the college itself, we also owned any first years that were stupid enough to hang out with us. And hang out with us they did.

One girl in particular attached herself to our group (we will call her Sammy, for that was, and probably still is, her name). She was intensely irritating, loud and generally obnoxious and after a few weeks of following us from the canteen to the smoking area, smoking area to the field, around college and then on the bus into town, we decided enough was enough - she had to be ditched. But how to do it? She seemed intent on shadowing one guy in particular (the aforementioned Dave) and so with his blessing (it may even have been his idea, I forget now) we set about faking Dave's death.

It began one evening with someone calling Sammy's mobile in a panic - "Dave's been in a car accident! He's at the hospital in a really bad way. We're all here but he's asking for you, Sammy!". Being a first year, and thus only 17, Sammy could not drive. She ended up getting her mother out of bed at 11pm to drive her to the hospital where, upon arriving and not being able to trace Dave's location (what with him being happily at home having a beer and a good laugh at Sammy's expense), she called back the person who'd rung her earlier. "No," she was told, "we're not there! We're at {hospital name} hospital, in {town name} But oh God Sammy, it's too late! Dave's DEAD!" Cue floods of tears from both parties - fake from the person 'breaking the news' of course, but oh so very real from poor old Sammy. In his hour of need, Dave had asked for her, and she hadn't got there in time. How would she ever live with the guilt?

But it wasn't over there. Oh no. The next day someone "confided" to Sammy that in his last moments Dave had said that he wished she could have been there, as he thought he loved her, and wanted to tell her before he died. Hearing this of course, Sammy gushed that she wished she'd known, as she'd loved Dave all along, etc. which was quite plainly bullshit, but when the person in question is dead, I suppose you can get away with that sort of thing. Anyway, that evening we conviened on MSN as young folks do (or did in my day, they're probably all too busy doing drugs and mugging pensioners these days) and began to discuss the fun of this prank. We started a group conversation (with everyone's display names being "RIP DAVE I'LL MISS YOU!!1" and other such sentimentalities) and invited Sammy in. It started out as you might expect, people sharing their grief at the loss of their friend and discussing details of the funeral to be held the next week. That is, until one person who 'hadn't heard' of Dave's death (let's call this gent Larry) entered the conversation, and asked what all the fuss was about. "Haven't you heard? Dave's dead." Larry enquires as to which Dave this is. "Dave Smith." (name changed to protect the oh-so-guilty). "That cunt?" says Larry, "Good riddance."

Cue general outrage from the group until one by one, people start to turn.

"Well actually, he owed me money, the bastard."

"He stole my girlfriend in year 11."

"He slept with my sister you know. Git."

The final straw was when Mike, Dave's brother entered the room, and showed absolutely no grief over his brother's untimely demise, but instead was just pleased as he'd be "getting the bigger bedroom now!". This conversation went on for about 3 hours, I have the full transcript somewhere for anyone who doubts that people this evil truly exist. Eventually it turned to the absolutely ridiculous, with two people claiming that when the hospital had refused to honour Dave's final wishes (to do with some bizarre religion he belonged to, I believe), they had 'liberated' Dave's body from the hospital mortuary and were keeping it in a giant freezer in their basement. Sammy actually bought all of this, and was disgusted by her apparent friends' callous attitude towards their friend's tragic death.

The next day we were stood in the smoking area, which at our college was generally just part of the car park. Whilst we stood there badmouthing Dave and talking about who was going to get his stuff, Sammy stood in stoney silence. After a few minutes, a Ford Ka whizzed into the car park and parked up a small distance away. Out got Dave, who sauntered casually up to the group and hugged Sammy. She burst into tears.

I've never been more certain I'm going to hell.
(Mr. In-Between has regretted posting this ever since, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 16:24, 4 replies)

That was fun!
I liked it :) You terrible terrible person
(i should have joined myspace, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 17:45, closed)

you have the transcript?
can you send me it by any chance? :)
(Freddles, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 18:09, closed)

Actually
last time I posted this I had a bunch of people message me asking for it, so I dug it out and found that A) It was a mess, B) As it took place over the course of several hours, the events as I listed them were HEAVILY condensed and C) A certain element of the way I remembered it/wrote it made use of poetic license... it all actually happened, but events were slightly more convoluted than the simplified version written here. Anyway, I uploaded it with the intent of posting the link, and forgot. Then the domain I uploaded it to expired. Gah.

I know there's at least one other person who still has it though, so I'll try and get on his case to find it. We're all awful people.
(Mr. In-Between has regretted posting this ever since, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 23:30, closed)

here it is, it is a bit of a mess though
www.b3ta.com/links/Follow_up_to_QOTW_Evil_Pranks
( Tom OBedlam I have control of a tank, Mon 15 Dec 2008, 3:36, closed)