Sheri Short: Halloween PART 17.5

"Okay, what about this one?" the Spirit Store manager asked for the third time through the changing room door. The manager had let the other workers handle the easier customers about half an' hour ago after one of them had ran off crying.

"No, still too big." Sheri said, looking at the costume in the mirror. "Honestly, do you have anything longer?"

"No," Eli said from the floor across the tiny hall from her changing room. "The only thing they have in a teenager size 0 is 'slutty fill-in the blank'."

Sheri sneered, "Even Darth Vader?"

"You're in America, Sheri."

"I could just be myself for Halloween. Enough people recognize me as a celebrity."

"No, you need a real costume." Eli insisted, half-heartedly.

"I don't have anymore costumes for you to try on." The manager admitted.

"You tried." Eli said, standing up from the hard floor. "Thanks for all your help."

"Good luck finding a costume." he said, rubbing his head as he left.

"Why do I even have to do this?" Sheri asked, walking into the hall just as he was leaving the changing rooms. She buttoned up her vest and tucked her jeans into her boots. "It's not like I'm going trick-or-treating."

"Because it's halloween, and it's fun to dress up." Eli explained, grabbing her zombie costume.

"Yes, but in these cheap fabrics?" Sheri motioned to the plastic bag holding the synthetic costume material. "I'll just look through my closet if I want to look different."

"Yes, different. From yourself, or everybody else?" Sheri glared at her.

***

"Sheri, are you almost ready?" Eli yelled, as she entered 6A. She was wearing her zombie costume, and had highlighted her scars in make-up to make the look like open wounds.

On the average day you might be able to see that the back of her neck, upper left arm, and the lower part of her left calf, were slightly pinker than the rest of her skin. Today, though, they looked like gruesome gang-green and bloody scabs. She still left her ponytail up. No reason to show people that scar, if she could help it.

"Candy's party started two minutes ago."

"If, you're so anxious, you should leave without me. I'll be a while."

"How much make-up do you need? Its a costume party, not a murder investigation."

"I am a professional, Watson. My skill doesn't rest because it's a party."

"Neither does your inferiority complex." Eli mumbled as she made her way out to the bus stop. Once she was sure Eli was gone, Sheri smiled and came out of the bathroom in her costume. She too was dressed up like a corpse, but it was for far more than a simple party. Sheri doubled checked her phone before lying down on the floor in front of the front door.

She opened the door slightly and let one leg hang out of it. Then once she had the right position down she grabbed a gallon of fake blood out of her bathroom and poured it around where her head was supposed to be and lay her head in the red gunk. And waited...

***

Eli stumbled into the apartment building around two in the morning. She was high on excitement about half an hour ago, but now she was just tired. All that dancing, talking, and eating... "Ugh." she moaned, her head hurt very bad from the fog machine's gas and the strobe light's flashing.

Suddenly, though, she stopped. Her eyes fixed on the pale leg hanging out of the door of 6A. It couldn't be, it just couldn't be. After all that she'd survived, she couldn't be...

Eli ran to the apartment before she even knew what she was doing. In the doorway was Sheri in a fireman's uniform with a gun in her hand and a bullet wound straight through her forehead. "A little off center." Eli laughed nauseously.

Eli dropped to her knees and stared at the body. There were no words that could fill the void. Sheri was dead, and she could see the death scene so clearly. She couldn't even check her pulse she was so shocked.

Sheri on the other hand was having trouble keeping still, it was harder than it looked. Certainly she could sit meditating for hours on end, but in this awkward position...

She was a psychopath, not a mannequin. Somehow, in the last hour she hand been sitting there, a spider hand landed on her knee and it was still crawling across her leg. Also the face she imagined on Eli was so hilarious she couldn't keep it up.

Sheri burst out in laughter and shot up into a sitting position. Eli scrambled backwards and somehow got back to standing, despite not remembering ever standing up. Sheri muffled her laughter under her hands. "Oh..." Sheri giggled, "Not going to try that next time." she wiped a joyful tear from her eye.

"Holy cheese, Sheri!" Eli yelled, clutching her heart. Sheri stood up from her stop at the door. "NOT COOL!"

"Sorry, just had to try it out." Sheri jumped over the pool of fake blood and walked into the kitchen. "I'll have to do it a different way next time. It's just too hard to keep the posture. How on earth to corpses do it?"

"They're dead." Eli growled, "Like you will be if you ever do that to me again."

"I apologize, I just wish I saw your face." Sheri laughed, pulling a towel out of the cabinets and mopping up the fake blood with her foot.

"Yeah, very funny. And for April Fool's I'm officially visiting a friend's house."

"Have a little Halloween spirit." Sheri smiled, smoothing out her hair that was spiked from the hardening red goo. "Just like those trick or treaters."

"I swear I'll kill you in the morning." Eli threatened, walking to her own apartment.

"Good luck with that." Sheri smiled. Eli disappeared behind her apartment door, and Sheri's smile faded. If this was ever going to work, she would have to try a lot harder. It was only the chance they all had.