If not but for the grace of the zombie surprise birthday gods!

WE (not I, but definitely a capital WE) pulled it off. And it was an amazing birthday party! Roommate DID decide to come home last night at 5:00 p.m. However, Roommate's Mom was waiting for him in the drive way....

ROOMATE'S MOM: The battery in my car is dead, and we're late, we need to go.

ROOMMATE: I'm tired, I just want to go in and sit down for a little bit.

ROOMMATE'S MOM: We're late, we NEED to go!

ROOMMATE: What's wrong with you?

ROOMMATE'S MOM: We need to go now.

ROOMMATE: I'm just going to go sit down, I'll be over in a little while.

At this point, Roommate's Mom grabs Roommate by the arm and more or less throws him back into his car...

ROOMMATE'S MOM: We're going now!

That gave Princess, Friend and I plenty of time to finish getting ready and to get dressed. And when the actual "Surprise" part of the night came...it went off without a hitch.

Roommate walked in the door carrying his ski boots. All of the lights were off, it was almost completely dark inside and out, and the fog machine was running as well. Then we all yelled "Surprise!"

Later all Roommate could say was that

there was smoke, bright flashing lights and a lot of noise...the house MUST be on fire

After that we rushed Roommate down into wardrobe and make up to complete the living dead look we were all there to celebrate!