Candy Corn

References

• Smokey Bear
• Chagrin Falls, OH
• Poisoned Halloween Candy
• A Visit from St. Nicholas
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Van Down By The River
• Uncanny valley
• Bob Hoskins
• Stand By Me
• Por que no los dos!
• To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDING 10-WA-22-964B00

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

[SILENCE – 31 MINUTES]

[SPEAKER 1, MALE, IDENTIFIED AS THOMAS J████ BROWN]
Alright, it’s right over here, guys. And watch your step.

[SPEAKER 2, MALE, IDENTIFIED AS F███████ PAUL SHEPARD]
This is some bullshit.

[BROWN]
I tripped on that last time. Look, so I’ve got the fire going already and everything. It’s nice and warm.

[SHEPARD]
You have a fire going unattended in the woods? Are you insane?

[BROWN]
Alright Smokey. Did the woods burn down?

[SPEAKER 3, FEMALE, IDENTIFIED AS EMILY ██████ (REDACTED DUE TO ██████’S ASSOCIATION WITH ██████)]
Where are we sitting?

[BROWN]
Oh, you know, I remembered to bring all the recording equipment and I did not remember to bring chairs, so that is a good point.

[EMILY]
So we have to sit on what?

[SHEPARD]
The rocks?

[EMILY]
The logs, sticks, leaves?

[BROWN]
The leaves are probably the cleanest, so that’s what I’m going to pick.

[EMILY]
Fine. Did you at least bring marshmallows?

[BROWN]
I did. I brought some s’mores stuff and this episode’s theme, candy corn. You guys are candy corn, right?

[EMILY]
I do.

[SHEPARD]
No.

[EMILY]
What?

[BROWN]
Oh.

[SHEPARD]
I hate everything about this. I liked candy corn until this moment.

[EMILY]
Come on. It’s candy corn.

[SHEPARD]
It’s candy corn at night in the woods.

[BROWN]
Well, I thought, you know, for our Halloween episode about candy corn, we could do something special and record where we’ve got some cool diegitic sound.

[SHEPARD]
Yeah, when you said “We’re going to go someplace special,” I thought a cabin. You know, walls, a roof.

[EMILY]
This is nice. It’s cozy. There’s a fire, there’s marshmallows. I have beer. Where’s your sense of adventure, Shep?

[SHEPARD]
I hate the woods.

[EMILY]
Just drink enough beer and you will forget we’re in the woods. What’s that sound?

[BROWN]
What sound?

[EMILY]
I don’t know. You guys didn’t hear that?

[BROWN]
I think you’re hearing things. Don’t freak Shep out, alright?

[SHEPARD]
Hilarious.

[BROWN]
He’s going to leave, and we need him here to do the episode.

[EMILY]
No. For reals. I’m not making it up. I wouldn’t do that. I know he’s uncomfortable in the woods and doesn’t-

[SHEPARD]
You absolutely would. Oh, you know what that sound was? It was the serial killer from this episode. That’s what we heard. This makes me very uncomfortable. Let’s hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up and get this over with and go back to civilization.

[EMILY]
Oh, I’m breaking out the novel now.

[BROWN]
All right, Shep, for your sake, let’s get started. I asked you guys out here, apart from the ambience of the woods and all that stuff and the fire and everything, to tell some spooky stories.

[SHEPARD]
I’m out. Where are the keys?

[EMILY]
Come on, Shep.

[BROWN]
All right, let’s stop fucking around and get this episode going so we can go back so that Shep can be fine. And I think I sat on wet leaves, so I’m not a fan. Yeah, so now I’m starting to want to go home too.

[SHEPARD]
This was your idea!

[BROWN]
It sounded better in my head, okay?

[EMILY]
You guys are no fun.

[SHEPARD]
Oh God. Alright, let’s do a story. Quick, quick, quick.

[BROWN]
All right, I’ll tell my story first.

It started out as a typical Halloween night.

As the sun set on the small, tight-knit community of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, costumed children laughed, screamed, and squealed in delight as they ran from house to house.

[Shepard]
What was the name of the town?

[Brown]
Chagrin Falls. It’s a real town in Ohio.

[Shepard]
Chagrin Falls.

[Brown]
Yep.

[Shepard]
Okay.

[Brown]
They were followed lazily by their parents, who chatted with each other and tried to stay warm. It was a crisp autumn evening, and a wispy fog hung low about the tops of the houses, diffusing the amber street lights and adding an extra chill to the air.

The night held the promise of a sugary bounty for all trick-or-treaters, including a quintet of interlopers. They were dressed half-heartedly in poorly thought-out costumes, which had clearly been cobbled together at the last minute. With pillow cases for loot bags, five teenagers were rushing between houses, darting past and stepping around children half their age. They were hooting, hollering, and loudly laughing at their own inane jokes. Everyone was annoyed by their participation in the annual tradition, still, allowing them to trick-or-treat was better than whatever other trouble they might get up to otherwise.

The first of the group to reach each house was Cameron. He was of average height and heavy-set. Halloween was his favorite holiday, and his enthusiasm was conspicuous. Also in the group was Connor, a tall, lanky teen and the unspoken leader of the group. Connor had his arm wrapped around Sarah, his girlfriend and a member of the cheer squad. Katie and Valerie brought up the rear, holding hands and huddling together for warmth.

Many of the adults handing out candy made comments of reproval about the teens’ ages and actions, and phrases to the effect of, “Aren’t you a little old to be out trick-or-treating?” were a common refrain at many stops along the way. They were never denied candy, however, and more than one unattended bowl found its entire contents dumped into someone’s sack despite the attending sign’s plea to, “please take only one.”

Of all the houses the teenagers visited that night, only one gave them any kind of trouble.

“Goodness!” exclaimed the octogenarian who answered the door. “The ghosts and ghouls get bigger every year, don’t they?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” replied Connor.

There was an awkward silence as the old man stood smiling at the youths standing on his doorstep. Katie and Valorie exchanged a questioning look.

“Do we get some candy?” Cameron asked.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” The old man replied.

“Trick-or-treat!” the group flatly drawled in unison. Connor rolled his eyes.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” said the old man, making a face of exaggerated disappointment. “It sounds like you don’t really want any of my candy.”

“Trick-or-treat!” they repeated, this time loudly and with false enthusiasm. The old man smiled smugly. He looked down at the bowl of sweets, and then up at the teens, who held their bags up in preparation.

“I’ll tell you what,” the old man said, looking briskly around the neighborhood. “I have some special candy that I’ve been saving for just the right trick-or-treaters.”

[EMILY]
Don’t eat it, kids.

[SHEPARD]
It’s drugs.

[BROWN]
He stepped back from his door, put the candy bowl down on a small wooden side table, and disappeared around the corner.

“Dude, what fuck?” Connor said quietly.

A moment later, the old man shuffled back to the door with five zipper bags, each with a handful of candy corn inside. He beamed as he held the bags up for the group to see, and gingerly placed one in each of the teens’ sacks.

“Thank you,” said Cameron, rushing off to the next house with Katie and Valerie close behind. Connor was glowering at the old man, but Sarah pulled him toward the others.

“That was a bunch of bullshit,” Connor complained. “All that for some stupid candy corn?”

“He’s probably just lonely and wanted to keep us there as long as possible,” offered Sarah.

“Whatever,” Connor huffed.

The teens continued to frolic noisily down the street, collecting candy and annoying everyone in their path. Eventually the girls grew bored of trick-or-treating, and Connor suggested they head back to his house for the night.

“My parents are at some party with their friends,” he said. “They go every year, and they always stay out all night. We’ll have the house to ourselves and we can do… Whatever we want.”

Sarah giggled at Connor’s obvious suggestion.

They caught an Uber and headed to Connor’s house, which was in Edgewood Court; a remote upscale neighborhood on the edge of the heavily wooded Whitesburg Park. They clambered inside, put on some music, grabbed beer from the fridge in the basement, and had their own mini-party in the living room.

“Let’s trade candy!” Cameron suggested, dumping out his bag into a pile on the floor and nearly salivating at the prospect. Connor tossed his bag into the middle of the room.

“Here,” he said. “Help yourself. Just don’t take any of my peanut butter cups.”

Cameron dumped Connor’s bag out in a pile next to his own. He sifted through Connor’s loot and dutifully put all of the peanut butter cups to one side. When he found Connor’s baggie of candy corn, he fished out his own and held them up, inspecting them closely.

“You’re not going to eat that, are you?” Valerie asked.

“It looks OK,” Cameron replied pensively.

“Ooh!” exclaimed Sarah. “We should put all the candy corn in a bowl! It’s not a true Halloween party without a bowl of candy corn for everyone to ignore!”

[EMILY]
I like candy corn.

[BROWN]
Yeah, I like candy corn, too.

[SHEPARD]
Yes, but you must have a bowl that gets ignored. It’s tradition.

[EMILY]
It’s true.

[BROWN]
She snatched the snack bags from Cameron’s hand and ran into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a small glass bowl, into which she had dumped the candy corn.

“Get your bags out and add them to the bowl,” she instructed Katie and Valerie.

The girls did as they were told, and Sarah added her own candy corn to the dish. She placed it on the coffee table and beamed, gesturing toward it.

“Now it’s a Halloween party!” she proclaimed.

“Can I eat it yet?” Cameron asked.

Sarah gave him a concerned look.

“I don’t think you should do that,” she said. “It was in baggies. Who knows what that guy did to it.”

[EMILY]
LSD.

[BROWN]
Fingers crossed, right?

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Cameron protested. “All those stories about razor blades and poisoned candy were myths.”

“They’re not all myths,” said Valerie, “but the only case where a kid died was because his own dad poisoned him. He was just using tainted candy as a cover story.”

“Jesus,” said Sarah, disgusted.

[EMILY]
You did do your research.

[BROWN]
I did.

“And the candy corn isn’t big enough to hide razor blades or needles or anything,” Valorie added.

“Seems a shame to let it go to waste,” said Cameron, grabbing a handful and stuffing it into his mouth.

“Eew,” said Sarah.

“I’m with Sarah,” said Katie.

“It tastes fine,” Cameron insisted.

“Well, I’m not worried about it,” said Connor. “Then again, I’m not having any.”

Sarah laughed and hugged him. Connor pulled out a vape pen and took a long drag. He held it in for a moment, and then slowly blew out a cloud of white smoke.

[EMILY]
That’s how you know it takes place today.

[BROWN]
Yeah, these are modern youths.

“Anyone else want a hit?” he asked.

Katie and Valerie each took a turn. Sarah stuck to beer, and Cameron continued to taste test various candies. They ordered pizza, drank more, and put on a scary movie. Their carousing lingered past midnight, at which point things began to quiet down.

The TV had been muted, and the music was changed from upbeat to something slower and more downtempo. Katie and Valerie had disappeared into the guest bedroom, and Connor and Sarah were making out on the couch.

Cameron lumbered over, clutching his stomach and moaning softly.

“Dude, I don’t feel so good,” he said.

Connor looked up at him with an incredulous expression.

“Cameron,” he said flatly, “you ate a ton of candy. It’s no great mystery why you have a stomach ache.”

“No, dude,” Cameron insisted, “this is something else. It hurts a lot. It’s sharp, right here.”

He pointed to his stomach.

“It could be gas,” suggested Sarah. “You had pizza and beer, right? My dad gets gas when he has pizza and beer together.”

“Oooough,” Cameron moaned.

“Do you want an antacid?” Connor asked.

Cameron nodded, so Connor got up and went into the other room. Cameron winced, fell to his knees, and doubled over. He moaned loudly into the carpet.

“Hang in there,” Sarah said tenderly.

Cameron relaxed and sat upright. He stared straight ahead with a calm, but blank expression on his face. And then he vomited. Sarah screamed in surprise, and Cameron collapsed in a heap. Connor came running back into the room.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“He just threw up everywhere!” Sarah replied.

“Damn it,” Connor lamented.

He tried to move Cameron, who luckily hadn’t landed in his mess, but he was too heavy. Connor cleaned up both Cameron and the floor as best he could. Sarah was freaked out.

“What should we do?” she asked. “Should we call an ambulance or something?”

“No, no,” replied Connor. “He just drank too much. He’s done this before. He probably got what he needed to out of his system, and look, he’s still breathing. We’ll just leave him there and he’ll be fine in the morning. Well, hungover, but fine apart from that.”

“OK,” Sarah said warily.

She and Connor turned off the TV, the stereo, and the lights. They crept upstairs to Connor’s bedroom and shut the door, leaving Cameron alone in the dark.

The house grew quiet. The neighborhood was still. The young trick-or-treaters had long-since gone home, and over the next few hours, even the most raucous of revelers began to settle down for the night. The nearly-full moon had risen high in the sky, shining its ghostly pale light across the town.

[SHEPARD]
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

[BROWN]
In the darkened living room, Cameron sat bolt upright. He looked around and let out an ungodly moan. He stood up and staggered forward, groping around and bumping into furniture. He felt his way along the hall, through the kitchen, and then opened the back door and stepped out into the night.

Cameron’s breath was visible in the cold air and the moonlight. He clutched at his abdomen as he doubled over again and yowled. His whole body tensed, and he was dripping with sweat. He straightened, and then broke into a dead run directly into the woods.

Branches were whipping his body, tearing at his t-shirt and leaving little cuts on his face and arms. He stopped abruptly, leaning up against a tree and doubled over again. His face was pinched in pain, and sweat poured from his brow. The color drained from his face, and he threw up again. This time, it wasn’t pizza and candy, but blood.

Cameron began to shiver, and soon he was shaking violently. He screamed and began to claw at his stomach, arms, and face. His skin seemed to twitch and move on its own, and Cameron scraped his arm hard against the bark of the tree, tearing the flesh.

He looked in horror at his bloody, mangled arm. In the moonlight the soft tissue appeared to wriggle and undulate, and then he saw why: A fat, white larva was worming its way through his muscle tissue. He could actually see it eating him, right before his eyes. He quickly held up his other arm, and the once smooth skin was rippling with activity. A larva burst through and began to chew at his skin.

Cameron looked down at his abdomen, and pulled his t-shirt up. Blood was leaking from dozens of tiny holes in his stomach, and suddenly several of the holes formed into a large tear. His intestines spilled out onto the ground at his feet, steam rising from them in the cold November morning air.

Cameron screamed out in equal parts terror and pain, and then collapsed.

He was dead, but his body had never been more active, as the larvae continued to eat his flesh. They rapidly grew in size, seeming to get bigger with every bite, until they were the size of soda cans.

[EMILY]
Very hungry larvae.

[BROWN]
I feel like that’s a good Halloween version of that story.

[EMILY]
Yeah.

[BROWN]
They slowed down as they got bigger, and eventually stopped moving altogether.

The night returned to its previous stillness. As the early morning hours ticked away, the fog settled and tiny ice crystals formed on every surface.

In time, the sun began to rise. As the first light peeked over the horizon, it stretched across the landscape, crept down through the trees, and gently touched what remained of Cameron Miller. As the sun continued to climb higher into the sky, more of its light enveloped Cameron’s corpse, melting the ice crystals and warming the pupae.

They began to pulse and writhe.

Soon, the first one split open, and a large, colorful wasp as big as a rat pushed its way out. The other pupae hatched in rapid succession, and within minutes, a dozen of the creatures were flying around Cameron’s body. As they grew confident with their wings, they flew off in all directions.

One of the wasps flew back toward Connor’s house. The back door was still wide open, and the wasp flew inside. It flew to the pile of candy Cameron had left on the floor as if drawn directly to it. The wrappers didn’t slow the wasp down for long, and it consumed several of the sugary treats.

The wasp crawled around the room, seeming to inspect various objects. It crawled up on the coffee table and found the bowl of candy corn. The wasp spent a long time scrutinizing the candy corn, carefully picking pieces up in its mandibles and arranging them in the bowl.

Eventually the wasp turned around and pointed its abdomen into the bowl. It wiggled and twitched, and laid a triangular egg. The egg had a yellow base, a band of orange, and a white tip. It was indistinguishable from a piece of candy corn.

The wasp laid several more eggs, and then turned around to inspect its clutch. Satisfied with the result, it flew out through the back door and headed south.

Half an hour later, Connor ambled out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. After relieving himself, he plodded downstairs to check on Cameron. He was surprised to find that Cameron had moved, and made a small search of the house looking for him. What he found instead was the back door wide open.

“For fuck’s sake, Cameron,” Connor mumbled to himself, and he shut the door. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted Cameron.

“Thanks for leaving the back door open so all the bugs could get in,” the text said.

Connor came back into the living room and surveyed the scene before him. The pizza boxes lay wide open, and beer cans were scattered around the room. Looking at the candy piles, it was hard to tell what was candy and what was just empty wrappers.

“Not too bad for a party,” Sarah said, looking around as she came down the stairs.

“Really?” Connor replied. “I was thinking it was kind of a lot for only five people.”

“How’s Cameron?” she asked.

“He must be alright because he left.”

“He was probably embarrassed about throwing up,” Sarah suggested, and then added, “it’s weird that he left all his candy behind.”

“Whatever,” said Connor. “That’s the price he pays for clearing out before cleaning up.”

Connor grabbed a handful of the candy corn from the bowl on the coffee table and popped it in his mouth.

“I guess we’d better get started before my parents get home,” he said, chewing.

The end.

[SHEPARD]
Why would you eat the candy corn that you got in a Ziploc bag?

[EMILY]
In case it’s LSD.

[SHEPARD]
What if it’s not?

[BROWN]
I guess since we’re recording episode, we should probably take a break.

[EMILY]
Sure.

[BROWN]
So we’ll be right back.

[SHEPARD LECTURING ON FIRE SAFETY – 2 MINUTES; OMITTED]

[SHEPARD]
And that’s why you don’t leave an open fire in the woods.

[BROWN]
Okay, again, Forrest didn’t burn down so.

[SHEPARD]
Yet. It didn’t burn down yet.

[BROWN]
Alright, I know, for next time. All right?

[SHEPARD]
Next time. Alright, let’s speed this up. Let’s get this done. Let’s get out of here.

[EMILY]
Let me finish my marshmallows.

[SHEPARD]
I can’t believe you’re eating the marshmallows.

[EMILY]
They’re really good. And there’s a fire.

[SHEPARD]
Oh my God.

[EMILY]
Okay.

[BROWN]
All right, well hurry up Emily, and finish your marshmallow because I think it’s your turn to tell your story.

[EMILY]
All right, here we go. Are you guys ready?

[SHEPARD]
Yes.

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[SHEPARD]
Yes, I’m ready.

[EMILY]
All right. So I grew up in this small town. We had a bunch of urban myths like most small towns do, you know? My favorite one is about the old hilltop cemetery between the hospital and the high school. It was really creepy because it was on the edge of town next to some dark woods.

[SHEPARD]
Of course there’s fucking woods. Goddamn.

[EMILY]
There one town said that witches used to use the top of the hill for satanic rituals. Like around the time the town was founded or something. I don’t know. It was a long time ago. So generations of teens would dare each other to try to walk up these seven layers of steps that you had to get up to get up to the top.

[BROWN]
Are these like manmade steps or natural?

[EMILY]
Yeah, there was like five or six and then like a little path and then like five or six and a little path.

[SHEPARD]
Oh, so it wasn’t seven steps, it was seven sections of steps.

[EMILY]
Yeah. Seven sections of steps to get going-

[SHEPARD]
Okay, that sounds a lot more difficult than in my mind.

[BROWN]
So it’s like 35 steps.

[SHEPARD]
Like just walking up seven steps. Yeah.

[EMILY]
Yeah, there’s a winding path in between. So you’re on board. You got the picture of the-

[CROSSTALK]

[SHEPARD]
Yes. Thank you.

[EMILY]
Alright, boys, so you’re supposed to do this at midnight. It’s sort of a rite of passage for everyone. And if you were able to make it up there at midnight, you were supposed to see the devil himself.

[SHEPARD]
Why would you want that? Why would you want to see the devil?

[EMILY]
I mean, a lot of the times, the stories, my personal experience might have started with drinking down by the river beforehand, but-

[SHEPARD]
In a van?

[EMILY]
Most of us would get too freaked out and couldn’t make it all the way up to the top. And we would just end up running back down to the rest of the group. But everyone knew like a cousin or a brother. I think my older brother’s best friend’s cousin said some kid he went to high school with got up there and then they never saw him again. They don’t know what happened to him.

So when I was in high school, our cheerleading team hosted a harvest festival to raise money. They worked really hard to make this really cool family friendly event and provide a fun, safe thing for kids to do. Three of the cheerleaders, the Smith sisters, volunteered to run the haunted house. Everyone liked these girls. They were super nice. They did a really good job making it fun and exciting. They built this, like, long tunnel full of haunted house tricks. Some of them are normal, standard (lame) spaghetti as intestines, peeled grapes as eyeballs, pictures whose eyes would follow you, or scarecrows jump to life as you walked by. But they had a few that we just… I couldn’t ever figure out how they did it, but they were really cool. Like, there’s one with bats flying all around you, and you could feel like the wind created by their wings, but there weren’t any bats around.

[BROWN]
That’s cool.

[EMILY]
It’s really neat. And then, like, these ghosts, like glowing ghosts. Kind of like the haunted mansion style glowing ghosts, like, chasing you down the hallways as you’re going from room to room. The last room, though, was really weird, and I just did not get it. It was just this plain room, all black. The only light was this candlelit chandelier, but not like a really fancy one, but like, an old one made from a wagon wheel with five spokes and candles in each spoke. Under the chandelier, there was this, like, old wooden table and a cauldron filled with candy corn. That’s it. That was the whole room. Just cauldron full of candy corn.

[BROWN]
Maybe it was like a “Hey, thanks for coming to our haunted house. Here’s a snack on your way out.”

[EMILY]
Well, yeah, that was the idea. But why just candy corn? That’s just, like, put some chocolate. Where are the Twix? Where are the Snickers? We need something delicious.

[SHEPARD]
Where are the full-size candy bars in this?

[EMILY]
Right? And most people, a lot of people don’t- I personally love candy corn, but a lot of people don’t.

[BROWN]
Well, you know, it could be one of those things where a lot of the chocolate bars are processed in a facility that also processes nuts and so it could be like an allergy thing.

[EMILY]
That’s true. Maybe they were thinking ahead of that and it just being-

[BROWN]
Or, none of them like candy corn and they got a ton of it every year and they were like “Just save it for the haunted house next year.”

[EMILY]
Also, it could have been that they sold it at the dollar store, and it was really cheap and easy to buy in bulk.

[BROWN]
Could be.

[EMILY]
So pretty much the whole town came to the Harvest Festival. And the haunted house was such a huge success. People went through it over and over again. It was really fun. But then kids kind of started getting sick for no reason. It started with this one little girl, this little seven-year-old girl who complained to her parents that her tummy was hurting. And then they noticed she had this low-grade fever. They didn’t think anything serious of it. It’s fall, school had been starting again.

[SHEPARD]
She went through the haunted house five times and ate handfuls of candy corn.

[EMILY]
Right.

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[EMILY]
Ate handfuls and handfuls candy,

[BROWN]
From the communal candy corn bowl.

[SHEPARD AND EMILY]
Right.

[BROWN]
So it’s either sugar or flu. It’s one of those.

[EMILY]
I mean, this is pre-covid days.

[BROWN]
Right.

[EMILY]
Just keep that in mind. Pre-covid. So the next morning, her mom went to check on her and she wouldn’t wake up. She could not get her to wake up. And they took her to the hospital. The doctors couldn’t figure it out. She had a fever, but they couldn’t find the source. There was no viral or bacterial infection, no toxins in her systems. It was a mystery. And then another kid, this time a little boy the same age fell into a coma. And his story was, like, nearly identical. Tummy ache, fever, same thing. And then two more kids got sick. One of them I knew, a little girl, she was such a brat, named Mia. Bit me on the hand once and was always pulling my hair, like when I was babysitting her. She’s such a little brat.

[BROWN]
So you were like not too sad, you’re like, “Oh thank god.”

[SHEPARD]
“Oh no, Mia.”

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[EMILY]
“Poor Mia.” Now she’s asleep and motionless, so she looks really cute and docile.

[BROWN]
And so you bit her. You’re like “Take that,” she couldn’t fight back.

[EMILY]
But it was really baffling to the medical community. And, like, the families were devastated. By the week of Halloween, like, seven kids were in the hospital in comas. These normally rambunctious, energetic children, asleep seemingly forever. Now, for what happened next, we only have the word of this old guy. We called him Old John. He’s a hunter. Everybody knew him. Maybe, like, the bottle a little bit too much here and there, but he was pretty harmless. Now, whether you believe him or not, he said he was coming back from a hunting trip in the woods around midnight on Halloween. As he came out of the woods near the old cemetery, he heard voices and saw the Smith girls. They had drawn a circle on the ground and formed a pentagram out of sticks. In the middle of all this, there was a fire, and they were dancing around it naked.

[BROWN]
Oh, lucky Old John, Jeez.

[EMILY]
Well, so he kind of crept up quietly because he wasn’t sure. Like, what is he supposed to do?

[SHEPARD]
“Let’s not avert my eyes and go home and mind my own business.”

[EMILY]
Well, I mean, but it was cold.

[SHEPARD]
“I better check on these naked girls, make sure they’re okay.”

[EMILY]
Maybe John was a little creepy sometimes. We don’t know. But anyway, he said he saw them dancing around naked. As he got closer, he said he could hear them chanting. “Yellow, orange, white, accept our sacrifice tonight. Dark Lord, we pray. Grant our desires on this day. Seven souls, just seven years old. Give us life and power so your darkness may flower.” Then all of a sudden, the seven kids that were in comas were, like, there, just out of nowhere. The kids were standing there, and they weren’t, like, awake. They were more like in a trance. And they circled the pentagram, and the flames just got higher and rose. And then all of a sudden, Satan himself was there. He appeared. He walked out of the flames, kissed the Smith girls on their heads. And then the fire went out and the cemetery went completely black. Old John freaked out, ran to town to tell everyone what he saw. But by the time everyone had gathered their shotguns and bats and went to the top of the hill, there wasn’t anything there. No pentagram of sticks, no kids, not even ash from the fire. So everyone said Old John was just drunk and seeing things. The next day, those kids woke up in the hospital beds. Nobody had reported them missing. Nobody had said they disappeared. And they seemed fine, except they were unusually quiet. They didn’t speak unless they were spoken to directly. And these were really rowdy little hellions. They never listened, lied to their parents, cheated at games, kept secrets from their friends. But now they were, like, very robotic and quiet. Very uncanny valley. And Mia. From that day on, any time I babysat her, she never pulled my hair again. Didn’t bite me ever again. Very obedient.

[SHEPARD]
So this is a happy story.

[EMILY]
And everyone said, Old John was crazy. Was a crazy drunk who just seen things. But you know what everyone seems to forget is the Smith girls never came back to school after Halloween. They were gone. Nobody knows what happened to them. They just, like, vanished.

[SHEPARD]
Their parents moved away because Old John was creeping on their girls.

[EMILY]
I mean, I would probably move my girls away from Old John. Watching them dance naked in the woods. That’s it. Nobody knew what happened.

[BROWN]
Well, frankly, the least believable part of this story is that there were cheerleaders who were friendly.

[EMILY]
Was it scary?

[SHEPARD]
Yeah, it had woods in it.

[EMILY]
Do you want a marshmallow? I’ll roast one for you.

[SHEPARD]
No, no.

[BROWN]
Don’t forget we have candy corn.

[EMILY]
Yes.

[SHEPARD]
Oh my God.

[EMILY]
Candy corn in the marshmallows. And make a little s’more.

[SHEPARD]
Okay, let’s-

[BROWN]
Alright, well, he’s not going to eat any of this stuff, so why don’t you and I snack while he tells his story?

[SHEPARD]
Yes.

[EMILY]
Okay.

[SHEPARD]
Okay. You guys know when I was a kid, I lived in the woods?

[EMILY]
Yeah.

[BROWN]
You’ve mentioned it.

[EMILY]
So why are they freaking you out?

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[EMILY]
You know there’s nothing out here.

[SHEPARD]
Based on experience.

[EMILY]
Okay, so maybe there’s a wolf or a cougar. But come on, it’s cold. They’re not going to be down here.

[BROWN]
Emily, the only cougar I see around here is you.

[SHEPARD]
Ha ha.

[BROWN]
I hope that’s the only cougar around here.

[SHEPARD]
The only cougar you see, that doesn’t mean it’s the only cougar around.

[EMILY]
Yeah, I mean, once you see a cougar, it’s too late.

[SHEPARD]
All right, I’m going to tell you about an incident that happened when I was growing up.

[BROWN]
Is this a true story?

[SHEPARD]
Yes. So when I was a kid, you know, I lived in the woods. This was in central California. So just west of Valley Springs near Stockton, there was this loop around the hills called Quail Oaks Road. It was more dirt and some gravel than any kind of road. So, we moved there when I was in third grade. So I was about eight or nine years old and there was just nothing around. We lived on this 14-acre plot, so our nearest neighbors were a bit of a walk away. I’m sure as an adult now, it was actually something like two tenths of a mile or something. But when I was eight, that was an infinite distance. So the family farther down the hill had a satellite dish, which I remember, but no kids my age, so I don’t remember their name. The family up the hill was the Hoskins, and they had a son, Jason, that was my age.

[BROWN]
Totally thought you were going to say Bob.

[SHEPARD]
Ah. No.

[BROWN]
Robert.

[SHEPARD]
I don’t think they’re related. So Jason and I were in the same grade, and we would walk to the bus stop together, which was about a mile from my house and a little bit less for Jason, who was further up the hill. The bus stop, by the way, was right on Highway 12, so picking us up wasn’t so bad because the bus was going east to Valley Springs and we were on the south side of the highway. But after school, they would drop us off on the other side and we’d have to cross the highway to get home. So it’s a wonder there was no accident.

Anyway, so all was well and good until about three years later, a family bought the land next to the little strip that connected Quail Oaks Road to Highway 12. And they decided that that road that the entire neighborhood had been using for years was actually theirs. And they closed it off. They put up a fence and a gate and they’re like, “This is for our use only.” So we couldn’t get to that bus stop anymore. We could still get picked up for school by following the railroad tracks to the quarry. But-

[EMILY]
Did you find a dead body? Did you poke it with a stick?

[SHEPARD]
No, no.

[EMILY]
Were there five of you?

[SHEPARD]
No. There was two of us.

[BROWN]
How many leeches were on your dick?

[SHEPARD]
None. The drop off point to get home was further down. So we would have had to walk back like 2 miles to get to the quarry to get to the railroad tracks to get home, so we didn’t. So to get home, there was an alternate stop on Highway 26, which was on the other side of Quail Oaks Road. This was a little bit further from me, but it was a lot further for Jason. He’d have to go all the way around the hill, so he just didn’t. He’d cross in the middle, over the hill and through the woods. And sometimes we’d go together, but sometimes…

These woods were dense, by the way. There were little, we called them like “cow trails” that would wend their way through. But if it were late, especially toward the end of the year, in fall and winter, it would get so dark you couldn’t see the path you were on. You’d have to look up and keep an eye on the stars, which let you know there was still a gap between the trees so you knew you were on the right path. Now these days everyone has a cell phone with the built-in flashlight, so luxury. We had nothing like that. It was just dark and it was creepy. There was this thing that we called the Cottage that was like this big pile of rocks, like volcanic stones and moss grew on the top of it. So from far away it looked like a roof. So we called it the Cottage. Now you couldn’t actually go inside. There was a part that looked like a doorway. This doesn’t matter. So around the time we were eleven or twelve we started to get off at the highway 26 stop and Jason would cut through the woods and if it were early and light out, I’d go with him. Otherwise we’d part ways and I’d just followed the road.

Because these woods were full of animals too. This was in central California. There were incidents of spotting coyotes and mountain lions. One time we saw a tarantula just in the wild and Jason let it run up his legs so he could try and catch it with his lunch bag.

[BROWN]
There are tarantulas in Central California?

[SHEPARD]
Yes!

[BROWN]
I had no idea.

[SHEPARD]
Me either until I saw it and he let it crawl on him because he’s trying to catch it. I don’t know what the plan was. Was he going to keep it as a pet? What do tarantulas eat? I don’t know. So I just remember this gigantic spider running around on his body as he calmly chased it with a crumpled paper bag.

[BROWN]
Not a fan of this.

[SHEPARD]
This is a real incident.

[EMILY]
I’m with Jason. Catch that sucker.

[SHEPARD]
He was a lot more fearless than I was. Another time, Jason stepped on a baby rattlesnake’s head. Not on purpose, we were just walking and it happened to be crossing the path we were on and it’s hard to see it in the grass and it was still alive.

[BROWN]
I feel like if there’s any part of a rattlesnake you’re going to step on-

[SHEPARD]
The head’s the best part.

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[SHEPARD]
So it was still alive because this was just soft dirt that we were walking on but it was pretty upset. So what do you do? It’s like stepping on a landmine.

[BROWN AND EMILY]
Yeah.

[SHEPARD]
If he moves that’s one angry snake right next to his ankle so he picked it up by pinching it right under the head and carrying it home and I’m not sure what the plan was there either. Who has a pet rattlesnake? Well, not Jason, it turns out. His mom took one look at what he was carrying, pulled out her knife and sliced it right there. She put up with no shit.

So I didn’t like the woods. So anyway, my point is I didn’t like the woods, even when it was light out. I’d go through if Jason were with me, but never on my own. There was this one patch where we had to go through the trees. Like, there was no path with open sky. And it was super dark. And I swear it sounded like the animals were chittering to each other, like they were talking. There was a high pitched “Chirp chip chirp.” And then there was a low pitched “Woo, woo.” something like that back and forth, like a conversation. They took turns.

[BROWN]
Making plans on how to catch you.

[SHEPARD]
Yeah, but then they’d get quiet when we got close, and that made me very uncomfortable. It’s like they didn’t want us to hear what they were saying. So, yeah, I didn’t like the woods. My hippie mom, on the other hand, she loved these woods. So she’s like, “Those are the spirits of the forest.” And she had this idea that there was these two ley lines that crossed right there in the woods. And I’m pretty sure that’s why she bought the property in the first place. I didn’t believe in any of that hippie dippy baloney, but she certainly did.

Anyway, the incident. So it was fall and it was getting darker earlier, so Jason and I started splitting ways. He’d go through the woods in the dark like it was nothing. But this particular evening, for some whim of his, he had saved half of his sandwich from lunch. And when he got to that dark part of the woods where that chittering conversation stopped, he said, “Pardon me, gentlemen. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please enjoy this sandwich.” And he left it there in the woods, I guess expecting that whatever birds or whatever were around would eat it and maybe he’d befriend them and get a cool pet or something. I don’t know. This is very Jason. So for whatever reason, the entire incident can be traced back to that action of his. So in a way, one might say that it was all his fault.

That was Monday. I only heard about it a couple days later, on Wednesday at school. See, the following evening, as Jason was making his way home again, the sandwich he left previously was gone. Because, of course, it was. This is the woods.

[BROWN]
Right.

[SHEPARD]
Edible things don’t tend to get left alone in the woods.

[BROWN]
Right.

[SHEPARD]
But where the sandwich had been, there was a note weighted down with what looked at first like a stone, but what turned out to be an old corroded coin of some kind, about the size of a quarter. And he had brought them both with him to school the next day.

The note was handwritten in some sort of script that was at once curly and rough. It was hard to read. It was like a child had learned to read by looking at old English cursive. But from what I could make out, it said, “Thank you for the ham and bread.” That’s it.

And I 100% thought this was a prank Jason was pulling on me, or at least that someone was pulling on him, or possibly some vagrants had moved into the woods near our houses, who knows? But he appeared to be super excited about it. He kept showing off that old gross coin and talking about how it was going to be his lucky coin or whatever. I probably should have been more concerned about that, looking back on it.

So that day, he didn’t eat the apple that he had in his lunch, and I knew he was going to leave it in the woods, and that’s exactly what he did. And at school on Friday, we, the group of friends at school, saw the results. He had another note, this time thanking him for the “tree fruit” and another coin. And he kept rubbing the two coins against each other and they kept making this annoying scraping sound. And we asked him to stop, but he just kept doing it. I don’t know if he liked that awful sound or if he just liked annoying us.

[BROWN]
¿Por qué no los dos? [TRANS. SPANISH: WHY NOT BOTH?]

[SHEPARD]
Yes. So that day, he saved his dessert, which was a cookie, and Jason loved sweets, so this was a big deal. It really made it clear how excited he was about this adventure he was on, or at least how excited the thought of more coins was making him.

But alas, the best laid plans. That evening, despite having gone through these woods so many times since the road to the old bus stop was cut off, he messed up. He tripped, and it was a bad one. This was on a hill, mind you. So tripping didn’t mean falling flat. It meant falling down. And down he fell and landed on a rock with his face-

[EMILY]
Oh!

[SHEPARD]
-knocking a tooth out. So forget leaving the cookie. He ran home crying.

Oh, his mom was so upset. I could hear her yelling at him from our house, which, if you remember how far apart we were, must have been pretty loud. And I didn’t know why until I saw him the following Monday. He looked like a jack o lantern. It was the front, this tooth.

[BROWN]
Of course.

[SHEPARD]
It was the front right tooth.

[BROWN]
Yeah.

[SHEPARD]
Yeah. He was so upset he didn’t even rub his coins together. So, silver linings.

Anyway, that evening he went to leave the now slightly smooshed cookie on his way home, but when he got to that dark part of the woods, there was still a note and a coin. He took the note and the coin and left the cookie. And I got to see the note the next day at school, and it said, “Thank you for the candy corn.”

What candy corn? Whatever. This time he saved his milk. I told him it wasn’t going to be fresh. And I wasn’t sure if warm milk was worth a coin, but he was positive. Or maybe he didn’t want to give up his cookie again. I don’t know.

Not that it mattered. That evening when he went to leave the milk, the cookie was still there. Did they not see it? Nope. They left a note. And it said, “No thank you, please give us more candy corn.” No coin.

Now, it wasn’t quite Halloween yet, so it’s not like Jason could have gone to the store and bought some candy corn or whatever. It wasn’t in season yet. The big candy corn harvest was still to come. And also, he had never left candy corn, so maybe someone else had. And he ended up taking their coin and thank you note. Whoops.

He left the cookie and the milk. But as he went home, it sounded like that chittering conversation was getting closer. “Chirp chip chirp,” “woo woo,” following him home. So we didn’t get to find out if they liked it or not, because after that, he went home with me on the main road and took the long way around. He didn’t feel comfortable in the woods anymore. Jason didn’t feel comfortable, if you can imagine that.

On Thursday, one of the rough and curly notes showed up on his porch. It said, “Please give us more candy corn.” And had a little drawing of his tooth, the one he had accidentally knocked out on his trip through the woods.

Friday, Jason’s mom went into town, and Jason was home alone. Now this was nothing new, especially in this neighborhood. Jason was eleven or twelve, which was practically an adult. Being left home alone was no big deal, except on this evening, he could hear the chitterings and murmurs around the house. “Chirp, chirp, chirp.” “Woo, woo, woo.” Back and forth like a conversation.

He locked all the doors and windows. He turned on all the lights. But because the lights were on, he couldn’t see anything outside where it was pitch dark. And anyone outside would have been able to see him easily.

[EMILY]
I am very uncomfortable right now.

[SHEPARD]
Sorry. So that was probably not very comforting. “Chirp, chirp chirp.” “Woo, woo, woo.” And he called me that night. He wanted me to come over. It wasn’t a school night or anything, and we did sometimes stay at each other’s houses on the weekend. But it was already late and I didn’t want to walk over in the dark. Plus, I could kind of hear how freaked out he sounded, so I didn’t. And maybe I should have. Or maybe what happened to him would have happened to me too, had I gone. We’ll never know.

He tried to stay awake all night, but the nights were very long. And eventually, unfortunately, he did fall asleep. And when he woke up, there was a thank you note and some old coins, and all his teeth were missing.

[REF. INCIDENT 10-CA-85-F3B9CB, CONFIRMED CA-F██]

[BROWN]
Well, that’s unpleasant.

[EMILY]
What is your life? No, sir. No. This is a creepy pasta. This is no, no, no.

[SHEPARD]
Sorry. I don’t like the woods.

[BROWN]
Are candy teeth a thing? I feel like that could be a thing easily.

[EMILY]
Let’s not no.

[BROWN]
It’d be like pez. They’d be shaped like teeth and then they’d have like, gummy gums that the teeth go into.

[EMILY]
No.

[SHEPARD]
So you eat the teeth out. You pull the teeth out and eat them. And then you eat the gums?

[EMILY]
Not okay. Not okay.

[SHEPARD]
I don’t know.

[BROWN]
There’s no wrong way to eat a mouth. I have no idea what the slogan would be.

[EMILY]
No. Can we go back to the car now? The fire is getting low and it’s dark, and-

[BROWN]
My butt is freezing.

[EMILY]
I keep hearing things and now after Shep’s story, I think I’m hearing more things.

[BROWN]
Okay. I’m glad it’s not just me then. It must have been his story, because I felt like the whole time I could hear something.

[EMILY]
Right? I kept wanting to say something, but I’m like, no, no, it’s just the story.

[SHEPARD]
Alright, I’m going to start putting the fire out.

[EMILY]
Okay.

[SHEPARD]
Let’s go.

[BROWN]
All right. I’m going to record the outro real quick. We’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Were our story sweet or a little too corny?

[EMILY]
Can we go a little faster? I think I see something. Guys?

[BROWN]
Okay. Okay. Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible dot-

[SHEPARD]
What the fuck?

[GROWLS, POSSIBLY PNW-S████████ OR PNW-G███████ GIVEN LOCATION RECORDING WAS FOUND BY HIKERS]

[SOUNDS OF ██████ – 17 MINUTES; OMITTED AT REQUEST OF THE FAMILIES]

[END OF TAPE]