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The Candy Rules was a Halloween short that first debuted on the tenebris_somnia profile for their first Halloween Anthology. It was my first time writing anything in this genre and I definitely had to stretch to come up with a storyline for this particular project. In the end it was a bit of fun, and I was so glad to be part of the fun.
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"Those simple-minded morons didn't see it coming! After all," Candy Jack sneered to his lawyer over a celebratory glass of champagne immediately after Candy Jack's not so wrongful, wrongful dismissal settlement came in. It had showered them both with more money than they both had ever imagined thanks to some creative presentation of the facts, and the manufacturing of vital information. "I shouldn't have been fired. There is no success without risks. It's an omen." This was their last meeting before his scammy lawyer happily retired to a beach leching after woman a third his age, and when Candy Jack's work really began.
Day and night he worked, struggling only to find the materials he needed without prying eyes. He settled the dilemma by a series of break-ins. The first was in Oklahoma at a bio-engineering firm, the second in Tucson at a not so secret lab specializing in the genetic mutation of insects, and the third was in New York at an alternative energy plant. This gave Candy Jack, once brilliant, although sketchy scientist now turned candy maker, the materials and the privacy that he needed. It wasn't long before he finished the work he had started with his previous employer and was ready for a trial run.
The towering trees hiding the postcard-perfect northern town were the ideal setting to test out his beastly plan. It was a place that people avoided, not just that it was so far out of the way, but mostly because it was a town divided amongst itself, with an entirely unpleasant atmosphere. Half the population had moved there to take one of the ample jobs logging the ancient trembling aspen trees, the other half arrived there to protest. If Candy Jack's plan worked, the arguing would cease, and he would be able to sell his cure for billions to warring counties – for a hefty fee of course.
He set up shop at the end of Pine street, just before the small clump of stores considered downtown petered out into a green wilderness. He painted the shop a disgusting sunny yellow color, which stood out alarmingly next to the other stores with their dingy peeling white paint and faded window displays. To complete the effect, he hand-painted a sugary-sweet sign and placed it in the front window that read, Candy Jack's Candies, in all the colors of the rainbows.
