#supercriminal

The way the news always told it was like this: sometime in the year 1990-whatever, a candy factory in a shitkicker town called Avery sent parcels of candy all around the continent, if not the world. Not just candy as specific as that is; ice creams, cough drops, cough syrup even. The Avery Candy Company had the market cornered on stuff made with sugar and nonsense. That was until it was discovered during that year in the 90s that there was something fucked up about the candy. Some little quirk of the chemistry made it an impossible health hazard. 

For me, I was three years old, sitting in the back of my dad’s Buick snacking on these gummy worms, y’know the ones. The kind that are bright, primary colors and covered with that grainy crap that makes them taste sour. This is my earliest and clearest memory. I was in the backseat while my folks were bitching back and forth about nothing when I felt my tongue start to get numb. Being three years old, I didn’t think anything about it. I stopped being able to taste the candy as worm after worm was crushed beneath my teeth. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I’d bitten off part of my tongue while eating them. I could feel warm liquid going down my throat and always the candy. I look up from the little baggy of goodies and catch my mom’s eyes in the mirror and she starts screaming. My skin had become bright pink and my hair (which was a blonde bowlcut at the time) had become these long strands of rainbow colored locks, a bunch of them, clustered on the top of my head. That’s right, I ended up with permanent white guy dreadlocks. Don’t rub it in, okay?

Now, you’ll have to forgive my mom and dad because they immediately started freaking the fuck out. As you would when your kid turns pink and has blood dripping out of his mouth. My mom, god bless her, thought I was choking on the candy and scrambled into the back while my dad struggled to keep us on the road. Ultimately, we ended up landing in a ditch and by God, did he throw a bitch fit about it.

I wasn’t alone in this, about ⅓ of the population that we know of across Canada, Mexico, and the good ol’ U.S.A developed mutations as a result of contact with tainted candy. For me, the mutation was rather down to earth. My skin became a kind of hardened sugar-leather, my blood was syrup, and my hair…well that’s a bit obvious. What I would find out later, after the doctors checked me out was that I could generate gummy worms, as stupid as that sounds. I found that my body required me to consume a lot to  make up for what I generated, though. So, food bills growing up were outrageous on days where I’d produce these gummies from my hands and feed them to the local kids. That was kind of my first racket, selling candy that I made. Until my dad shut that shit down.

“We don’t know if this will spread!” I remember him shouting at me, five years old after he caught me.

As far as I know, it didn’t spread. It’s not like a disease. I grew up in a decentish trailer park on the outskirts of Caramel Valley so I grew up with a lot of people. People who were tainted by the candy and those who weren’t. I never saw anybody spontaneously turn like I did as a result of anything I did. I don’t know the science or the magic behind it, I’m not a doctor or a theologian. 

I wouldn’t be involved in serious crime until I was sixteen. This isn’t a kind of story where things are pretty despite the sugary shine over everything. By this point, we had guys like Taff rolling around stopping big crimes that would happen as a result of people gaining superpowers. But, they never focused on the small shit. I robbed a gas station using my buddy Nate as a hostage. I wore an old ski-mask and I had wrapped my scrawny pink arm around his neck and hauled his ass inside a place called Saul’s End Station. The guy behind the counter looked more confused than terrified. I had my fingers pointed at his head like I was holding a gun. 

“Listen,” I said. “Empty the register or this guy fucking dies!” 

“What?” asked the guy behind the register. 

“I’m a sugar freak,” I said. “If you don’t empty that register. I’m going to fill this man’s throat with gummy worms and he’ll suffocate. Then I’m coming after you!” 

“Prove it,” said the guy, calling my bluff immediately. 

I had to look Nate in the eyes and then we all watched as gummy worms started flooding his mouth, swelling it up and causing my bud to turn blue in the face. He was pulling on my arm and squeezing to try and let me know that this wasn’t funny. But I didn’t quite care at the moment. I wanted that bag, you understand.

“Oh shit, oh fuck!” shouted the guy behind the register. 

He emptied the register as quickly as he could and tossed the money in one of those paper bags Winos use to hide their liquor. 

“Don’t even think about calling the cops, because I’ll know. I can read your mind and I know where you live!” I shouted, lying out of my ass because everybody knows psychic powers are a myth. 

I dragged Nate out of the store and he coughed up the worms and we took off in a dead sprint to his car up the hill. He was pissed with me, but we made it out of there with roughly eight-hundred in cash. Not a bad day. Probably one of the better days from my criminal career if I’m being honest.