Purple Candy

Purple Candy is a scary story about an old couple who move into a small village and sell some strange candy to the school children. It is based on a story from China.

One day, when I went to school, I noticed that a lot of people were eating purple candy. The candy came in all sorts of flavors, but it was all the same color… Purple.

My classmates seemed to be really enjoying the candy, especially my best friend, Xiao Ling. He loves candy. He had a whole bag of purple candy and offered me some. I took a piece and asked him where he bought it.

He pointed to a house on the south side of the village. No one had lived there for a long time. Something terrible once happened in that house. The family who lived there were found hanging in the bedroom. Since then, no one dared to go near the house. Just the thought of it made me uneasy. I stuffed the candy in my bag and went to class.

When I got home from school, I asked my mother about it. She told me that an old couple had moved into the house a couple of days ago. They made a living by selling candy. The village children went to the house in droves every day after school to buy purple candy to eat.

I don’t like eating candy. Whenever my friend Xiao Ling went to buy some, he would give me a piece. I never ate it. I just kept the candy in my bag and when I got home, I gave it to the little boy who lives next door.

A few days later, something strange happened. Xiao Ling was sick for several days and didn’t come to class. After school, I went straight to his home. His mother said she didn’t know what was wrong with him. He had a high fever, but he refused to take any medicine. He just kept asking for purple candy.

There were empty bags all around his bed. I wanted to help take care of him, so I offered to go and get some more candy for him. Xiao Ling told his mother to give me some money and I trotted out the door in the direction of the house.

When I got there, I saw a man sitting on a chair outside. He was eating and smoking a cigarette. He had an uneasy look on his face. The woman came out of the house and gave me a weird grin. “Did you come to buy purple candy?” she asked.

I said yes, and she handed me two bags. I gave her the money and left. As I was walking away, something about the old couple struck me as odd. The man who sat in the courtyard, eating and smoking, looked like he was only about 30 years old. The woman looked very young too and she was very beautiful. On top of that, she had a strange wound on her right hand with a blood-stained cloth wrapped around it.

When I got back to Xiao Ling’s house, I gave the bags of candy to his mother. She stuck a few pieces in Xiao Ling’s mouth. He sucked on them and after a few chews, he fell asleep. I decided to let him rest and went home.

The next day, when I arrived at school, I heard from my classmates that Xiao Ling was dead. They said that when the doctor opened him up, he found that his heart was gone and not a drop of blood was left in his body. Instead, his veins were filled with little bugs. I was terrified and devastated by the news. How could this be? Yesterday, he seemed OK. How could he have died?

After a few days, more strange things started to happen. One of my classmates died. His body was found in the schoolyard and he still had some purple candy in his mouth. Just like Xiao Ling, his heart was gone and there wasn’t a drop of blood left in his veins, only insects. A few days later, another student died in the exact same way. He was also found with pieces of purple candy still in his mouth.

Things grew more and more strange. That evening, I decided to call on my neighbor, Xiao Quan and I convinced him to come with me. I wanted to go to the house and see who was buying candy. I didn’t dare to go alone and Xiao Quan was brave. We hid behind the fence in the yard outside the house, watching the situation inside. The strange couple were inside the house. They did not sleep. All we could hear was that strange woman humming. I didn’t recognize the song.

Xiao Quan suddenly stood up and began walking towards the house. I hissed at him and tried to call him back, but he didn’t seem to hear me and just kept walking. The man opened the door of the house and Xiao Quan went inside. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what Xiao Quan was doing in there!

I sneaked into the yard and crept up to the house, hiding myself in the shadows. I peeked through the windows and saw there was an old woman sitting on the bed. The man brought Xiao Quan into the room and stood him before the old woman. She held out her fist and placed it against Xiao Quan’s chest.

Then, in one swift motion, she reached into his chest and pulled out his heart. Xiao Quan just stood there motionless and his head slumped down. The old woman lifted the bloody, beating heart to her lips and took a bite.

I was so scared that my eyes were watering and tears were flowing down my cheeks. I covered my mouth with both hands, afraid that I would scream and they would discover me.

As I watched in horror, she devoured the heart until there was nothing left. Then, before my eyes, she changed back into that beautiful young woman I had seen before. She held out her hand and touched Xiao Quan on the chest. The place where she had just ripped out his heart healed up as if by magic, and it left no scar.

Xiao Quan raised his head again and he walked out of the house. His eyes were glazed and he seemed like he was in a daze. He walked off in the direction of his house.

I ran all the way home and lay in bed shivering all night, afraid to go to sleep.
　　
The next day I did not go to school. I pretended I had a cold and stayed at home, thinking about things. I thought about the strange woman putting blood drops from her hand on the purple candy. I thought about her selling that tainted candy to kids who ate it. I thought about the kids hearing the woman humming and walking towards her house. I thought about the woman eating the children’s hearts to maintain her youthful looks. I thought about her replacing the blood in their veins with insects to manipulate their bodies.

While I was lying in my bed, pretending to be sick, I heard the news that Xiao Quan was dead. I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I was expecting it. I’m afraid that all of my friends are going to die one by one and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Who can I tell? Who can I trust? Who would believe me?

So, as the days went by, the children in the village began to die. More and more of them died and nobody knew why. Nobody, that is, except me.

Then one day, a wupo came to the village. (In China, a wupo is a female shaman or witch doctor). Since the regular doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with me, my mom had asked a wupo to come and take a look at me. The wupo could see into my mind. She knew I wasn’t sick and I was just pretending. I told her everything that had been going on.
　　
That night, the wupo took me to the house where the couple lived. They were sitting out in the courtyard. While I hid behind the fence, the wupo crept into the yard and placed a lot of magic talismans. She also drew ancient magic characters on the rear walls of the house.
　　
The couple felt something wasn’t right and they ran out of view. The wupo immediately held up some bells in her hand and shook them violently. The couple cried out as if they were in pain. The wupo started muttering and doing magic ceremonies, while I ducked down and hid behind the fence again.

I couldn’t see anything, but I heard their deafening screams.

Then, everything went silent. When I finally worked up the courage to take a peek, all I saw were two large pools of blood on the ground. I was so scared, I fainted on the spot.
　　
When I woke up the next day, the wupo told me that the couple were dead. She said they were goblins who had transformed themselves to look human.

Soon, the whole village knew what had happened. The wupo was asked to perform ceremonies over the graves of the kids who died. I went back to school and gradually the whole thing was forgotten…

…but nobody ever went near that accursed house again…

…and nobody in the village was ever allowed eat purple candy again…