Attack of Candy Land

“Oh, no,” he said, when he saw the gigantic Orange Soda bottle barreling down towards him, and ran.

         He knew the experiments had been a mistake, he thought angrily as he dashed frantically down the long Root Beer Barrel Boulevard.  To change sweets and candy—to treat them like they were human!—was unprecedented.  And now look at what had happened.  They were pissed off that they were consumed, willy nilly, by inconsiderate, grubby children and stressed, money-guzzling adults.

         A Root Beer Barrel twitched in its mooring and he eyed it cautiously.  They so far hadn’t exhibited any signs of rebellious activity.  But you never knew.  That’s what they’d thought of the Cotton Candy Puffs, and still nobody had found any trace of the not-lamented Dr. Creamy.

         “Dirk!” he heard a female voice say.  He turned to see Dr. Deirdre or “Dee” Licious running towards him frantically, her hair a mess around her shoulders, her glasses askew.

         “Dee, look out!” he said, pointing toward the Orange Soda Bottle, still bearing down on them ominously.  She looked over her shoulder, squeaked, and ran faster, nearly running him down.  “What’s after you?” he panted.

         “A Creamy Chocolate Bar,” she said, nearly breathless.  “Curse Dr. Creamy for inventing that luscious chocolaty goodness!  Any sign of the others?  Are we the only ones left?”

         “I fear so,” he said solemnly.  “I haven’t seen anyone since Baby got consumed by that…Honey Bar.”  They bowed their heads in respect for the fallen.  Baby Ruth had been quite a sweetheart, even if she was a bit of a nut sometimes.  And she could get into sticky situations with some of the researchers. 

         “We have to get out of here,” Dee insisted.  “But last I saw, some Licorice Whips had blocked off the entrance.  What are we going to do?”

         “Whatever we have to,” Dirk said grimly.  “We’re not staying here to be devoured by sugary snacks.”

         “First, we should see if there are any survivors,” Dee said.  “I think some Honey Bars had a group of researchers cornered on Peppermint Stick Avenue.”  But Dirk was already shaking his head.

         “I think they covered them with honey syrup,” Dirk said sadly.  “But it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

         The Orange Soda Bottle and the Creamy Chocolate Bar had long since deserted the Boulevard.  Still, they peered about cautiously as they emerged from their slightly sticky hiding place—stuck to the side of a Root Beer Barrel.  It hadn’t devoured them, so Dirk took that as a good sign.

         Peppermint Stick Avenue was only a short distance away.  They ducked and hid behind every bit of coverage available, from Pixie Sticks to Caramel Cubes.  They needed every bit of help they could get.

         As they ran, Dirk found himself thinking about how the project had gotten started.  He couldn’t help it; his memory was like a spool of film, unwinding back to the very beginning.  Well—not the very beginning, but when Dr. Creamy had offered him a job…

         “I’ve had the most marvelous idea, Mr. Anhansome,” Dr. Creamy confided, his face exuding excitement.

         “Really,” Dirk tapped his chin with his finger.  “Like what?”

         “I can make candies…ordinary candies…and drinks, cookies, anything...at least a thousand times its own size,” he said, bubbling with enthusiasm.  His eyes had lit up like Fourth of July sparklers behind round glasses.  “What’s more—I can make them feel.”

         “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Dirk asked dubiously, leaning forward.  “I mean…what if they don’t want to be eaten?”

         “Oh, that’s a minor detail,” Creamy said dismissively, flapping a hand at Dirk.  “Trust me, Mr. Anhansome.  This will work.  We could be rich beyond our wildest imaginations…who wouldn’t want a giant chocolate bar?  Or piece of caramel?  Or chocolate chip cookie?  Think about it, Mr. Anhansome.  The possibilities are endless.”

         “Then you’ve got yourself a deal, Dr. Creamy,” Dirk said, shaking hands with Creamy.  “Where do I sign?”

         “Right here,” Dr. Creamy said, pushing forward a piece of slightly-sticky paper.  “And please…” his eyes twinkled.  “Call me Smooth.  That’s my name, after all.  Smooth N. Creamy.”

         At first, it had seemed a brilliant plan.  Dirk would fund half of it, and spend the other half ensuring it went smoothly…as smooth as Dr. Creamy.  Then he started noticing strange things.  People would go missing.  Just minor lab technicians—Dr. Creamy said that they must have ran off, too lazy to continue with their work—but Dirk doubted that.  There were too many.  And equipment started vanishing, too.  A beaker there, a stirring spoon here.  It added up.  And when the security guards started hearing things go “bump in the night,” Dirk knew something was very, very wrong. 

         Dr. Creamy refused to believe him.  Point-blank told him he was crazy.  This, coming from a man who wanted to enlarge candy canes and make them feel emotions.  Dirk had stormed off.

         Soon afterwards, the entire facility had gone crazy.  Candy everywhere, eating the researchers.  Everyone running around screaming, no one having a clue what was going on.  Dr. Creamy had been eaten by a couple of cute, fluffy Cotton Candy Puffs that Dirk could have sworn were just sitting there, ignoring the revolt.

         Dirk was jolted back to the present by Dee’s anxious voice.

         “I don’t see any Honey Bars…do you think it’s safe?”

         “No,” he said truthfully.  “They might be hiding.  Um, I think one of us might have to act as bait.”

         Dee gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth.  While they were sneaking along, she had straightened her glasses, but her hair remained a wild, blonde floss around her head.

         Dirk peered around the corner to the spot where Dee had seen the Honey Bars menacing a group of people.  Nothing remained there but an overturned sneaker with pink laces and a pair of gaudy gold-sparkled sunglasses, the bow cracked.  His heart sank.  It didn’t look like they’d made it.

         Nevertheless, he put on a brave face and turned to Dee.

         “I’ll go out and see if I can see where they went, okay?” he said brightly.  “Here—you take this.”  He pressed his old Swiss Army knife into her hand.  It was a pitiful weapon against giant destruction-bent candies, but he could think of nothing else.  She nodded, a grim look on her face.

         Dirk slipped out, mostly hidden by the giant, looming Peppermint Sticks.  As far as anyone could determine, the Peppermint Sticks were pacifists, and didn’t want to revolt against the humans.  Of course, they could just be biding their time.  Dirk looked up at the red-and-white-striped monstrosities and barely suppressed a nervous shudder.  Who knew how they would take it.

         There wasn’t a single trace that could tell Dirk where the others, if they were any left, had gone.  He stuffed his hands in his pockets, feeling oddly dejected. 

         “Dirk, look out!” Dee shrieked.  Dirk turned and leapt aside, just barely missing the maw of a red-and-gold Honey Bar that had lurked in hiding, waiting for another unsuspecting human to come wandering down the street.

         “Oh, no way,” Dirk said in disgust.  “I am not getting eaten by a hunk of honey!”

         He swung around a Peppermint Stick, for the moment landing in a spot the Honey Bar couldn’t see.  Then he uprooted a Caramel Cube, with a brief whispered apology, and weighed it heavily in his hand.

         “Hey, Honey Bar!” he cried, appearing from beyond the Peppermint Stick.  It swiveled towards him, blind eyes seeking, mouth gaping open.  “Try this!”  He threw the Caramel Cube in the toothy maw.  As he expected, it gummed up its mouth so that it could neither swallow nor spit out.

         “Wow,” Dee said in admiration.  “Come on, Dirk, there might be more.”

         With a backward glance at the violently struggling Honey Bar, Dirk let himself be led away, still buzzing with triumph.

         “We’re not free yet,” Dee whispered urgently.  “How can we get past the Licorice Whips?”

         “Hmm…” Dirk pondered a moment.  “I may have an idea…”

         As a curious Dee followed, Dirk slipped around to Chocolate Chip Cookie Lane.

         “Help me,” he said quietly, starting to pry one up.  “We have to grind these up into cookie dust.”

         “Okay,” she whispered, her hands already busy.  The smell of chocolate wafted up around them as they worked, crumbling the cookies and distributing cookie crumbs around their persons.  Dee put a lot of it in the bell of her skirt, holding it up decorously.  Dirk had no such thing, so carried most of it in his hands, or the pockets of his jeans.  He hoped they wouldn’t need that much.

         “Okay, let’s go,” he said, walking boldly down Chocolate Chip Cookie Lane, hands full of cookie crumbs.  A few of the cookies trembled, but did not actually uproot themselves to go after him.  Dee followed, shaking.

         The Licorice Whips guarded the front door strenuously, wound around the doorknob and plastered across the actual door.  Dirk cursed the idiocy of Dr. Creamy, laying the facility out like a town, then only having a regular front door instead of some sort of gate.  Perhaps with a gate, the Licorice Whips couldn’t have gained control.  Or maybe not—the candy was extraordinarily determined.

         “Come on!” Dirk yelled, starting a kamikaze run down the street.  Dee followed, still wondering what on earth he was going to do.  The Licorice Whips stirred uneasily.  “Throw the crumbs at them,” Dirk hissed at Dee.  She nodded and dipped a hand in the bell of her skirt, throwing the cookie dust at the sticky Licorice Whips.  As she watched, the red licorice became grimed with brown cookie crumbs.  A thin strand dropped away.

         “See?” Dirk said.  “The crumbs make the licorice not sticky.”

         Dee threw bigger handfuls as Dirk tossed wild scoops of crumbs at the Licorice Whips.  They began to drop away, strand by strand, as they became coated with the chocolate chip cookie dust.  Soon, the front door stood free and unencumbered.

         “Let’s go,” Dirk said, seizing the doorknob and yanking it open.  One of the Licorice Whips stirred feebly at his feet, trying to wind around him, but the cookie crumbs had messed it up too much.

         They escaped into the field beyond the facility, closing the door firmly behind them.  Hopefully, if there were any other survivors, they would realize the door was clear and make their way out.

         Dirk took one last look behind them as they set off down the road towards town.  The sign still stood on top of the building, proclaiming the name of the facility in big, flashing letters: CANDY LAND.