The origins of Candied Krim are not distinct, but many say that the legend of Candied Krim dates back to the 1920s, in the busy city of Chicago, where the streets bustled, and everyone worked to earn their keep. Even boys at their young age would look for a job to either earn money for themselves or for their families. As was the case with Henry Fletcher, a young teenager who was the son of an Irish immigrant who had fallen ill, and required his son to find a job to help support his family. He had a younger sister who had tragically died a year before his father had fallen ill, and his mother was not able to go and help find work and money for the family. It was up to Henry to become the breadwinner for his family. This left Henry with little choice but to find a decent job that he enjoyed, and to help bring in money for his family. One of his father’s friends owned a candy shop and offered Henry a job if he was willing to work hard in both making and selling the candy. Henry eagerly agreed to take the job and began his training at the shop. He loved making candy and selling it, but more than that, he loved to share a joyful smile with anyone who would come in the shop and leave with their favorite sweets. Henry loved to spread joy, especially since he saw none when he returned home.
Henry’s mother was very distraught with the loss of her daughter and remained so long after her burial. However, as her husband grew ill her sorrow turned to disdain. Her feelings further translated to an overall sense of loss and depression, which impacted her ability to provide in any way for her family. The responsibility of running the candy shop and helping his mother and father to heal both weighed heavily on his shoulders, but he greeted each day with a smile. Henry was never the type of person to let grief weigh down his life or his work. He pressed forward with his new job and continued to put forth his best effort each and every day at work. Many of the other boys in the neighborhood would come into the shop with their weekly work allowances or money they earned during the week and come to buy some of their favorite candy.
Each day would pass as his parents’ conditions would grow worse, but he continued to go to work every day and take care of the shop and factory behind it and would proceed home to take care of his family at night. He would administer medicine for his father when he returned home and would keep his mother company and converse with her until she fell asleep, then he would go fall asleep and begin the pattern again the following day. He continued this pattern for many weeks, making new candy in the back and selling candy in the front. The shop would often close early so he could work on making more candy for the shop and work on new types of candy. He had begun working on his own concoction for a new kind of hard candy, and he had nearly perfected the formula. It was a new kind of hard candy that he wanted to shape into candy canes, but it had a distinct flavor of cinnamon and several other compelling ingredients. He had experimented with the mixture for many days until he finally had the right seasonings and chemical mixtures down to have perfected the recipe. In just two days time, he would have enough ready to begin selling in the shop. The shop owner had come by already after closing to taste the final recipe, and he found the candy to be delicious. He wanted more to be made, so a large vat of the candy would need to be made. The machines were set to begin the making of the candy throughout the following day, and as Henry came back to work the next morning, the rear end of the shop already smelled strongly of cinnamon and the other ingredients in his new candy. After securing the machines and making sure that the mixture would heat up slowly to a boiling hot temperature without burning and made sure the mixture would continue to mix until the end of the work shift, Henry went to the front of the shop to begin opening it up for business.
That day was fairly different, however, as there was a line that quickly formed around the shop today of young boys in the city who wanted to buy their fair share of candy. The shop was packed with boys and young men who wanted to purchase some candy from the shop, and Henry did his best to meet every customer’s requests. After serving through about eight orders for candies varying from chocolate to licorice, to varying types of hard candy, a young boy who was followed in by a man who was assumed by all who were present to be his father cut through the line and demanded to buy some candy. However, the young boy was very arrogant and greedy and requested his father to purchase all of the candy in the store. “ I don’t want any of these filthy street rats to have any precious candy, father! I want to buy all of the candy and take it home. None of these filthy criminals deserve any!” The other boys wanted to fight this newcomer, but Henry was quick to b**t in on their behalf.
“Hey now! Take it easy, fellas! No one should get rough in the shop. Keep it to the streets. And as for you kid. I’m afraid I can’t sell you all of the candy in the shop. These other guys put in their hard time and effort to earn the money for this candy, and it’s not fair to them if they can’t buy any.”
The boy grew infuriated at Henry’s responses. “Father! He won’t let me buy all of the candy! Do something father!”
The father looked down at his son, then turned to address Henry, asking for the shop owner. “My boy, if you could fetch me the shop owner, I would like to buy the shop from him. May I speak with him.”
Henry knew that the shop owner was not present, and would not arrive later that day. “I’m afraid not, sir. You see, the shop owner isn’t here today, and he won’t be here later on. I’m afraid you won’t be able to speak to him.”
The boy was in a furious rage now. “Father! I hate you! You never get me what I want! I’m going home!” The boy began to walk out of the shop with his father close behind him, all the while the other boys were calling the rude, rich boy names and telling him to get out of the shop. The young boy screamed through the shop window at Henry. “You’ll pay for this indignity!”
All of the other boys cheered and congratulated Henry on his minor victory over the rude, rich men who attempted to take the shop he worked so hard for. He went back to work, selling more and more candy until the line was completely empty. The shop was empty around four in the afternoon, and Henry decided since no one was heading into the shop that he would head to the back and check on the progress of his new candy in the large mixing vat, hoping that the mixture was ready. He did not hear the sound of the shop bell sounding off or the footsteps of the young rich boy he had dismissed earlier sneaking in. Henry had climbed up the stairs to go and look from atop at the large mixing vat that was slowly churning the boiling hot mixture of candy that would soon make his new cinnamon candy canes. He did not notice the young boy sneak up the stairs to approach him. Henry finally heard footsteps right behind him as he rose his head up from looking down at the hot candy mix and shutting off the rotating mixing arm. He turned around to face the boy that he denied earlier, only to be pushed across the railing by the young boy into the vat of boiling hot candy.
Henry’s flesh began to melt and bubble inside the boiling candy mix. The young boy was laughing at Henry from the guardrail above. “That’s what happens to people who don’t give me what I want!” Henry closed his eyes as he sank further and further into the deep vat of candy. The heater had stopped along with the mixing arm, but the candy mix was still boiling and burning away at Henry’s body, completely submerging him in a sugary magma. He scraped at the sides, desperately trying to claw his way out of the mixing vat, but he was trapped inside of it. Slowly dying inside of the candy mixture as it began to cool off. He began to rock and hit the sides of the vat of candy, desperately trying to knock it over and let him free, and after several attempts, he succeeded in knocking the vat over onto the floor. He slid out of the vat of candy, completely covered in a hardened candy exterior. Henry’s new exterior frightened him, and he desperately tried to rip off or break his candy exterior, but it was no use. He took a nearby hammer from a bench and began to pound on his left arm, desperately hoping for the hardening candy to break, but after several hard wings, it was no use. Henry then took his arm into his mouth and began to try to bite on it, slowly licking off parts of the candy exterior, only to watch it reform quickly before his very eyes. He walked towards a mirror in the back of the shop to gain a closer look at his body. What he found shocked him and filled him with terror. His entire body had been covered with the new candy that he had worked so hard on making, and his body had been forever altered. Head to toe, he was covered in repeating red and pink candy stripes that ran down his entire body. His teeth had turned a deep shade of yellow, and his hair had changed to being a candy-like strand, almost like licorice. Henry ripped off a piece and bit into it, tasting the familiar taste of licorice, and watched the hair quickly reform back at the base of his head and regrow to its original length. But what startled Henry most about his new appearance were his sharp, green eyes that glistened like bright emeralds. His new exterior frightened him, and he began to sob, only to find the tears forming sugar water and upsetting him even more. His body had finally ceased feeling burning sensations and pain, and Henry grew very angry. He wanted to take revenge against the boy who did this and the parents who raised the boy.
Henry’s growing rage turned into an insane thirst for blood, as he began to take the candy mix he fell in and form a large candy cane with an edge that extended along the length of the candy cane. As the candy cooled, he began to work on other candy weapons to take with him. He made a powder that would both blind, candy drops that were so sweet, they could convince someone to do almost anything, candy bombs and a sour soda he created that was so acidic, the container he began to make the soda in began to break down. “This soda pop will first be very sour, then in the end, very, VERY sweet.” He put all of these in rings on a belt around his spare set of clothes and began to place several small lollipops in his pocket to keep track of who he hurt, and took out the candy blade he had worked hard on to create. He sharpened the candy blade’s edge and stamped on an engraving in candy on the side of the blade with the word “Exodus” spelled out on the side. The blade was created to eliminate any threats, and any memories best left forgotten. He tested the blade on the hairs of the shop broom they kept around for cleaning and watched the hairs early split along the edge of Exodus, and Henry then tested the strength of the blade by slamming it against the large rocks that were outside of the shop, shattering each of them easily. Satisfied with his new weapons, Henry was ready to take revenge on the boy who left him trapped in the candy prison that was his new body.
He snuck down the back alleyway after closing the shop and quickly cleaning the floor of any leftover candy and making some backup candy cane blades if they proved to be necessary. He snuck out through the back and made his way across the city, keeping to the shadows the best that he could. He did not want any passerby to notice him as he hunted down the home of the boy. Henry approached along an empty alleyway that was fairly close to the boy’s mansion, and found him in an alley with a bodyguard, as the bodyguard was beating up another boy on the request of the rich brat who pushed Henry into his candy vat. Henry grinned as he made his slow approach behind them. Henry spoke up and surprised both the rich boy and his bodyguard. “Did you miss me?” As the bodyguard turned to face Henry, he threw an irritating candy powder into the bodyguard’s face, causing his entire face to swell and for him to instantly go blind in searing pain. The bodyguard fell to the ground, and the other boy ran off in fear of what might happen next.
The rich boy was frozen with fear at the appearance of Henry. “Who- who are you?”
The boy was trembling with fear as he looked into the deep green eyes of Henry. Henry knelt down and looked straight into the eyes of the boy. “I was the guy who worked down at the candy store before YOU pushed me into a boiling hot vat of candy mix. You tried to kill me, but I survived.”
The kid stared in fear at the eyes of Henry.
“Are you some kind of candy cream man or something? You hurt my bodyguard, candy cream man, and I’m not gonna let you take away my fun.” Henry laid a direct blow to the face of the boy with the blunt end of Exodus, sending him flying against the wall, and falling to his knees. “You won’t hurt me! Bodyguard, help me!” The bodyguard got back up and tried to maneuver towards Henry, but remained blinded by the candy powder. Henry took Exodus and drove it directly into the man’s chest. Henry drove him to the ground and began to stab him, stab after stab after stab, until the bodyguard was nothing more than a bloodbath along the alleyway. Henry then placed a lollipop inside the mouth of the man to signify his recognized death. The boy, now filled with fear, reached for a nearby blade and struck it hard against Henry’s leg, hoping to strike pain in him, but after watching the blade simply fall out of the boy’s hand, he watched as the small scratch he made against Henry’s candied flesh quickly cover itself over again. “You can’t hurt me! No one can hurt me! The boy desperately tried to intimidate and scare Henry away, but it was too late.
“Oh! Why are you so sour? After I’m done with you, you’re going to be very, VERY sweet. Henry pulled out the bottle of soda pop he had worked on and began to forcibly pour some down the boy’s throat. He watched and giggled with glee as the boy’s lips began to pucker, and his eyes began to form tears in pain and fear of what was happening to him. The boy’s body began to spasm, and after thirty seconds had passed after taking just a few sips from Henry’s soda, the boy’s face began to turn into a sickening grin, his body being overwhelmed with the sweetness, and the feelings of euphoria that rushed through his disintegrating body as the soda ate away at all of his internal organs. Henry began to carry away the boy’s body out of the alleyway back to the shop and began to disassemble the boy on a work table, slowly draining the blood out of the boy’s body.
Henry chopped the boy’s body up into tiny pieces and began to burn them inside of an oven. He then took the blood and began to mix it in a large pot with sugar and other flavorings, slowly boiling the blood and sugar into a dark, red hard candy. As Henry mixed the candy, he began to debate what the boy had called him. “Ha! Candy cream man! What a stupid thing to call somebody. Wait! Candied cream? No. Candied Krim! That name actually sounds great!” Krim made sure to save the ring finger of the boy, with the family ring and family crest clearly visible on the finger. He placed both the finger and the candy into a box and sealed the package together. Krim made his way to the mansion, sneaking past the gate and past the guards to the front porch and left the box at the door. Krim then knocked on the door and crept along the side of the house to a nearby window into one of the bathrooms. He crept into the kitchen as the boy’s mother and father approached the door to find their package. To their fear and terror, terror so strong that the mother who opened the box dropped it to the ground, they saw the ring finger of their now deceased son. The father called out to the guards in the yard and told them to head into the city to find their son’s murderer.
The father tried to console his wife. “We’ll find him, honey, I’m sure we’ll find the man who killed our son.”
Krim then emerged from his hiding position and announced his presence. “No need to search, because I am already here.” Both of the parents jumped back in fear of Candied Krim’s appearance.
The mother spoke with a trembling voice. “Why-why-why did you kill our son.”
Krim’s voice grew intense and the hints of insanity in his voice were very evident to both of the parents. “Oh, after what your boy did to me, leaving me with my new body after tossing me into boiling candy and leaving me to die, I just HAD to repay the favor. It was just too sweet to resist.” Both the husband and wife tried to call out to the guards to help, but a ball filled with smoke had rolled to their feet and was activated. Krim then rushed in at full speed, tackling both of them to the ground and delivering heavy stabs with Exodus into each of their chests. He stabbed the couple, laughing maniacally as he did so. And after the couple’s blood drenched the floor, Krim decided his work was done and placed a lollipop in each of their mouths. The guards ran back to the mansion after hearing all of the screams of terror, but Krim was never found. He escaped off into the distance, away from Chicago, leaving his family and everyone else behind him.
Candied Krim roamed the country, never finding sanctuary or a place to settle down and call home. Many rumors and tales of his appearance or more murders have been recorded, but no letters, statements or photos of Candied Krim were ever found. With his body forever encased in candy, he is believed to be alive to this very day, roaming the countryside looking for more lives to claim, and more smiles to make. After all, Candied Krim wanted to live his life making others and himself happy, and the journey he was on after that night was just too sweet for him to resist.
