Everyone knows the horror stories. Razor blades, hallucinogens, rat poison, all disguised in candy just waiting for innocent kids to gobble them up. Its all nonsense of course. Sure there are a few isolated incidents where some sicko does something like that, but the whole "tainted candy" myth is an enormous exaggeration at best. No, the reason I say you should check your kids' candy is very, very different.

It was the Halloween of '09, I was only 14. I was on the cusp of being ever so slightly too old for it to be socially acceptable to go trick or treating, so I aimed to make that night the biggest haul yet. My costume was elaborate; a zombie with a full face mask, claw gloves, and a chest piece that would drip fake blood at the push of a button. I'd learned from experience that the more detailed the costume, the more candy you get. I was going to hit every house that I could. I expected to get so much that I even brought one of those big black garbage bags to hold the candy in. I was going to make it a night to remember. It was, but not for the reasons I had hoped.

I couldn't tell you which house I got it from, that's something that has always bugged me. My bag was so full and I'd visited so many houses that it was all just a blur. At the end of the night I was sorting my candy into piles. A small mound of chocolate bars, some plastic wrapped gummy candies, dozens of lollipops, and more. As I reached into the central pile of unsorted candy, I found something unusual. It looked like a chocolate bar of some sort, but one I'd never seen before.

The wrapper was a greenish yellow in coloration, with a two-armed cartoon worm giving a thumbs up and winking. The label was in some other language, the symbols not corresponding to any Latin letters that I recognized. At first I thought it was maybe in Russian, but the script wasn't quite right, I'd seen what Cyrillic characters looked like from some video games and movies, and this looked a bit different.

Raising an eyebrow, I opened the wrapper, curious to see what was inside. It looked like my initial guess was right, it did seem to be a chocolate bar of some sort, with little white orbs embedded in its surface kind of like how some candies had pieces of nuts. I gave it a bite, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was utterly delicious. To this day, I think that it was the best chocolate I've ever had in my entire life.

Being a 14 year old, I didn't have the best impulse control. I gobbled the whole thing down in about 30 seconds, tossing the wrapper aside and searching for more in the pile of unsorted candy. I didn't find any more though, and resigned myself to disappointment. I figured I'd ask around at school, bringing the wrapper to see if anyone else had gotten lucky, maybe I could offer some of my less enticing candy as a trade.

After finishing my sorting and eating a few more pieces of candy, I finally headed off to sleep, my stomach full and my heart happy. It had been a great day.

The next morning I made sure to pack the empty chocolate wrapper so I could ask around at school, and brought some extra candy for trade. During recess and lunch I asked nearly the whole school about the chocolate but I only found three other people who got one, and like me they had immediately eaten the whole thing. I still remember their names. Jeremy, a lanky, bespectacled kid from my chemistry class, Ashley, a girl with dyed blue hair who I'd seen around but never really talked to, and Lee, a track and field athlete who I shared math class with.

They all agreed that it was by far the best chocolate they'd ever had, and had also been hoping to find some more. However, it seemed like the trail ended there, none of them remembered which house gave them the chocolate bar either. I was a little sad, but ultimately it wasn't the end of the world for me, it was just some candy after all.

It took a few weeks for me to notice anything strange. I had long since forgotten about the candy bar, and now that Halloween had come and gone it was back to the daily routine of school and homework.

One morning I woke up to find myself feeling very thirsty. It felt like I had been walking in the desert for days, so I immediately got up to get something to drink. Normally with breakfast I would have milk or orange juice, but that day I decided I would just have a big glass of water. And then another. And another. After three glasses, I was finally satisfied. My mom eyed me with confusion. "Feeling a bit dehydrated honey?" she asked.

I nodded, a little embarrassed. "I'm not sure why, I just felt really thirsty this morning" I responded. She smiled and said smugly, "Well, at least its not soda or energy drinks, those things will rot your teeth you know." I rolled my eyes and finished my breakfast, getting ready for school, bringing two bottles of water with me.

That day during chemistry class, our teacher announced that Friday there would be a schoolday-long field trip to the local lake, where a fish and wildlife representative would talk about the native ecosystem and the environmental impact of pollution. It wasn't mandatory, but students who went and wrote a paper about it would get extra credit. The teacher said that anyone who wanted to go should raise their hand, and instantly I found myself lifting mine. Jeremy did too, and I detected the faintest hint of confusion on his face. I also felt a little bewildered. I'd never really been particularly interested in environmentalism or anything like that, and its not like I needed the extra credit. But something about the field trip seemed to call to me, like I was meant to go there.

The rest of the week passed agonizingly slow. I found myself constantly thinking about the lake, about its cool green waters rippling gently in the breeze. Every morning I would wake up thirstier than the last, until my mom was starting to grow concerned about my water intake. I bought one of those huge water bottles that athletes use, and I noticed that Jeremy and Ashley had as well. Lee already had one, but I noticed him drinking from it more often than normal in math class.

Finally Friday came around and the small number of students going to the lake got into the school bus. I couldn't help but notice Lee and Ashley were coming too, but I was quickly distracted by the thought of the lake.

I'd never been one for water, it was fun to go to the pool once in a while, sure, but I'd never been obsessed over it. However, all I could think of during the bus ride to the lake was how good it would feel to just dive into its shimmering water, to sink all the way to the bottom and stay there, surrounded by fish.

When we finally arrived the fish and wildlife guy had us all sit down on the grass. He told us about pH levels, showed us a preserved frog with too many legs, and passed around photos of some of the garbage he had found on the water's edge. I wasn't paying attention though. I was just staring out at the lake, hypnotized by its gentle waves. I thought about how nice it would feel on my skin, in my mouth.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was standing up, walking towards the lake. I could faintly hear the chaperone yelling at me to come back, and some of the other students murmuring in confusion, but I wasn't focused on that, it was just background noise. The sounds of the lake filled my ears. I was vaguely aware that I wasn't alone in my march towards the lake. Jeremy, Ashley, and Lee were all walking with me, similarly fixated.

I felt my tennis shoes sink into the cold water as we kept walking onward. As I kept moving, the water went up to my knees, then my thighs, my waist, my chest, my neck. Finally my head was fully submerged, and I looked out into the murky gloom, not even trying to hold my breath as I inhaled the lake water.

Then came the sudden realization of what was happening, where I was. It was as if I had been a puppet whose strings were suddenly cut. I was fully aware of the fact I was drowning. Then came the pain.

I could feel wriggling under my skin, a burning, itching pain like needles shooting up from inside my flesh. I looked down and saw long pallid worms erupt from out of my skin like moles digging out of the earth. I tried to scream, my mouth once again flooding with water as one of them squirmed out from underneath my eyelid. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, all came writhing up as they burrowed through my flesh. The pain was unbearable, and my vision started to fade to black as I passed out from a combination of agony, terror and lack of oxygen.

I woke up in the hospital, my parents standing over me, their eyes filled with concern. I felt so tired, but thankfully not thirsty at all. When they realized I was awake my mom smothered me with hugs and kisses, while my dad just started sobbing with relief. I asked about the others, the three students who went into lake with me, but they didn't make it. There was only time to rescue one of us.

The doctors were at a loss to explain the puncture wounds all over my body, but said that it wasn't anything too severe, and that I should be able to recover with some pain medicine and antibiotics. I didn't tell them about the worms, I knew I wouldn't be believed anyway and I didn't want to end up locked away in some institution. I already had to have therapy sessions and got put on some anti-depressants, apparently the authorities cooked up some story about a suicide pact between Jeremy, Ashley, Lee, and I. I played along with this story to the therapist, talking about feeling overwhelmed at school and whatnot, but it was all nonsense. I wasn't depressed, at least, not before this happened.

I did some independent research, trying to figure out what happened to me. What I found was startling.

There is a phylum of worm called nematomorpha, also known as horsehair worms. They typically infect insects, growing inside them and controlling their central nervous system to make them jump into water and drown. Once the host leaps into the water, the worm burrows its way out of the host, continuing its life aquatically to find a mate and lay eggs. There are a few cases of accidental infection of humans, but there is no recorded evidence of them ever manipulating a mammal the same way they control insects.

I also found something else out. A few weeks after Halloween, every year, like clockwork, there is a spike in child deaths due to drowning. Its not enough to be noticed by most people, but it is obvious once you're looking for it.

So I'll say to you again; always check your kids' Halloween candy. If you find a greenish yellow chocolate bar with writing in a language you've never seen before, don't let them eat it, no matter what.