The scary stories were being told the day after Halloween for a change in Karnes County, this year.

The rumor spread around local schools November 1, detailing a fictional group of eight children had ended up in the hospital after swallowing razor blades found in candy.

It was a story that was more urban legend than fact, but Kenedy Police Chief Duane DuBose said the rumors did have their beginnings in truth.

No one was hurt, but two straight razor blades were found inside one little girl’s bag of Halloween loot. They were not inserted into any candy and were found loose at the bottom of the bag, still inside their cardboard protective wrappers.

"They were found in the bag with the candy, not in the candy. We did not find any candy that was opened or altered," DuBose said.

The two blades were stuck to each other and were found when the girl’s mother checked her bag of goodies after a night of trick-or-treating in Kenedy. No other parents reported finding anything foreign in their children’s’ candy or candy bags that evening, and DuBose said the entire evening was otherwise uneventful.

Police didn’t speculate on the possible origin of the razor blades, but stressed many scenarios were possible.

"We have no clue on where this stuff came from — if it was already in the bag, if somebody else put it in the bag — we have no idea," DuBose said.

The story played tag along the gossip chain all Halloween evening until it arrived at school November 1. By then, it had been distorted grossly out of proportion and told tales of eight poor children in the hospital with razors inside their stomachs.

"Apparently the kids came back to school and were talking about it. We had no cases like that," Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital Administrator Nancy Kinkler said, adding that school officials from Kenedy had called her to get more information on the rumor.

The urban legend and myth debunking Web site snopes.com has two article entries on the matter: one for random poisoning of Halloween treats and another on the insertion of sharp objects into Halloween candy.

In both cases, myth debunker Barbara Mikkelson says the danger heard of in Halloween urban legends far exceeds what the facts reveal.

To date, there have been no reported cases of poison having been placed inside candy, then randomly distributed to youngsters on Halloween. There has only been one reported incident of a person putting sharp objects inside Halloween candy, then distributing it randomly, according to Mikkelson’s Web site.

"Every year sees the same flurry of activity in response to such rumors: radio, TV and newspapers issue dark warnings about tampered candy and suggest taking the little ones to parties instead of collecting goodies door-to-door," she said on her Web site. "It’s a sadness that a holiday so thoroughly and greedily enjoyed by kids is being sanitized out of existence in the name of safety. Sadder still is there appears to be little reason for it."

Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital issues grades kindergarten through five with reflective candy bags every year. Safety tips and Halloween-related information can be found inside, and the hospital encourages safe and smart celebration of the holiday.