Smith - Ghostly Campfire Stories of Western Canada

Copyright 2018 Barbara Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, audio recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher or a licence from Access Copyright, Toronto, Canada.

Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd.

heritagehouse.ca

CATALOGUING INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

978-1-77203-245-1 (pbk)

978-1-77203-246-8 (epub)

Edited by Karla Decker

Proofread by Jesmine Cham

Cover and interior design by Jacqui Thomas

Cover illustration by Mark R/shutterstock.com and Jacqui Thomas

The interior of this book was produced on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based inks.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

For Bob

with googols of love

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Hello, happy campers!

Thank you for inviting me to your campfires again this year. Please pass the marshmallows. Dont ask me to sing, thoughnot even old camping songs. Im a really, really bad singer, but I do know how to tell a spooky story or twoor two dozen, in fact, in this book. Well, there are actually twenty-five new campfire tales here in my sequel to Campfire Stories of Western Canada. The last storys a bonus, like an extra track of musicif I could sing, that is.

Just for a little added frisson, not all of the stories in this collection are strictly fiction. Some are based on actual events documented in newspapers and police reports. You see, Im a big fan of true creepy stories. To me, theyre even scarier than fictional ones because the truth often comes to us as mere fragments of a story, leaving our imaginations to fill in the mysterious missing details. If youre interested in learning which tales are completely made up and which ones are dramatized accounts of actual events, just check the Afterwordwhich, logically, is at the back of the book.

Youll find camping spots in all four Western Canadian provinces represented here. Some stories arent tightly tied to a specific location, so if you find one that you think your fellow campers will enjoy, feel free to adapt the setting in whatever way you wish. Of course, that means you have to know the story pretty well before you pack the book away in your camping gear, so do read it over to yourself a few times before you go live, so to speak.

Even if you choose to read from the book rather than tell the story yourself, be sure to go over it a few times before the group settles in. Think of yourself as an actor performing a short play. Make sure each word you speak is clear, and emphasize your performance by changing your voice tone, adding gestures, and even pausing now and then to create suspense. And dont forget to look up at your audience every now and then so that they feel completely included in the spine-tingling experience.

Summers only last so long in Western Canada, but that doesnt mean we cant tell campfire stories all year long. All you have to do is gather a group of friends together, dim the lights and let the stories begin. Of course, you can also enjoy reading them by yourself. If you get too scared, just be brave, little camper, and try to remember that not all of the stories in this book are true!

Happy tales to you!

THE SCREAMS

Many years ago, in central Alberta, there was a town so small that it wasnt really a town, just a sleepy village that got a bit livelier in the summer. The gas station had been gone for years, but at least there was still a general store. The folks who came to camp nearby did all their shopping at that general storealthough the place creeped most of them out and everyone was just a little bit afraid of Anita Frey, the woman who ran the store. Even the most polite campers agreed that Anita was wound a bit tight, to say the least. Little did those holidayers know that they had every right to be spooked by the store, and they certainly couldnt have known of the horrors that poor Mrs. Frey suffered day after day after dayor rather, night after night.

Every evening at closing time, after she had locked the front door, Mrs. Frey made her way to the back of the store and the tiny room she called home. She would fix herself a simple supper and brew a strong mug of tea. Then she would sit by the fireplace and wait. She never had to wait very long for the blood-curdling, disembodied screams that echoed from nowhere and everywhere. They were as predictable as the setting sun.

She would hold her hands over her ears, and then, when that didnt help, shed take to her bed and bury her head under pillows and blankets. But nothing blocked out the ghostly wailing.

The years came and went until the summer when campers arrived to find the store locked. Anita Frey was nowhere to be found. The partners from the city who owned the building tried to entice new proprietors to the business, but none lasted more than a few weeks; some only stayed a few days, and one did not even linger through the first night.

Soon, stories leaked out to the surrounding communitystories about the place being haunted by unearthly shrieks. Eventually, the owners gave up on the business and sent a demolition crew to tear down the dilapidated old building.

The crews foreman was sure the job wouldnt take very long. The place was mostly rotting lumber, save for the huge fireplace in the tiny room at the back. Theyd need to tackle that brute stone by stone, starting from the top of the chimney.

As the foreman had expected, that part of the demolition was slow, heavy work. Men stood on a scaffold chipping away at the mortar that had held the chimney blocks together for longer than anyone could remember. The other workers cleared away the debris when it was safe to do so.

Finally, the chimney was nothing more than a pile of rocks near the foremans pickup truck.

With the chimney down, all that was left to demolish was the fireplace itself. Two of you can work on that, the foreman instructed. One on either side. Thatll get it done twice as fast so we can get back to the city before nightfall.

The two labourers swung their sledgehammers rhythmically, and soon the fireplace was not much more than a hearth.