Creepy Capreol

By Matthew Del Papa

Creepy Capreol is a collection of chilling tales set in the small Northern Ontario town of Capreol. Half of the 14 stories are non-fiction — ranging from topics such as Bigfoot, demonic wheelchairs, and vigilante justice — the others are pure fiction, written by noted local authors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312289925

Book preview

Creepy Capreol

Creepy

Capreol

Copyright © 2014 by Matthew Del Papa

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

Rolling Stock Previously published in Not One Of Us #24, 2000.

Copyright © 2014 by Steve Vernon

Stagnant Waters Copyright © 2014 by Jason Shayer

The Likely Story Previously published in Sulphur IV, 2014.

Copyright © 2014 by Paul Mandziuk

Not The Basement! Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Coleman-Brown

This Old Man Copyright © 2014 by Betty Guenette

Dual Ghost Towns Copyright © 2014 by Betty Guenette

The One That Got Away Copyright © 2014 by Matthew Del Papa

Cover Art Copyright © 2013 by Marc Simonetti

All illustrations Copyright © 2014 by Robert Michelutti

First Printing: 2014

ISBN: 978-1-312-24767-3

MadCap Publishing

22 Willow Crescent

Capreol, Ontario, Canada P0M1H0

Printed in Canada

Creepy Capreol

Chilling Tales From a Railroad Town

Edited by Matthew Del Papa

Illustrated by Robert Michelutti

madcap

PublishinG

Laforest, Ontario

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Notes

Introduction — Come Fall Under Del Papa’s Spell

Part 1: Non-Fiction

That Darned Sock Monkey

Bigfoot Lives!

Help! My Wheelchair Is Trying To Kill Me

Vigilante Justice: Capreol Style

The Mystery of Capreol’s Mass Grave

The Train Wreck At Drocourt – March 20

th

1929

Ghost Town Trilogy

Part 2: Fiction

ROLLING STOCK

NOT THE BASEMENT!

THE LIKELY STORY

THIS OLD MAN

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

DUAL GHOST TOWNS

STAGNANT WATERS

Afterword

About the Authors

About the Artists

Acknowledgements

Enormous thanks are owed to:

My contributors (Betty, Jason, Lisa, Paul, and Steve). This book would be much shorter — and nowhere near as good — without your stories. Thanks for helping. And thanks for putting up with my BS.

My illustrator. Bob did a great job on the artwork despite some difficult time constraints.

Mark Leslie for the introduction, for including my story The Capreol High Custodian in his book Spooky Sudbury, and for allowing me to steal the inspiration for Creepy Capreol.

Vera Constantineau for moral support.

David Bateman and the good people at Capreol Graphics for their myriad assistance.

Family. None of us, authors or artists, could succeed without the love and support of our families.

And to you — the reader — for forgiving any errors. I did my best to ensure that all the facts in the non-fiction part of this book are accurate, but I am no historian. Some mistakes inevitably crept in.

Notes

Capreol is — for better or worse — a railroad town. And, since railroaders tend to be storytellers, Capreol is a town with a great many stories; true stories, made up stories, and combinations of the two.

Sit around any of the town’s restaurants or coffee shops and, sooner or later, the stories will start: tales of derailments and washouts, reminisces of co-workers’ strange habits, yarns about the bosses’ unceasing demands, and graphic retellings of pranks — ranging from the hilarious to the cruel. Some are told to appreciative laughs while others receive nothing but awed whispers or horrified silence.

But there’s more to the Capreol than train stories! The town hides a dark underbelly: a mass grave, a haunted high school, even a river that burns. All hint at improbable deaths, unnatural powers, and a somewhat lack attitude toward environmental safety procedures.

Still, in Capreol at least, life almost always comes back to the railroad.

Many a young resident has sat watching the trains come and go, dreaming of what lay along those parallel steel rails. Was it the culmination of childhood hopes and dreams … or merely the strange otherness of someplace far from home? Most outgrow such wonderings, but not all. Several such Capreolites — both former and current residents — have contributed stories to this book.

Read Steve Vernon’s railyard chiller ROLLING STOCK and learn the power of names. Or try Jason Shayer’s STAGNANT WATERS. You’ll never venture near an abandoned building again … not without shuddering. Matthew Del Papa offers a whopper of a fish tale, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, while Sudbury author Betty Guenette has two stories about nearby ghost towns; THIS OLD MAN set in Milnet and DUAL GHOST TOWNS about Sellwood. Another Sudbury author, Lisa Coleman-Brown tells of one nurse’s messily memorable experience in NOT THE BASEMENT! And Thunder Bay writer, Paul Mandziuk’s THE LIKELY STORY provides a literary who-done-it with a novel twist.

Creepy Capreol has it all: stories to frighten and amuse, chill the blood and churn the stomach. Read on if you dare. One thing’s for certain — finish this book and you’ll never think Capreol boring again!

Introduction — Come Fall Under Del Papa’s Spell

by Mark Leslie

Sit back in your favourite comfy reading spot with a beverage of choice nearby and prepare yourself for an adventure that will take you through a small town in mid-North Ontario and yet to places far beyond the imagination.

I’m hoping that you choose some sort of hot beverage on this virtual journey. Coffee, tea, hot cocoa perhaps. Why? Because it might help to dispel the chill you’ll inevitably feel run down your spine once you start to read.

Mat has compiled an intriguing collection that mixes fact with fiction in virtually the same way that he combines his love for his hometown with his penchant for sharing incredible stories. He merges strange and frightening true stories with a unique mix of fiction from his own quiver along with a small team of talented storytellers whose tales weave an additional richness into this book. And he blends them together with all the mastery of a top class chef — although I do imagine him as the type of chef who might be more at home in front of a cauldron rather than a stovetop, chortling in a low wicked laugh as he concocts a thick and rich spell of darkness over his readers to be.

Between these pages lies a deep and rich love for the town of Capreol — an adoration of the history and the people who continue to make the town the type of hub you might expect from a railroad and riverside town that forged so many connections to other communities. But beware, around every corner there are dark shadows that hold dark secrets. Del Papa has a knack for digging to uncover the truly eerie spoils that are often hidden just below the surface of this seemingly normal town.

From the reveal of his disturbing middle of the night anxiety over a seemingly harmless sock monkey lying in wait until he falls asleep, to his description of a stream of psychotic Death-Wish wheelchairs, I realized, when reading this book, that Mat I are very similar. Not only does he find unique ways to interpret seemingly normal situations and surroundings into something compelling and intriguing but he is driven by a love of sharing stories — something which rings true from the first to the last word of this book.

I, like Mat, also consider myself a giant chicken and can often be found hiding beneath the sheets. And that’s exactly where I kept finding myself whenever I dared peel open the pages of this book. Only I didn’t have a warm beverage at hand to help dispel the chill. (Hence the reason I made that suggestion — it’s not too late. Go get that warm drink now. We’ll be right here when you get back)

From 1918 to 2000, Capreol was an independent town. In January 2001 it was amalgamated into the City of Greater Sudbury, but in the hearts and minds of its residents, and certainly in the pages of this book, Capreol stands strong and fiercely proud — a unique and diverse community with a rich and fascinating history.

When you finish reading this book you might, like me, feel a sense of wonder and intrigue at all that Capreol holds, and be tempted to go have another look at this seemingly quiet Northern Ontario town.

But, like me, you might want to have that look during the daylight hours. Just in case.

And we’ll both thank and blame Mat for that.

Mark Leslie is the author of: One Hand Screaming (2004), Haunted Hamilton: The Ghosts of Dundurn Castle & Other Steeltown Shivers (2012), and I, Death (2013). He is also the editor of North of Infinity II (2006), Campus Chills (2009), and Tesseracts 16: Parnassus Unbound (2012).

His newest book (co-authored with Jenny Jelen) is Spooky Sudbury: True Tales of the Eerie & Unexplained (2013).

Born and raised in Onaping Falls, Mark is a well-respected figure in Canadian horror. Currently residing in London, he works for Kobo (serving as Director of Kobo’s Writing Life), and is putting the finishing touches on several new writing/editing projects. Look for Tomes of Terror in late 2014.

Part 1: Non-Fiction

This section contains various — mostly-true — articles, columns, and histories.

That Darned Sock Monkey

This book has proven a challenge for one simple reason: I am a coward. Big fat scared-y-cat, that’s me. Always have been and always will be. That’s not hyperbole. Let me prove it by