An Unholy Shore: A Story of Ghosts

By F John Hurr

AN UNHOLY SHORE...
A story of ghosts.
It is only a few years into the new twentieth century. England is soon to undergo tumultuous upheaval, but for the moment, British life and society continues inexorably onwards without fear of change.
A young single man, an academic professor convalescing during winter on a wild East Anglian shoreline encounters two strange entities. Crossing paths with these morbid individuals soon easily destroys his once sturdy sense of reason and belief in the solid limits of nature. Even their very existence undermines everything he has held dear, all his life.
His faith in the human mind to answer all of life’s questions is suddenly shattered and what ensues is only madness and confusion as he sinks into a dark realm of uncertainty and fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984592583

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by F John Hurr.

ISBN:                  Softcover                        978-1-9845-9259-0

                            eBook                              978-1-9845-9258-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/06/2019

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CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Postscript

Short Author Bio

These are the dreams that unreal stuff is made of.

Anon.

ONE

S erendipity intervened when a most singular occurrence afforded me the good fortune to take time off from my duties during the Michaelmas term at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. I was returning under the cover of darkness to my university lodgings after enjoying a late supper alone at my favourite inn. I had just turned the corner into Trumpington Street, when suddenly from the heavens above, a body dropped onto my person and felled me, quite literally, like an axe to a fragile tree. Down I tumbled onto the hard stone of the street pavement. I lay prostrate upon the ground, quite dazed and confused for some moments. By the time I had regained my wits, my assailant, if indeed he can be called that, had swiftly disappeared into the dark shadows of a side alley, giving not a thought to my parlous state.

My first thought was that I had been struck by a cat-burglar, a nimble and nocturnal creature, who perhaps was returning to terra-firma after completing his nefarious business, but what sort of cat-burglar wears a fine, soft kid glove. However, as I was on the latter part of my journey and almost inside the university boundary, I was sure upon further reflection that I had been the unfortunate landing point of one the notorious ‘student climbers.’ They were an odious group of upper-class young men whose only aim in life was to seek favour among their peers by carrying out daredevil ascents of the city’s tallest buildings. Their identities were always kept secret and never disclosed to anyone outside the exclusive corps. True to fashion, this individual, if my deductions were correct, not wishing to have his face seen, had beaten a hasty retreat. For all I know I might be tutoring the fellow the very next day without suspecting that he might be the culprit. These fellows knew without doubt that to be caught scaling the buildings would mean being sent down without appeal.

I got up and brushed myself down and taking a moment to look up to make sure that the same calamity would not reoccur, for these mountaineers often worked in pairs, but seeing no one I continued on to my lodgings. As I walked home, I reflected upon these alpine climbers. This craze of scaling the college buildings was obviously becoming a menace and a real danger to all and sundry. The incident upon my person had proven this to be true. Yet these dare devils received much adulation and acclaim amongst their peers and are seen as heroes and adventurers of the highest order. It is whispered in the shadows of the Great Court at Trinity, that the most able climber among them is a member of the nobility, a young Lord no less and a member of the Cambridge Apostles Club, another elitist and secretive group of snobs.

I came from lower stock; my paternal grandfather was a common labourer in London’s docks. I harboured strong antipathy towards these so-called sons of gentlemen. To my mind they brought this ancient and revered university of Cambridge into disrepute. Were they not here to study for the good and progress of mankind? If they cared not to work but preferred to indulge in regular drinking parties, to carouse, and get into all kinds of mischief then I think they should remove themselves altogether and reside in a low tavern and let others, less fortunate but highly desirous of a good education, take their places.

I arrived back at my lodgings and after disrobing I checked myself over to discover if I had suffered any serious injury. Standing before the full-length mirror in my bed-chamber I spied a tall weary figure that was visibly shaken by the experience. The sudden shock of having someone fall upon one’s person had unnerved me. My face was pale and wan and if I did not know myself, I would have said that the man portrayed before me was looking quite ill, gaunt even, but then I did not consider myself an athletic man. I had the demeanour and pallor of an intellectual who spent most of the day poring over books. My eating habits were quite frugal, and I was not overly fond of red meat. My mother often used to say that I needed to eat a lot more beef before I ever would find a wife. She commonly would add also that I was not a handsome man but could be reasonably attractive to the opposite sex if I spent less time with my nose in a book and more time thinking about my diet! From her wisdom I deduced, rather cleverly I thought, if that be the case, all I had to do was eat less red meat and read more, to ensure that the ladies keep well away from my door, which suited me fine.

Feeling my right shoulder, I found a very sore spot where my assailant’s weight had struck with full force. I moved my arm and shoulder in a circular motion and immediately felt a stab of pain. My neck muscles also were becoming quite stiff. I sat on the bed and removed my trousers and was horrified to see a trickle of dried blood on my knee and shin bone. This injury was sustained when I had been pushed onto the hard ground.

Before retiring for the night, I washed the blood off my leg and rubbed some lemon balm into my neck and shoulder, which my mother had given to me to help settle my nerves. I slept fitfully that night and upon awakening I felt rather drained of energy. The lemon balm had patently not worked, and my body was full of aches and pains. I struggled through the day until luncheon when one of my colleagues noticed that I was a little fraught and out of sorts and suggested kindly that I take myself off to visit the college physician as