The Spirit of Sussex: a Ghost Story

By Larry S Gray

This hauntingly sinister little tale takes place over a four-century timespan in merry old England. Two American travelers find themselves the target of a demented madman after they discover and explore a small town with a diabolical history of murder, pestilence and disaster. A ghost story that keeps on giving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Larry S Gray
• Release date: Oct 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301721955

Larry S Gray

Larry S. Gray is a student of life who loves to tell a good tale. Born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey, he now resides on the central east coast of Florida, with his family. He is an avid reader who enjoys rock music, baseball, beaching and exploring. His material is interesting, compelling, thought-provoking and, at times, just downright weird. His subject material includes mind-control and religion, time travel, parallel worlds, and ghosts, with a little humor sprinkled in for good measure. He is hard at work on several new projects, yet more interesting tales that will keep you up late into the night and disturbed well into the morning."The Cydronium Chronicles" concerns failed experiments in the field of mind control, with several slices of comicality tucked in amid the mayhem. "Spirit of Sussex" is an Olde English ghost story, plain and simple. "The Armageddon Project" is a non-fiction work co-written with his cousin; a haunting and harrowing tale of childhoods spent in the grip of a tightly controlled religious organization. The old phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" certainly applies here. "Timespan - the Vet" is an eerie account of time travel seen from a different angle and puts forth the hypothesis that time can actually be flexible, a mental concept of startling proportions. "The Secret of Meat" was written for young minds; a tale of exploration and discovery. A young rabbit and a young mouse set out on an unsanctioned journey to a city of humans, where they discover a ghastly secret that shatters the illusion of their happy little world. The darkly humorous "Palm Castle" takes a stab at the soft pale underbelly of the business office, following the antics of the supposed professionals employed there.In the upcoming projects, we have the insanely haunting "Parallel Worlds, Perpendicular Dreams" currently still under construction. A desolate, out-of-the-way small town, populated by simple people with bad habits and a secret underground laboratory hidden beneath the village church, is the setting for the mysterious and often absurd happenings of "Where the Skinman Roams," available on December 2, 2021. And the extensive epic apocalyptic thriller "Modern-day Noah - 2034" will be ready for readers in late 2022. Following that, anything is possible...

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The Spirit of Sussex

By

Larry S Gray

Copyright 2009

Lucky Lamb Publications

Lambertville, NJ

Port Orange, FL

Est. 2002

All rights reserved

First edition 1985

Ghost-Hunter edition 2000

25th Anniversary edition 2009

Smashwords edition 2013

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to my wife Maryann, who continues to put up with me after more than a quarter of a century. And our wonderful honeymoon trip to the UK that inspired this odd little tale

PROLOGUE

There is a small town, a very small town indeed, situated upon a lonely hillside in the southeast of England. Its borders are not defined, its population is not documented, and it is not even positive fact that anyone lives there at all. There exists no post office but there is a rail station; a rail station which has not seen a train brake there in over twenty years. It has become difficult to perceive exactly what type of people, if any, inhabit the small burgh of Sylvanslade, for a shroud of mystery and a hint of the supernatural pervade about the place. Some folks even go so far as to deny the very existence of this town, Sylvanslade, the old settlement that overlooks the English Channel. Others say pish-posh, if there are buildings and signs and people about, why, then of course the place is there. But still there are those, old folks and those familiar with Sylvanslade’s history, which refuse to acknowledge that the town even exists.

Now for Lauren and Gary Anderson, young travelers from the States, the charming yet spooky little village of Sylvanslade definitely does exist, for they passed through it twice on their British holiday. They saw the town, the signs that led to it, the abandoned rail station, the Church and cemetery, the castle ruins, the antique shop and the old crematorium. They knew Sylvanslade was there; they had seen it, they had walked in it, and though they did not like the place and never wanted to see it again, they knew that it most certainly was real.

It was only after they returned home, to America, that they began to wonder…

I

JULY 2, 1985

They had spent some days in London, exploring that great city, and now they yearned to explore the English countryside: the little villages, the old castles, the out-of-the-way places that most tourists don’t bother with; that most tourists, in fact, don’t even know about. They wanted to visit the small shoppes that the locals used for their everyday needs, to eat breakfast in a wee guesthouse where they served baked beans and stewed tomatoes with your fried egg. They wanted to stop in a little roadside pub where people said bloody and blimey and called each other blokes, so they could sit back and down McSorley’s Ale or Tennent’s Lager by the pint. They also wanted to spend some time exploring the towns along the sea and get the feel of the British coast.

After three days traipsing about London, these are some of the things they did. They visited beautiful old castles, small quaint shoppes, and interesting little pubs. They settled into a smaller town outside of Brighton and did all their sightseeing and exploring from that location.

Late on the afternoon of 2 July (the day of the first full moon of two that month), after finding the stony beach a tad too cool for comfort, they decided to take another cruise around, back out into the country. Lauren had spotted a brochure in the lobby of their bed-and-breakfast and, after giving it a brief appraisal, declared that she wanted to see the Sylvanslade Castle.

Sounds good to me, Gary said, after reading over the pamphlet. I’ll just get a fresh roll of film, change the shirt, hit the toilet, and we’ll be ready to roll. Dig out the maps and line us up the way to get there, and I’ll be right back. With a quick kiss, he was gone, vanished up the staircase.

Gary, Lauren called when he had emerged grinning from the bathroom, I can’t find this place anywhere on the map. The brochure says which way to go, to take the A76 east right into Sylvanslade. Now here’s the A76, she said, pointing to the thin red line in the road atlas as Gary looked over her shoulder, and it follows the coast all the way out to Dover, but there is no Sylvanslade anywhere along it.

Right you are, little sweeto. It’s not there, Gary said, leaning over to check out the map. I don’t know what to say. Place must be so small they don’t bother showing it on the map. No matter, we’ll find it. We can ask Mr. Bexhill on the way out. It seems like the old croaker knows just about every inch of this part of the country. He might even know a shortcut or something else about the castle or where to eat around there or something. Let’s go have a chat with the man.

With Lauren’s Kodak Disc and Gary’s Pentax 35MM (this was the summer of ’85, remember, the days of digital cameras and videocams were still fairly far into the future) in their possession, they went downstairs in search of old Mr. Bexhill, the proprietor. A spooky old fellow, that Mr. Bexhill was, but a jovial and quite friendly chap just the same. They located him in the kitchen, dissecting fish for the evening meal in the hotel’s main dining room. Gary approached from behind and asked if he could help them out with some directions.

Sure, chum, the old man replied. Just hang on a second or two, he said as he scooped up a fistful of fishheads and heaved them into a nearby plastic pail. Lauren felt within her stomach a slight churning sensation at the sight of the heads in his hands. A quick thought passed through her mind, a mere wisp of an idea … maybe we just should not go to this place yes I think maybe we should just stay away from there it won’t be a good place it won’t be any fun…and then the thought breezed away from her; it was gone and very soon forgotten, even as Bexhill began to speak again.

Where is it you young folks want to get to, someplace here in town, is it?

I don’t think it’s in town, Gary replied. We want to go to the Sylvanslade Castle, but the directions in the brochure don’t seem very explicit. Just says to take the A76 east, but…

Bexhill cut him off in mid-sentence. Why might you want to go there? he asked, a bit sharply. His eyes had clouded a bit and his face had taken on a somewhat worried look.

To take some pictures, Gary replied. We both really like these old castles and we’re putting together a picture album of the best ones we come upon. There is nothing like this back home.

"Sylvanslade isn’t