Flash Fiction Anthology

Ghost Hunters

Lara opened the window of the small, yellow, rented car as the cliff they were headed for came into sight-- a tall, steep rock formation jutting out of the ground in the middle of a large plain interspersed with more weird cliffs and both small, medieval, and larger, modern villages spreading at their feet.

She closed it again quickly as a gust of warm wind rushed in her face, ruffling her brown hair and stealing her breath away momentarily, making her gasp for air. It was hot outside, like everywhere in the mediterranean now, in the middle of summer.

Lara glanced at Aidan, her best friend since the times they frequented the same nursery school as kids, who became her 'partner in crime' over the years. Or better, it was the other way around. It was she who followed him on his crazy adventures because she simply could not tell him no.

Aidan. She smiled at her own weakness and ran her fingers through her companion's ginger fringe carefully, not wanting to disturb his concentration while he was driving, squinting his eyes as he looked curiously through the dusty windscreen at the ancient monastery perched on top of the rock in front of them.

"Wait, you'll see, this time I'll perceive more. I can feel it," he muttered, glancing at her briefly and winking conspiratorially before his look followed the 'Welcome to Meteora, UNESCO Heritage Site' sign, before fixing back on the winding road rising steeply as it traced the incline of the cliff towards its top.

Unesco Heritage Site or not, that wasn't why they were here, in Meteora, after having visited the Castle Close in Edinburgh, the Tower of London, the Catacombs of Paris, Mount Saint-Michel and the Poveglia Island in Venice, some of the Europe's most haunted places, during the last two weeks. It was ghosts and paranormal occurrences they were looking for.

Aidan was... intrigued by the idea to say the least-- he was obsessed by it to the point that he chose to study parapsychology and embark on this ghost hunting trip before he would start writing his thesis.

And as the best friend she was, when he begged her to come with him, as the one whose 'gift' was stronger than his, Lara followed him, despite her reluctance to mingle with these things. She could perceive paranormal events, ghosts, and entities from different times and places her whole life, and she never completely stopped fearing them. Not that they ever did anything to her, but still, unlike Aidan, she liked to keep her distance from them.

Maybe it was because she always saw so much more than he did, experienced sections of passed lives of the 'ghosts' they encountered as if... she could step right into the past, into when they lived, while Aidan only got to... 'believe he saw lights and maybe felt a sudden drop in temperature'. Honestly, she thought it was just the force of his persuasion, a wishful thinking, as she never noticed anything of what he described to her.

Thus, even this time, just to please him, Lara let her friend choose the places he wanted to visit and packed her suitcase patiently, without objections, hoping to help him with the thesis. She knew that it was very important for him, but how he could believe so much in something he could not see was beyond her.

Now, following his gaze to the buildings of the ancient monastery sitting huddled, spilling over the top of the rock to cling to the steep stone walls on all sides, giving her the well known creepy feeling, complete with her skin crawling into gooseflesh despite the summer heat, she recalled how it all started, that evening all those years ago, which became a half-forgotten memory over the time...

Lara shook her head at the misty recollection of the old next-door neighbour coming to say goodbye to her and Aidan, who were studying together on the porch lining the front of Lara's parents' house one night, when they were both teenagers frequenting the same local high school.