Джерри Хилл: The Zeiko Place

Andi Beene typed quickly, sparing a glance at the large clock on the wall, positioned, she was certain, to remind her of yet another looming deadline. But, as she had told Bill a hundred times, she worked best under pressure.

“Hey, Andi, the big guy wants to see you.”

“Now?” She glanced again at the clock. “I’ve got forty-five minutes to deadline. Is he crazy?”

Carl shrugged, then moved on to his own desk.

Andi rubbed her eyes, then shoved away from her desk, walking quickly to her editor’s office. Bill paced behind his desk, twirling his reading glasses as he mumbled to himself — a habit Andi now knew meant he was working on a sales pitch. Great. She had forty-five minutes to finish her piece and her boss wanted to throw out a new storyline.

She didn’t bother with pleasantries, she simply tapped her watch. “You’re cutting into my deadline,” she said.

He smiled. “You have plenty of time, Andrea. Sit. I want to bounce something off of you.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. What piece are you working on anyway?”

She sighed, closing her eyes for only a second before answering. “Mrs. Hatcher. She’s turns one hundred-two on Sunday.”

“Oh, yeah. How have your visits been with her?”

Andi grinned. “She’s a lovely lady. However, she can’t remember anything that’s happened in the last thirty years. But she can recall conversations that happened forty years ago without a problem. And I’ve interviewed what relatives I could find. She’s outlived all of her children.” She looked at her watch. “And I only have thirty-five minutes until deadline.”

He dismissed her comment with a flick of one hand. “I’ll give you an extension.” He leaned forward. “You’re from Hinesville, right?”

She frowned. “Originally, yes. I haven’t lived there since I moved away to go to college.”

“But you’re familiar with the area?”

“Of course. My parents still live there.”

“What do you know about—” He put his glasses on and read from a small piece of paper on his desk. “The Zeiko Place?”

She laughed nervously. “The Zeiko Place? I haven’t thought of that since high school. Where did you hear about it?”

“Is it haunted?”

She looked away. “Some might say so, if you believe in that nonsense.”

“Do you?”

“Hell, no. It’s garbage. Ghosts! Please.”

He nodded. “I thought that was how you felt. You don’t seem the type to get all worked up about those things.”

“Well, it’s just crazy.”

He took his glasses off and began twirling them again. “Halloween is coming up.”

“Yeah. So?”

“There is a doctor something-or-other who is doing a study on the Zeiko Place. Going to have a team there for a week, filming at night, inside the place and all that. Looking for ghosts.”

Her eyes widened. “Inside?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff?”

“Well, I don’t, of course. But I remember the stories. I lost many a night’s sleep because of that house.”

“We’re going to do a piece on it.” He paused, looking at her. “In fact, I’ve agreed to send a reporter out to stay the full week with them.

She stared at him, her eyes widening. “Oh, no. No, no, no.” She stood. “You can’t be serious.”

He smiled. “You’re the logical choice.”

“Logical? I don’t believe in that crap. I can’t be impartial.” She pointed out his window. “Send Jean. She’s convinced there are UFOs, and aliens living amongst us. She’d be perfect.”

“That’s the reason I’m sending you. Jean would see ghosts behind every door. I need someone a bit skeptical.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Now, Andrea, why would you refuse an assignment? Besides, it’ll give you a chance to visit with your folks.”

“Great,” she said dryly. She loved her parents dearly, but her visits consisted of not more than two days. That was all she could stand of them badgering her about getting a boyfriend and getting married. They refused to believe she was gay, simply dismissing it as a stage she was going through. It didn’t matter that she was twenty-nine, fast approaching thirty. Her mother still insisted she would “come around” eventually.

“We’ll talk more about this tomorrow, after I get the particulars from this doctor person. Right now, I think you have a deadline.”

“You said I could have an extension,” she reminded him.

“So I did.” He glanced at his watch. “One hour.”
“One hour? What the hell kind of extension is that?”

“Time is wasting, Andrea.”

CHAPTER TWO

Andi shoved yet another pair of jeans into her bag. She could always pack lighter and do laundry at her mother’s house, but why stress over having to spend more time than necessary with her parents.

“You’re a terrible daughter,” she murmured.

Tomorrow, she would meet with the team of ghostbusters. She rolled her eyes. Lunatics, no doubt. And in two short days, she would be walking into the Zeiko Place. Not only walking into the house, but sleeping there as well. She swallowed nervously, acknowledging the tremor that coursed through her body at the thought. As she’d told Bill, she didn’t believe in that nonsense. But hell, as a kid, she’d heard all the stories, had walked into the yard on a dare, had seen the lights go on and off during one of the house’s vacant periods.

The house had numerous owners over the years, but it was still referred to as the Zeiko Place. It was a mansion, by Hinesville’s standards, especially back in those days. With six bedrooms, two studies, and multiple dens and living areas, not to mention actual servant’s quarters built nearby, it was the talk of the town. Of course, the murders had happened years and years before Andi was even born. By the time Andi was old enough to understand, the ghost stories had been passed down from older kids to younger, and the rumors grew of the Zeiko Place being haunted. Andi remembered three different families living there while she was growing up. None ever lasted more than a year, complaining of noises in the night, of aberrations, of screams coming from empty hallways.

Andi shivered again, remembering one night in high school when a group of them had parked across the road from the sprawling mansion. It had been vacant for nearly two years and the windows on the ground floor had been shuttered. It was an eerie night, a full moon sneaking in and out from behind the clouds. She wanted to blame it on the cheap bottle of wine one of them had swiped from their parents, but Andi saw it with her own eyes. One minute, the shutters were closed. The next, when the moon peeked out again, the window closest to the front door was open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze. She closed her eyes, remembering the shadow that passed by the window. They had all held their collective breath, and when the moon shown again, the window was dark and shuttered. They had laughed it off, but sped away anyway. As teenagers, it was easy to dismiss. But as an adult, Andi wondered how the bunch of them could see the same thing and just dismiss it.

But then, they all had their own issues to deal with, that of growing up and coming of age. For Andi, keeping her secret and still being friends with the “in” crowd was hard enough. If any of them suspected she was a lesbian, she would have been ostracized from the group. And if anyone knew of the enormous crush she’d had on Jaime Tucker, star athlete, she’d have been laughed out of town. But of course, she soon found out Jaime had a few secrets of her own.

She shook her head. “Do not go there.” She had put Jaime and that awful night from her mind years ago, and she refused to revisit it now, nearly twelve years later. Just because she’d lost her virginity to the girl didn’t mean she held a soft spot in her heart. Quite the opposite. She was the cause of her first broken heart.