Home Improvement: Undead Edition

Rick the Brave STACIA KANE

His wallet was empty, so Rick took the job.

It wasn’t a job anybody else wanted—well, hell, if it had been, somebody else would have taken it already, specifically his sister’s husband, who’d told him about it. Apprentice electricians didn’t often get handed five grand off the books for what would amount to only a couple of days’ worth of work. So much for Shelley telling him he’d never make any decent money. And calling him a wimp. And dumping him for that sleazy car salesman.

Would a wimp take a job in Downside? Ha, no. No way. Like anybody else in Triumph City with half a brain and without a particular death wish, Rick had never gotten closer to the area than the stretch of Highway 300 that ran past it—over it—and he’d never wanted to. It was the kind of place where even the police didn’t go, the kind of place where you could find yourself a hooker or find yourself in mortal danger any hour of the day or night.

But here he was, with his tool bag slung over his shoulder in what he hoped was a nonchalant fashion, standing with two other guys in the dusty, empty main room of a ramshackle house, while outside the streets rang with laughter and screams and loud music.

A sort of grunting noise—it took him a second to realize it was someone speaking on the next floor—and they trooped up the creaky stairs toward it, past shreds of old wallpaper that fluttered like ghostly fingers as they passed.

Now that was something he didn’t even want to think about.

Looked like the other guys didn’t feel the same.

“Any spooks up here, I throwing you at ’em,” the guy in front—he called himself Delman, of all things—told the one behind him, who was apparently known as “Barreltop.”

Barreltop laughed. Rick did, too, the sort of too-hearty laughter that always made him feel like an ass.

The others didn’t seem to notice, though, or maybe they already thought he was an ass so they didn’t care. It was quickly becoming obvious that he didn’t belong here. The others seemed to know each other and probably lived in the area, although why they’d live in Downside if they were making this kind of money often, he had no idea.

It couldn’t be because they liked the ambience. The house stood only a few blocks away from the slaughterhouse, and while the breeze was luckily going in the other direction, the smell was still there when it stopped. It tingled his sinuses like a sneeze he couldn’t get out.

A few oil lamps sat on the floor of the room at the left of the stairs, casting wide U-shaped shadows against the dingy walls with their broken plaster and loose wires. Before Haunted Week and the utter destruction caused by the rampaging ghosts, before the Church of Real Truth had taken power and banished them below the earth, this had been a grand home. Now it was a corpse waiting for cremation. Or renovation, which was why they were here: wiring it for power, reinforcing the floors with steel.

Thick sheets of that steel rested against the far wall, between two high empty windows. A few shreds of fabric danced in front of one of them, the remains of curtains still trying to do their job.

Which was what he should be doing. He looked away from them, back at the other two, and found them staring at him, arms crossed, eyebrows lifted.

That pose was mirrored by the hulking man leaning against one of the walls in black jeans and a black bowling shirt. Shit, he was big. Rick took an involuntary step back, then regretted it when the big guy smirked. Mean-looking, too; the expression wasn’t pleasant on his scarred, broken face, shadowed by the black fifties-style greaser haircut. For the first time Rick began to seriously doubt he would make it out of the building alive, or at least with all his limbs intact. He could see that guy ripping out an arm and snacking on it, just for fun.

“You ready now?” the big guy said, and Rick realized they were still all looking at him, that he’d been openly staring.

He nodded. “Yeah. Um, sorry.”

The guy’s chin dipped. “You got the knowledge what needs doin’, aye? Choose you a room, get them floorboards up. Half the floor, dig, then we get the steel in.”

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, snapped open a black steel lighter. The room brightened for a second with the six-inch flame of the lighter, dimmed again when he snapped it shut and refolded his tattooed arms. Barreltop and Delman walked past the stairs, into the room opposite, leaving Rick alone with the big guy. Why were they both leaving? Weren’t they going to take up the floorboards?

“Gotta problem?”

“I’m just wondering what you want me to do. Where you want me to start.”

The big guy stared at him. “Over yon corner be good. Crowbar’s there.”

“But I’m an electrician, I don’t—”

“You wanting payment, aye?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Crowbar’s there.”

Five thousand dollars, he reminded himself, crossing the floor and picking up the crowbar; he felt the big guy’s eyes on him but didn’t turn around to look. Instead he put the flat end of the bar under the edge of a floorboard and pushed down.

For five minutes or so the only sound in the house was the tearing and clattering of floorboards as they were wrenched from their places, and the chatter of the guys in the next room as they worked. Even this late—it was close to eleven—Rick’s shirt was damp with sweat, his throat dry from rotten dust. Dead mice and insect skeletons littered the layer of wood beneath the floor.

He needed the money. He needed the money. His car payments were killing him—that fucking car Shelley wanted him to buy—and five grand would pay it off and give him a bit left over. Left over to buy presents for another girl, once he found one. A girl who would appreciate a more . . . cerebral man.

There were girls like that out there, right?

Of course. So a few nights of misery were worth it, because he could picture that the boards were Shelley’s new boyfriend’s face as he tore them to hell. And once the boards were up he’d get to do some wiring.

But good as the image of what’s-his-name’s terrified expression made him feel, he wasn’t going to kill himself for imaginary revenge, either, so he headed for the cooler by the doorway and grabbed a bottle of water. Vicious brutes like himself got thirsty some—

A scream from the other room. A horrible scream, a terrified one, made even worse by the fact that it was a deep voice, a man’s voice.

The big guy knocked Rick down as he ran past, sending him spinning to the floor. What the hell was going on?

Dust filled his nose and throat, stung his eyes and made it impossible to see. For one confused minute as he struggled to his feet he was only aware of thundering footsteps and the big guy cursing.

Then the others yelled, more yelling. Panic. Rick finally used his head and dumped water over his face, and saw them all backing into the hall, away from the ghost as it crossed the floor.

A ghost. A ghost. Holy shit.

He knew hauntings happened, of course. Ten years ago a family on his street had had one, and the resulting payout from the Church had moved them into a newer, bigger house somewhere else. Like any child growing up after Haunted Week he’d heard the half-serious laments of his parents, wishing they had a ghost themselves, just a small harmless one but one that would earn them a settlement, too, to pay for college for Rick and his sister.

But they’d never really wanted that—who in their right mind would?—and Rick had never seen one.

And now he had, and he was in an unfamiliar part of town where he doubted he’d survive ten minutes on the streets by himself, and he was about to get up close and personal with that ghost because he’d bought a too- expensive car to get into some gold digger’s pants.

Life sucked.

But he still wanted to hold on to it.

Barreltop and Delman didn’t seem to think this was the moment to get philosophical. They raced down the