Charlaine Harris - Home Improvement: Undead Edition

Table of Contents

Ace Anthologies Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner

Many Bloody Returns
Wolfsbane and Mistletoe
Deaths Excellent Vacation
Home Improvement: Undead Edition

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Collection copyright 2011 by Charlaine Harris, Inc., Toni L. P. Kelner, and Tekno Books. A complete listing of individual copyrights can be found on page 341.

The Edgar name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions. ACE and the A design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN : 978-1-101-51730-7

1. DwellingsRemodelingFiction. 2. Horror tales, American. I. Harris, Charlaine. II. Kelner, Toni L. P.

PS648.H6H63 2011

813.087308dc22

2011014490

http://us.penguingroup.com

To the third member of the FP Clan,
DANA CAMERON,
who can float like a butterfly and write like a dream

INTRODUCTION

We tried writing an introduction using a labored analogy between building a house and assembling an anthology, but it just felt wrong. This is our fourth collaboration, and the process of collecting and editing an amazing assortment of stories is still great fun. We love making up our dream team, sending out our invitations, and seeing who accepts and who has a previous engagement.

When we first began working togetheron Many Bloody Return swe didnt know how successful these books would come to be. We were nervous about asking a strange mixture of mystery and urban fantasy writers to take a leap of faith and send in stories that combined two random elements. In that case, it was vampires and birthdays. Since then, we have dreamed up some more combinations that seemed interesting and fun to us: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe , about werewolves and the holidays, and Deaths Excellent Vacation , about creatures out of their normal habitat.

Home Improvement: Undead Edition came about when we both had teeth-gritting, jaw-clenching experiences arranging for mundane repairs around our own homes. After an orgy of consumer hand-wringing, we began to wonder how a supernatural creature would handle the same problem.

Each story we received is a unique vision of a situation that has arisen since the first mud hut sprung a leak in the rainy season, or the first cave needed a level floor. Weve all been there. We hope you enjoy the creative ways writers have found to solve some common problems: fencing, housing inspectors, kitchen flow, water in the basement, security systems, vandalism, and, oh yes, resident ghosts.

CHARLAINE HARRIS
TONI L. P. KELNER

If I Had a Hammer

CHARLAINE HARRIS

If I had a hammer, I sang, as I used the measuring tape and a pencil to mark where I needed to drill.

From the next room, Tara called, Im going to leave if youre going to sing.

Im not that bad, I said with mock indignation.

Oh yes, you are! She was changing one of the twins in the next room.

Wed been friends forever. Taras husband, JB du Rone, was part of that friendship. Wed formed a little group of misfits at our high school in Bon Temps, Louisiana. What had saved us from utter outcast-dom was that we each had a redeeming talent. I could play softball, Tara was a great manager (yearbook, softball team), and JB was incredibly handsome and could play football, given good and patient coaching.

What put us on the fringes, you ask? I was telepathic; Taras parents were embarrassing, abusive, poor, and public in their drunkenness; and JB was as dumb as a stump.

Yet here we were in our later twenties, reasonably happy human beings. JB and Tara had married and very recently produced twins. I had a good job and a life that was more exciting than I wanted it to be.

JB and Tara had been surprisedamazedwhen they had discovered they were going to be parents, and even more startled to find they were having twins. Many children had grown up in this little houseit was around eighty years oldbut modern families want more space. Though cozy and comfortable for two, the house began to creak at the seams after Robbie and SaraRobert Thornton du Rone and Sara Sookie du Ronewere born, but buying a larger place wasnt a possibility. That they owned this snug bungalow on Magnolia Street was something of a miracle.

Tara had gotten the house years before when Taras Togs started making some money. After careful consideration, shed chosen the old Summerlin place, a bungalow built in the late twenties or early thirties. Id always loved Magnolia Street, lined with houses from that same era, shaded by huge trees and enhanced with bright flower beds.

Taras one-floor house had two bedrooms (one large and one tiny), one bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a sunroom. The sunroom, which faced the front of the house and lay through an arch to the right of the living room, was becoming the babies room because it was actually much larger than the second bedroom. And the closet that served that bedroom backed onto the sunroom.

After a summit meeting the week before, attended by me; my boss, Sam Merlotte; and Taras babysitter, Quiana Wong, Tara and JB had made a plan. With our help, theyd knock out the wall at the back of the little bedrooms closet, which was between that room and the sunroom. Then wed block in the closet from the bedroom side so the opening would be on the sunroom side. Wed frame that opening and hang louvered doors. The sunroom would become the new baby bedroom, and it would have a closet and shelves on the walls for storage. Wed paint the sunroom and the little bedroom. And the job would be done. Just a little home improvement project, but it would make a big difference.

The very next day, Tara had gone to Sew Right in Shreveport to pick out material, and shed begun making new curtains to cover the bank of windows that flooded the sunroom with light.