Reaper Man

don’t see why I should have to go around biting my wife after thirty years of marriage, and that’s flat,” said the Count.
    “Every voman should share her husband’s hobbies,” said Doreen. “It iss vot keeps a marriage inter-vesting.”
    “Who wants an interesting marriage? I never said I wanted an interesting marriage. That’s what’s wrong with people today, expecting things like marriage to be interesting. And it’s not a hobby, anyway,” moaned Arthur. “This vampiring’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know. Can’t go out in daylight, can’t eat garlic, can’t have a decent shave—”
    “Why can’t you have a—” Windle began.
    “Can’t use a mirror ,” said Arthur. “I thought the turning-into-a-bat bit would be interesting, but the owls around here are murder . And as for the…you know…with the blood…well…” His voice trailed off.
    “Artore’s never been very good at meetink people,” said Doreen.
    “And the worst part is having to wear evening dress the whole time,” said Arthur. He gave Doreen a sideways glance. “I’m sure it’s not really compulsory.”
    “It iss very important to maintain standerts,” said Doreen. Doreen, in addition to her here-one-minute-and-gone-the-next vampire accent, had decided to complement Arthur’s evening dress with what she considered appropriate for a female vampire: figure-hugging black dress, long dark hair cut into a widow’s peak, and very pallid makeup. Nature had designed her to be small and plump with frizzy hair and a hearty complexion. There were definite signs of conflict.
    “I should have stayed in that coffin,” said Arthur.
    “Oh, no,” said Mr. Shoe. “That’s taking the easy way out. The movement needs people like you, Arthur. We had to set an example. Remember our motto.”
    “Which motto is that, Reg?” said Lupine wearily. “We have so many.”
    “Undead yes—unperson no!” Reg said.
    “You see, he means well,” said Lupine, after the meeting had broken up.
    He and Windle were walking back through the gray dawn. The Notfaroutoes had left earlier to be back home before daylight heaped even more troubles on Arthur, and Mr. Shoe had gone off, he said, to address a meeting.
    “He goes down to the cemetery behind the Temple of Small Gods and shouts,” Lupine explained. “He calls it consciousness raising but I don’t reckon he’s onto much of a certainty.”
    “Who was it under the chair?” said Windle.
    “That was Schleppel,” said Lupine. “We think he’s a bogeyman.”
    “Are bogeymen undead?”
    “He won’t say.”
    “You’ve never seen him? I thought bogeymen hid under things and, er, behind things and sort of leapt out at people.”
    “He’s all right on the hiding. I don’t think he likes the leaping out,” said Lupine.
    Windle thought about this. An agoraphobic bogeyman seemed to complete the full set.
    “Fancy that,” he said, vaguely.
    “We only go along to the club to keep Reg happy,” said Lupine. “Doreen said it’d break his heart if we stopped. You know the worst bit?”
    “Go on,” said Windle.
    “Sometimes he brings a guitar along and makes us sing songs like ‘The Streets of Ankh-Morpork’ and ‘We Shall Overcome.’ * It’s terrible.”
    “Can’t sing, eh?” said Windle.
    “Sing? Never mind sing. Have you ever seen a zombie try to play a guitar? It’s helping him find his fingers afterward that’s so embarrassing.” Lupine sighed. “By the way, Sister Drull is a ghoul. If she offers you any of her meat patties, don’t accept.”
    Windle remembered a vague, shy old lady in a shapeless gray dress.
    “Oh, dear,” he said. “You mean she makes them out of human flesh?”
    “What? Oh. No. She just can’t cook very well.”
    “Oh.”
    “And Brother Ixolite is probably the only banshee in the world with a speech impediment, so instead of sitting on roofs and screaming when people are about to die he just writes them a note and slips it under the door—”
    Windle recalled a long, sad face. “He gave me one, too.”
    “We try to encourage him,” said Lupine. “He’s very self-conscious.”
    His arm shot out and flung Windle against a wall.
    “Quiet!”
    “What?”
    Lupine’s ears swiveled. His nostrils flared.
    Motioning Windle to remain where he was, the wereman slunk silently along the alley until he reached its junction with another, even smaller and nastier one. He paused for a moment, and then thrust a hairy hand around the