Reaper Man

to that…what’s it like, being a zombie?”
    “It’s okay. It’s not too bad.”
    Lupine nodded.
    “See you around,” he said, and strode off.
    The streets were beginning to fill up as the population of Ankh-Morpork began its informal shift change between the night people and the day people. All of them avoided Windle. People didn’t bump into a zombie if they could help it.
    He reached the University gates, which were now open, and made his way to his bedroom.
    He’d need money, if he was moving out. He’d saved quite a lot over the years. Had he made a will? He’d been fairly confused the past ten years or so. He might have made one. Had he been confused enough to leave all his money to himself? He hoped so. There’d been practically no known cases of anyone successfully challenging their own will—
    He levered up the floorboard by the end of his bed, and lifted out a bag of coins. He remembered he’d been saving up for his old age.
    There was his diary. It was a five-year diary, he recalled, so in a technical sense Windle had wasted about—he did a quick calculation—yes, about three-fifths of his money.
    Or more, when you came to think about it. After all, there wasn’t much on the pages. Windle hadn’t done anything worth writing down for years, or at least anything he’d been able to remember by the evening. There were just phases of the moon, lists of religious festivals, and the occasional sweet stuck to a page.
    There was something else down there under the floor, too. He fumbled around in the dusty space and found a couple of smooth spheres. He pulled them out and stared at them, mystified. He shook them, and watched the tiny snowfalls. He read the writing, noting how it wasn’t so much writing as a drawing of writing. He reached down and picked up the third object; it was a little bent metal wheel. Just one little metal wheel. And, beside it, a broken sphere.
    Windle stared at them.
    Of course, he had been a bit non-compos mentis in his last thirty years or so, and maybe he’d worn his underwear outside his clothes and dribbled a bit, but…he’d collected souvenirs? And little wheels?
    There was a cough behind him.
    Windle dropped the mysterious objects back into the hole and looked around. The room was empty, but there seemed to be a shadow behind the open door.
    “Hallo?” he said.
    A deep, rumbling, but very diffident voice said, “’S’only me, Mr. Poons.”
    Windle wrinkled his forehead with the effort of recollection.
    “Schleppel?” he said.
    “That’s right.”
    “The bogeyman?”
    “That’s right?”
    “Behind my door?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s a friendly door.”
    Windle walked over to the door and gingerly shut it. There was nothing behind it but old plaster, although he did fancy that he felt an air movement.
    “I’m under the bed now, Mr. Poons,” said Schleppel’s voice from, yes, under the bed. “You don’t mind, do you?”
    “Well, no. I suppose not. But shouldn’t you be in a closet somewhere? That’s where bogeymen used to hide when I was a lad.”
    “A good closet is hard to find, Mr. Poons.”
    Windle sighed. “All right. The underside of the bed’s yours. Make yourself at home, or whatever.”
    “I’d prefer going back to lurking behind the door, Mr. Poons, if it’s all the same to you.”
    “Oh, all right.”
    “Do you mind shutting your eyes a moment?”
    Windle obediently shut his eyes.
    There was another movement of air.
    “You can look now, Mr. Poons.”
    Windle opened his eyes.
    “Gosh,” said Schleppel’s voice, “you’ve even got a coat hook and everything behind here.”
    Windle watched the brass knobs on the end of his bedstead unscrew themselves.
    A tremor shook the floor.
    “What’s going on, Schleppel?” he said.
    “Build up of life force, Mr. Poons.”
    “You mean you know ?”
    “Oh, yes. Hey, wow, there’s a lock and a handle and a brass finger plate and everything behind here—”
    “What do you mean, a build up of life force?”
    “—and the hinges, there’s a really good rising butts here, never had a door with—”
    “Schleppel!”
    “Just life force, Mr. Poons. You know. It’s a kind of force what you get in things that are alive? I thought you wizards knew about this sort of thing.”
    Windle Poons opened his mouth to say something like “Of course we do,” before proceeding diplomatically to find out what the hell the bogeyman was talking about, and then