Reaper Man

barred windows. Death had wondered, at the time, why anyone would do something like that.
    I WON’T DELAY YOU , he said. I EXPECT YOU’VE GOT THINGS TO DO , RATS TO SEE . I KNOW HOW IT IS .
    And now he understood.
    He put the figure back on the beam, and lay down in the hay.
    D ROP IN ANY TIME YOU’RE PASSING .
    Bill Door stared at the darkness again.
    Sleep. He could feel her prowling around. Sleep, with a pocketful of dreams.
    He lay in the darkness and fought back.

    Miss Flitworth’s shouting jolted him upright and, to his momentary relief, still went on.
    The barn door slammed open.
    “Bill! Come down quick!”
    He swung his legs onto the ladder.
    W HAT IS HAPPENING , M ISS F LITWORTH ?
    “Something’s on fire!”
    They ran across the yard and out onto the road. The sky over the village was red.
    “Come on!”
    B UT IT IS NOT OUR FIRE .
    “It’s going to be everyone’s! It spreads like crazy on thatch!”
    They reached the apology for a town square. The inn was already well alight, the thatch roaring star-ward in a million twisting sparks.
    “Look at everyone standing around,” snarled Miss Flitworth. “There’s the pump, buckets are everywhere, why don’t people think ?”
    There was a scuffle a little way as a couple of his customers tried to stop Lifton from running into the building. He was screaming at them.
    “The girl’s still in there,” said Miss Flitworth. “Is that what he said?”
    Y ES .
    Flames curtained every upper window.
    “There’s got to be some way,” said Miss Flitworth. “Maybe we could find a ladder—”
    W E SHOULD NOT .
    “What? We’ve got to try. We can’t leave people in there!”
    Y OU DON’T UNDERSTAND , said Bill Door. T O TINKER WITH THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL COULD DESTROY THE WHOLE WORLD .
    Miss Flitworth looked at him as if he had gone mad.
    “What kind of garbage is that?”
    I MEAN THAT THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYONE TO DIE .
    She stared. Then she drew her hand back, and gave him a ringing slap across the face.
    He was harder than she’d expected. She yelped and sucked at her knuckles.
    “You leave my farm tonight , Mr. Bill Door,” she growled. “Understand?” Then she turned on her heel and ran toward the pump.
    Some of the men had brought long hooks to drag the burning thatch off the roof. Miss Flitworth organized a team to get a ladder up to one of the bedroom windows but, by the time a man was persuaded to climb it behind the steaming protection of a damp blanket, the top of the ladder was already smouldering.
    Bill Door watched the flames.
    He reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden timer. The firelight glowed redly on the glass. He put it away again.
    Part of the roof fell in.
    S QUEAK .
    Bill Door looked down. A small robed figure marched between his legs and strutted into the flaming doorway.
    Someone was yelling something about barrels of brandy.
    Bill Door reached back into his pocket and took out the timer again. Its hissing drowned out the roar of the flames. The future flowed into the past, and there was a lot more past than there was future, but he was struck by the fact that what it flowed through all the time was now .
    He replaced it carefully.
    Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.
    To Bill Door, he realized, it was so much horse elbows.
    O H , DAMN , he said.
    And walked into the fire.

    “Um. It’s me, Librarian,” said Windle, trying to shout through the keyhole. “Windle Poons.”
    He tried hammering some more.
    “Why won’t he answer?”
    “Don’t know,” said a voice behind him.
    “Schleppel?”
    “Yes, Mr. Poons.”
    “Why are you behind me?”
    “I’ve got to be behind something, Mr. Poons. That’s what being a bogeyman is all about.”
    “Librarian?” said Windle, hammering some more.
    “Oook.”
    “Why won’t you let me in?”
    “Oook.”
    “But I need to look something up.”
    “Oook oook!”
    “Well, yes. I am. What’s that got to do with it?”
    “Oook!”
    “That’s—that’s unfair!”
    “What’s he saying, Mr. Poons?”
    “He won’t let me in because I’m dead!”
    “That’s typical. That’s the sort of thing Reg Shoe is always going on about, you know.”
    “Is there anyone else that knows about life force?”
    “There’s always Mrs. Cake, I suppose. But she’s a bit weird.”
    “Who’s Mrs. Cake?” Then Windle realized what Schleppel had just said.