Reaper Man

“Anyway, you’re a bogeyman .”
    “You never heard of Mrs. Cake?”
    “No.”
    “I don’t suppose she’s interested in magic…Anyway, Mr. Shoe says we shouldn’t talk to her. She exploits dead people, he says.”
    “How?”
    “She’s a medium. Well, more a small.”
    “Really? All right, let’s go and see her. And…Schleppel?”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s creepy, feeling you standing behind me the whole time.”
    “I get very upset if I’m not behind something, Mr. Poons.”
    “Can’t you lurk behind something else?”
    “What do you suggest, Mr. Poons?”
    Windle thought about it. “Yes, it might work,” he said quietly, “if I can find a screwdriver.”

    Modo the gardener was on his knees mulching the dahlias when he heard a rhythmic scraping and thumping behind him, such as might be made by someone trying to move a heavy object.
    He turned his head.
    “’Evening, Mr. Poons. Still dead, I see.”
    “’Evening, Modo. You’ve got the place looking very nice.”
    “There’s someone moving a door along behind you, Mr. Poons.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    The door edged cautiously along the path. As it passed Modo it pivoted awkwardly, as if whoever was carrying it was trying to keep as much behind it as possible.
    “It’s a kind of security door,” said Windle.
    He paused. There was something wrong. He couldn’t quite be certain what it was, but there was suddenly a lot of wrongness about, like hearing one note out of tune in an orchestra. He audited the view in front of him.
    “What’s that you’re putting the weeds into?” he said.
    Modo glanced at the thing beside him.
    “Good, isn’t it?” he said. “I found it by the compost heaps. My wheelbarrow’d broke, and I looked up, and there—”
    “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Windle. “Who’d want to make a big basket out of wire? And those wheels don’t look big enough.”
    “But it pushes along well by the handle,” said Modo. “I’m amazed that anyone would want to throw it away. Why would anyone want to throw away something like this, Mr. Poons?”
    Windle stared at the trolley. He couldn’t escape the feeling that it was watching him.
    He heard himself say, “Maybe it got there by itself.”
    “That’s right, Mr. Poons! It wanted a bit of peace, I expect!” said Modo. “You are a one!”
    “Yes,” said Windle, unhappily. “It rather looks that way.”
    He stepped out into the city, aware of the scraping and thumping of the door behind him.
    If someone had told me a month ago, he thought, that a few days after I died I’d be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door…why, I’d have laughed at them.
    No, I wouldn’t. I’d have said “eh?” and “what?” and “speak up!” and wouldn’t have understood anyway.
    Beside him, someone barked.
    A dog was watching him. It was a very large dog. In fact, the only reason it could be called a dog and not a wolf was that everyone knew you didn’t get wolves in cities.
    It winked. Windle thought: no full moon last night.
    “Lupine?” he ventured.
    The dog nodded.
    “Can you talk?”
    The dog shook its head.
    “So what do you do now?”
    Lupine shrugged.
    “Want to come with me?”
    There was another shrug that almost vocalized the thought: why not? What else have I got to do?
    If someone had told me a month ago, Windle thought, that a few days after I died I’d be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door and accompanied by a kind of negative version of a werewolf…why, I probably would have laughed at them. After they’d repeated themselves a few times, of course. In a loud voice.

    The Death of Rats rounded up the last of his clients, many of whom had been in the thatch, and led the way through the flames toward wherever it was that good rats went.
    He was surprised to pass a burning figure forcing its way through the incandescent mess of collapsed beams and crumbling floorboards. As it mounted the blazing stairs it removed something from the disintegrating remains of its clothing and held it carefully in its teeth.
    The Death of Rats did not wait to see what happened next. While it was, in some respects, as ancient as the first proto-rat, it was also less than a day old and still feeling its way as a Death, and it was possibly aware that a deep, thumping noise that was making the building shake was the sound of brandy starting to boil in its barrels.
    The thing about