Reaper Man

have tried to blow a mountain over.
    Rain swept over the fields, among shreds of mist that shimmered with blue electric energies.
    “Never known a night like it,” Miss Flitworth said.
    There was another crack of thunder. Sheet lightning fluttered around the horizon.
    Miss Flitworth clutched Bill Door’s arm.
    “Isn’t that…a figure on the hill?” she said. “Thought I saw a…shape.”
    N O , IT’S MERELY A MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCE .
    There was another flash.
    “On a horse?” said Miss Flitworth.
    A third sheet seared across the sky. And this time there was no doubt about it. There was a mounted figure on the nearest hilltop. Hooded. Holding a scythe as proudly as a lance.
    P OSING . Bill Door turned toward Miss Flitworth. P OSING . I NEVER DID ANYTHING LIKE THAT . W HY DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT ? W HAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE ?
    He opened his palm. The gold timer appeared.
    “How much longer have you got?”
    P ERHAPS AN HOUR . P ERHAPS MINUTES .
    “Come on, then!”
    Bill Door remained where he was, looking at the timer.
    “I said, come on!”
    I T WON’T WORK . I WAS WRONG TO THINK THAT IT WOULD . B UT IT WON’T . T HERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT YOU CANNOT ESCAPE . Y OU CANNOT LIVE FOREVER . “Why not?”
    Bill Door looked shocked. W HAT DO YOU MEAN ?
    “Why can’t you live forever?”
    I DON’T KNOW . C OSMIC WISDOM ?
    “What does cosmic wisdom know about it? Now, will you come on?”
    The figure on the hill hadn’t moved.
    The rain had turned the dust into a fine mud. They slithered down the slope and hurried across the yard and into the house.
    I SHOULD HAVE PREPARED MORE . I HAD PLANS —
    “But there was the harvest.”
    Y ES .
    “Is there any way we can barricade the doors or something?”
    D O YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING ?
    “Well, think of something! Didn’t anything ever work against you?”
    N O , said Bill Door, with a tiny touch of pride.
    Miss Flitworth peered out of the window, and then flung herself dramatically against the wall on one side of it.
    “He’s gone!”
    I T , said Bill Door. I T WON’T BE A H E YET .
    “ It’s gone. It could be anywhere.”
    I T CAN COME THROUGH THE WALL .
    She darted forward, and then glared at him.
    V ERY WELL . F ETCH THE CHILD . I THINK WE SHOULD LEAVE HERE . A thought struck him. He brightened up a little bit. W E DO HAVE SOME TIME . W HAT IS THE HOUR ?
    “I don’t know. You go around stopping the clocks the whole time.”
    B UT IT IS NOT YET MIDNIGHT ?
    “I shouldn’t think it’s more than a quarter past eleven.”
    T HEN WE HAVE THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR .
    “How can you be sure?”
    B ECAUSE OF DRAMA , M ISS F LITWORTH . T HE KIND OF D EATH WHO POSES AGAINST THE SKYLINE AND GETS LIT UP BY LIGHTNING FLASHES , said Bill Door, disapprovingly, DOESN’T TURN UP AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY PAST ELEVEN IF HE CAN POSSIBLY TURN UP AT MIDNIGHT .
    She nodded, white-faced, and disappeared upstairs. After a minute or two she returned, with Sal wrapped up in a blanket.
    “Still fast asleep,” she said.
    T HAT’S NOT SLEEP .
    The rain had stopped, but the storm still marched around the hills. The air sizzled, still seemed oven-hot.
    Bill Door led the way past the henhouse, where Cyril and his elderly harem were crouched back in the darkness, all trying to occupy the same few inches of perch.
    There was a pale green glow hovering around the farmhouse chimney.
    “We call that Mother Carey’s Fire,” said Miss Flitworth. “It’s an omen.”
    A N OMEN OF WHAT ?
    “What? Oh, don’t ask me. Just an omen, I suppose. Just basic omenery. Where are we going?”
    I NTO THE TOWN .
    “To be near the scythe?”
    Y ES .
    He disappeared into the barn. After a while he came out leading Binky, saddled and harnessed. He mounted up, then leaned down and pulled both her and the sleeping child onto the horse in front of him.
    I F I’ M WRONG , he added, THIS HORSE WILL TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU WANT TO GO .
    “I shan’t want to go anywhere except back home!”
    W HEREVER .
    Binky broke into a trot as they turned onto the road to the town. Wind blew the leaves off the trees, which tumbled past them and on up the road. The occasional flash of lightning still hissed across the sky.
    Miss Flitworth looked at the hill beyond the farm.
    “Bill—”
    I KNOW .
    “—it’s there again—”
    I KNOW . “Why isn’t it chasing us?”
    W E’RE SAFE UNTIL THE SAND RUNS OUT . “And you die when the sand runs out?” N O . W HEN THE SAND RUNS OUT IS WHEN I SHOULD DIE . I WILL