Reaper Man

trolley skewed to a halt.
    “Got anymore magic, Dean?”
    “Er…no, Archchancellor.”
    “And the spells you just said will go off…?”
    “And second now, Archchancellor.”
    “So…whatever’s going to happen…is going to happen to us?”
    “ Yes , Archchancellor.”
    Ridcully patted Windle on the head.
    “Sorry about this,” he said.
    Windle turned awkwardly to look down the passageway.
    There was something behind the Queen. It looked like a perfectly ordinary bedroom door, advancing in a series of small steps, as though someone was carefully pushing it along in front of them.
    “What is it?” said Red.
    Windle raised himself as far as he could.
    “Schleppel!”
    “Oh, come on ,” said Reg.
    “It’s Schleppel!” shouted Windle. “ Schleppel! It’s us! Can you help us out?”
    The door paused. Then it was flung aside.
    Schleppel unfolded himself to his full height.
    “Hallo, Mr. Poons. Hallo, Reg,” he said.
    They stared at the hairy shape that nearly filled the passageway.
    “Er, Schleppel…er…could you clear the way for us?” Windle quavered.
    “ No problem, Mr. Poons. Anything for a friend.”
    A hand the size of a wheelbarrow glided through the steam and tore into the blockage, ripping it out with incredible ease.
    “Hey, look at me!” said Schleppel. “You’re right. A bogeyman needs a door like a fish needs a bicycle! Say it now and say it loud, I’m—”
    “And now could you get out of the way, please?”
    “Sure. Sure. Wow!” Schleppel took another swipe at the Queen.
    The trolley shot forward.
    “And you’d better come with us!” Windle shouted, as Schleppel disappeared in the mists.
    “No he shouldn’t,” said the Archchancellor, as they sped along. “Believe me. What was it?”
    “He’s a bogeyman,” said Windle.
    “I thought you only get them in closets and things?” shouted Ridcully.
    “He’s come out of the closet,” said Reg Shoe proudly. “And he’s found himself.”
    “Just so long as we can lose him.”
    “We can’t just leave him—”
    “We can! We can!” snapped Ridcully.
    There was a sound behind them like an eruption of swamp gas. Green light streamed past.
    “The spells are starting to go off!” shouted the Dean. “Move it!”
    The trolley whirred out of the entrance and soared up into the cool of the night, wheels screaming.
    “Yo!” bellowed Ridcully, as the crowd scattered ahead of them.
    “Does that mean I can say yo too?” said the Dean.
    “All right. Just once. Everyone can say it just once.”
    “Yo!”
    “Yo!” echoed Reg Shoe.
    “Oook!”
    “Yo!” said Windle Poons.
    “Yo!” said Schleppel.
    (Somewhere in the darkness, where the crowd was thinnest, the gaunt shape of Mr. Ixolite, the world’s last surviving banshee, sidled up to the shaking building and bashfully shoved a note under the door.
    It said: OOOOeeeOOOeeeOOOeee.)
    The trolley plowed to a very definitive stop. No one turned around. Reg said, slowly: “You’re behind us, right?”
    “That’s right, Mr. Shoe,” said Schleppel happily.
    “Should we worry when he’s in front of us?” said Ridcully. “Or is it worse because we know he’s behind us?”
    “Hah! No more closets and cellars for this bogey,” said Schleppel.
    “That’s a shame, because we’ve got some really big cellars at the University,” said Windle Poons quickly.
    Schleppel was silent for a while. Then he said, in an exploratory tone of voice, “How big?”
    “Huge.”
    “Yeah? With rats?”
    “Rats aren’t the half of it. There’s escaped demons and all sorts down there. Infested, they are.”
    “What are you doing?” hissed Ridcully. “That’s our cellars you’re talking about.”
    “You’d prefer him under your bed, would you?” murmured Windle. “Or walking around behind you?”
    Ridcully nodded briskly.
    “Wow, yes, those rats are getting really out of hand down there,” he said loudly. “Some of them—oh, about two feet long, wouldn’t you say, Dean?”
    “Three feet,” said the Dean. “At least.”
    “Fat as butter, too,” said Windle.
    Schleppel gave this some thought. “Well, all right,” he said reluctantly. “Maybe I’ll just wander in and have a look at them.”
    The big store exploded and imploded at the same time, something it is almost impossible to achieve without a huge special effects budget or three spells all working against one another. There was the impression of a vast cloud expanding but at the same time moving away