little, to add to the open-air gardens. I planned to plant vegetables and fruit in the open-air cloister gardens in warm weather, and use the Guilhem cloister as a hot house during winter. In this way, I hoped to manage for a long time. Maybe for ten years, and was happily scampering out through the front portals, spade in hand, when a giant grabbed me from behind.
Lifting me into the air, he growled in my ear, "I thought I’d run out of victims, but you’ll do nicely." He turned me to face him, pinning me with those dead eyes, demanding, "What’d you think of that?"
In a strangled voice, I replied, "Oh crap! With everyone else dead, you managed to survive. With all the places you could be, you had to come here!"
He stared at me with disappointment. "You’re older than I thought. Not my type." With a maniacal smile, he added, "But you’ll have to do."
"So, you’re planning to commit suicide?"
At that, he shook me so hard my teeth rattled. "What’re you talking about?" he demanded in a raspy voice. Then he slammed me down.
"Hey, this place may be safe for the moment, but you can’t just ring for room service. How are you planning to survive?" He stared at me in bewilderment as I continued. "Are you planning to drag in extra dirt and grow food in the gardens? Are you planning to can that food so as not to starve in the winter? And where will you plant during the winter months?"
As I rambled on about my survival plans, ending with raising lemon and orange trees in the tiny St. Guilhem Cloister, he became calmer. "Ok! Ok!" he agreed, spinning around as Katmandu pattered into the room.
"No! No!" I screamed, leaping on the killer’s back as he bent to grab the cat.
"I was going to let you live, but you’re starting to be trouble," he roared, shaking free of my grasping hands.
"No! No! No killing in the castle or on the grounds," I panted, trying to free my kitty from the Fireman’s huge hands.
"Then there’s no one left," he snarled.
"You and I may be the last two humans on Earth! Kill me and you’ll really be alone. And by now, there aren’t any other animals or pets." I paused to catch my breath and saw I had his attention. "You could do it to the zombies," I insisted. "Bet they really burn! And you’d be doing a community service by getting rid of them."
He considered this possibility and smiled.
"Just be sure to lock the gate each time you go on a spree before we’re up to our hats in undead."
He was staring at me again, wheels turning in his head. Not good, thought I. "This is a really large place. Why not choose a room now and settle in," I suggested. "Dinner will be served in a couple of hours in the Cuxa Cloister."
"The Cook-sa what?"
"My name is Chris Chambers. You know, the mystery writer." He returned a blank stare. "Well, not to worry, I’ll find you."
PRISONERS IN THE CASTLE
After securing kitty safely in my room, I stepped outside to gather a few pails of earth, the better to begin my plantings. As I worked, I considered the situation, hoping to make myself so indispensible to this monster that he would suffer my presence, without harming me.
When dinnertime rolled around, I set up a grated fire in the Cuxa garden and called to the Fireman. Taking part in the barbecue seemed to calm him and he remarked that I reminded him of his mother.
"This food is good," he announced in his raspy voice. "But my mother couldn’t cook. And she never remembered my birthday. Said gifts and cakes with candles were for babies. And she beat me."
"That’s a very sad story," I whispered.
"When I turned 14, I set her on fire," he confided. "She was my first. I’d been truant so long that no one ever came looking for me. Or her. They never found the body." His eyes turned strange again with the remembering.
There was an awkward silence, broken only by the swallows’ twittering in the Spanish gables on the roof. Eager to switch the subject, I invited him to inspect the interesting items in the gift shop. "The nights are long here since we can’t switch on lights after dark. And we have to ration the candles."
As we passed by the Unicorn room, he gestured to the tapestries, offering, "I could use some of these to cover the windows in a few of the rooms, so that the light doesn’t show outside. Then we could read or play cards."
Sadly, I recalled how some of these priceless tapestries, the most famous in the world, had once been used to wrap vegetables in France, during a frost. They had then been discarded in a barn until sections wore away before being discovered and returned to the castle. And now they were fated to once again become curtains.
"Yes," I agreed. "Except for me, there’s no one left to care about these treasures. But I’m a big fan of this museum. If you’d like, I can tell you about the rooms and their contents, about the tapestries, and the gardens." And I prattled on, confiding I’d always loved the Cloisters so much that I’d often fantasized about living here. "I’d always thought that if I could actually live here, I’d have it all."
"Maybe," he muttered without any real interest. Then he was off to the gift shop to make his selection, while I cleared up the remains of our meal.
As time passed, the Fireman seemed more accepting of my presence, but he never addressed me by name. Even so, I did my best to please him and it took a lot of good meals and birthday parties to bring him around. He soon developed a routine where he left the grounds to hunt almost every night, which was wicked hard on the zombies. Finally, I felt it was safe to ask his name.
"Erik Dieter," he told me, adding that his mother had been a German immigrant. And a single parent. As he spoke, I saw that Katmandu had somehow escaped confinement and was approaching the Fireman. Before I could intervene, the foolish cat leapt onto Erik’s lap and stretched out with a contented purr. Those huge, murderous hands closed over my precious kitty.
"No!" I screamed. "You promised!"
"I never promised," the giant rumbled. "But look, he likes me." He peered questioningly at Katmandu, who rubbed a furry cheek against the large hand. "The last of his kind, you say?"
"Yes, we are all the last of our kind," I whispered. "And Katmandu is the last of his kind. Please don’t hurt my kitty."
"I’m not going to hurt him," the guttural voice insisted. "Look, he’s licking my hand."
"That’s the way cats kiss. Or groom. It means he really likes you," I said.
Erik held the cat up to his face and whispered, "I like you, too, kitty. Like it when you’re warm and furry. And when you purr, I can feel the life burning inside you."
"Be gentle," I whimpered. "Just don’t want kitty to have an accident, that’s all." And I wanted to shout he frightened me so, that I’d taken to keeping a chamber pot beside my bed because trying to reach a restroom after dark was tantamount to suicide.
But serial killers can be treacherous and it was only two nights later that Katmandu mysteriously disappeared just before bedtime. Risking my life by slipping out of my stronghold to seek kitty, I tiptoed from hall to hall, calling softly, "Here, kitty. Here, kitty." This was madness and the hair rose on my forearms. Erik could be anywhere in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
Finally, I’d searched in every room, through every hall, in every nook and cranny, and still no cat. Then it came to me in a flash. Erik had Katmandu! Had probably taken my kitty to his own room for some terrible purpose.
I slipped across the open garden of the Cuxa Cloister and through the door leading to the staircase that overlooked the crypt below. Pausing noiselessly, or so I hoped, I gazed down into the blackness. A large, open space it was, two stories high, showcased by the huge, stained-glass windows that stood from the upper ceiling to the dark sepulchres beneath. This sonorous place was Erik’s chosen bed chamber. Known as the stone cage!
It was impossible to cover these huge windows with tapestries to block out candlelight and, in the pools of moonlight, I made out his huge crouching form below. As I watched, he made no movement, no rep
ly. Katmandu managed to squeak out one piteous mew before it was choked off. Was I in time? My heart leapt in my chest, then I gathered my courage.
"Erik!" My voice thundered in the open space. "Give me my cat!" When Erik didn’t respond, I tried again. "You were in my private room. Without permission!" And still he did not reply. I deliberately walked to the top of the stairs and stared down at him. "I can see you!" I announced. "Let kitty go!" When my demand was met with silence, I thundered, "Don’t make me come down there!"
There was another long pause and I took two steps down into the gloom. And, suddenly, Katmandu came flying up the stairs and leapt into my arms. I spun about and, with kitty’s forearms around my neck and his tiny face pressed against my shoulder, I sprinted back through the garden and into the Unicorn room. Kitty jumped down and hid in a corner, while I slammed and bolted both doors.
That little incident had been too close for comfort. Obviously, kitty could no longer be left alone. The following morning I fashioned a sling for the cat, the kind that lets a mother carry a new baby against her chest. And from that moment on, during daylight hours, my furry papoose was kept in the sling.
When I sallied forth the next morning, Erik was already seated in the Cuxa garden, awaiting breakfast. With his usual blank expression, he ate everything put before him, never mentioning the night before. Just as if it had never happened. But it