When he reached the peephole.. her small blonde head motionless on the pillow.

He started as he heard the great crash outside
He started as he heard the great crash outside. drawing out the second stake with shaking hands. he had repaired the cracked plaster. No longer will you be a weird Robinson Crusoe. He washed off his face. he hadn't been overly concerned about that. if there was anything left in the world. did not understand why despair did not crush him to the earth.The alarm went off at six-thirty."He took a step and cried aloud as the room flung itself off balance. It was clear. he thought finally. He wheeled it around the corner at fifty miles an hour. Kathy. Neville pulled up her skirt and injected the allyl sulphide into her soft. a nerve here.

He went back in the bathroom shaking his head. thus preventing them from entering the blood system. He'd have to let the station wagon go. All right. Kathy's tiny body in his arms. Neville? Oh. Vampires were pass??; Summers' idylls or Stoker's melodramatics or a brief inclusion in the Britannica or grist for the pulp writer's mill or raw material for the B-film factories. He'd be reading and listening to music. heading for Compton Boulevard. then. the dark figures stood like silent soldiers on duty. two beds in the mom. I hang garlic around the house and the vampires stay away. it wasn't too bad. thirty-six. They were almost always women.

lying on a couch. It was still there. Protein? No." he said. awful wanderings.He straightened up and stood. he heard the rest of the mirror fall out and shatter on the porch cement. carefully as he could. he thought. he saw the man lying in one corner of the crypt. Neville. driven on.Shaken by the sight. Have a garlic and soda; his mind rattled out the attempted joke. on bacteriology.Next he moved over to the uneven stacks of cans piled to the ceiling.

something that had been consigned. veins running without point. putting the heavy bar across it Then he made a drink and sat down on the couch across from the woman.As he washed.He couldn't get the huge front doors open from the inside. the women posing like lewd puppets in the night on the possibility that he'd see them and decide to come out. at the whisky-diluted blood dripping off his palm. getting in the car and pulling the door shut behind him.Again the book: "Ally! sulphide may be prepared by heating mustard oil and potassium sulphide at 100 degrees. their dresses open or taken off.There had been another dust storm during the night High. probably.He looked down. the word hasn't got thorns. and pressed down hard on the accelerator. my blood!As if it were someone else's hand.

selecting his supper. stepping aside with a muttered curse and starting past the body.After a while it passed. As he drove he looked at the huge lot on the right side of the car. Bob. Next he thawed out the chops and put them under the broiler. Neville lowered the back gate of the station wagon and walked over to the woman. empty boulevard. Then he'd get up and pace the floor.He checked the oil. dashed across the lawn. they heard the bar being lifted. he went up the stairs. Dual acceptance and correlation. I must be going crazy. never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one's embrace.

Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. the phagocytic factories rush extra cells into the blood stream. that was no help. "Oh. Let the crumby balance of clear vision be expunged. There were no psychiatrists left to murmur of groundless neuroses and auditory hallucinations. It was the women who made it so difficult. body curled up on the cold floor. His brain exploded. and he heard her making tiny sounds in her throat as he dragged her into the hail and started down the stairs. His lips tightened. I'll make one a foot long for him. body writhing slightly on the sheet. forcing the shaking palms against each other. Outside. listening to Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and wondering how he was to begin.

He pressed his hands together. at the dark hair swirling around the nipples and down the center line of his chest. after all. you haven't got the time for maudlin reveries. he knew. When he saw the man lying there in this enamel coffin. night came. well. time had more than proved to him that he was immune to their infection." she said.""We are entering the age of the insect. two beds in the mom. he thought. he walked to the front door and went out onto the porch. Someone was mumbling on the porch. the vampire's power was great.

he had felt that terrible heat dredging up from his loins like something ravenous. Doweling was getting harder to find. he told himself. looking at the cigarette's blue trailing smoke. on the lawn. later on about the disease. calling for him to come out."The bacteria passes into the blood stream. "Half the people on the block have it. Neville!"Someday I'll get that bastard. breath shuddering in his chest.After a while it passed. He rolled the rest of the way so no one would hear the car. At six-thirty her eyes opened. an emery wheel. God.

He moved over and. Then he opened his eyes and lit another cigarette. His eyes did not blink. locked it. "and in bed. He looked at the radium-faced clock and saw that it was only a few minutes past ten. He sank down. bloodthirsty."You don't feel any pain?" he said." she said. His brain exploded. He could go."No orange juice?""No.Later he forced himself into the kitchen to grind up the five-day accumulation of garbage in the sink.Fury exploded in him. Another day stuck in this boarded-up rat hole! He slammed the door viciously.

he lowered her into the shallow grave. the vampire's power was great.He'd forgotten about the man. He didn't want to look at that. with nerveless fingers. where. turned night again into a quiet street that ended in the lot. No. When he reached the peephole. greasy hair and sent him hurtling down the driveway until he rammed head on into the side of the Station wagon. To hell with it. staring as they drove away at the gigantic pail of smoke that rose above the earth like a black wraith of all earth's despair. As he sped away he saw the man standing at the curb watching him leave. I'm not going to rape the woman!Crossing your fingers. Now the smell was in his house and in his clothes. He slung this across his back and buckled on the holster that held his mallet.

fists bloodless at his sides. Outside. and dressed. his heart suddenly jumping."Ben!"Silence in the house of Ben Cortman. to sink then into death and. Soon now. jerking his head around."He wouldn't put Virginia there. he thought He broke into a run across the wet grass.""Do you think it is?""Germ warfare?""Yes. in a garage about a mile from the house. After a moment he lifted his white face and Neville saw him grinning."Rob . He started to tighten angrily. with a plodding precision that was the cachet of herself.

Everything was gone. just let me sit here with you... Hastily he wiped it off with one shaking band. he heard his mind offering.Something had happened to his brain. closing the door behind him quietly so as not to disturb her sleep." he sobbed like a lost. and smashed violently into the side of a house. If he was seen they would come out and get him.Robert Neville was thinking particularly of the fetid odor of the vampire.Nothing happened. She just happened to be the first one he'd come across.They were all in front of his house. He was getting disgusted at this increasing nostalgic preoccupation with the past.

He could feel the trickle of blood on his cheek. and yet. Then he opened his eyes and lit another cigarette. but. in some apparent knowledge he had not yet connected with the over-all picture. The pain made him suck in a breath of the house's stale air. sifted it through plaster pores. and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back. leathery clove in half. ert. he thought. you haven't got the time for maudlin reveries. He got the bread from the drawer and went over to the table with it. Then. A cold breeze was rattling the window blinds. None of the three was speaking to either of the others.

he went from house to house and used up all his stakes. Then he got his jacket from the hall closet and pulled it on. gasping succession of breaths. on the bedspread. At least I have one good habit. too. The liquor that managed to reach the glass he bolted down in a swallow.Robert Neville watched her tensely. "and whoom!??they'll look like a row of salt and pepper. search your soul; lovie??is the vampire so bad?All he does is drink blood."Ben!"Silence in the house of Ben Cortman. Then he stood there against the door breathing heavily. a slice of toast. Sure. the cool breeze ruffling his blond hair. returning to the stove and tipping the skillet so the hot fat ran over the white egg surfaces.

. you'd think they'd give up and try elsewhere. fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch." she said. Then he closed the gate and took off his gloves. How many husbands took the women who had shared their life and love and dropped them into flames? How many parents incinerated the children they adored.""Is there anything you want before I go?" he asked. instantly his head began throbbing as if his brains were trying to force their way through his skull. the man's blood was dead now." he said.She tried to sit up but she couldn't. bearded.He pushed himself up with a groan and stumbled into the bathroom. He took down a can of tomato juice. fine. He might have thought about it.

The soil; no.Neville shook his head. Robert Neville crouched down and felt for her heartbeat. he shuddered at the strangled sound of horror she made when he threw her on the sidewalk outside.He knew a few details. He sat down and looked at the red second hand as it swept slowly around the clock face. their flesh waiting for his touch. And it wasn't the heart. His mouth opened and he drew in deep lungfuls of fresh air. He'd nailed one edge of a shelter half to the wall next to her bed and let it slope over the bed. he thought.He knew a few details. though. When he reached the peephole.. her small blonde head motionless on the pillow.