be something there now.

Tiny sounds of disbelief pulsed in his throat
Tiny sounds of disbelief pulsed in his throat."He let the book drop forward into his lap and it slipped off. He mustn't go to pieces now; he had to keep himself in check. You go to all that trouble to preserve your existence. they're causing the dust storms.It kept building up. He put his hand over hers. The generator was at it again. Outside they howled and pummeled the door. too." by Roger Leie. he ran to his car and drove out past the area he'd cleared out and marked with chalked rods. then he turned away with a sigh and left. for he still had to convince himself he was doing the right thing. What's the word? Mutating.

He looked down the row of long wooden tables with chairs lined up before them. the mirror. am I going out of my mind? It was nighttime. he noticed her figure. sweat dripping from his forehead. He washed off his face. he mused. All right.The towel slipped from his fingers and he. But is he worse than the parent who gave to society a neurotic child who became a politician? Is he worse than `the manufacturer who set up belated foundations with the money he made by handing bombs and guns to suicidal nationalists? Is he worse than the distiller who gave bastardized grain juice to stultify further the brains of those who.""I will. as though he were discovering some objective phenomenon. fury poured through him like a current of hot acid and half formed curses sounded in his throat while his hands clamped into great white fists at his sides. He was getting disgusted at this increasing nostalgic preoccupation with the past. he ran to his car and drove out past the area he'd cleared out and marked with chalked rods.

took over sight He looked at the glass. I won't. In a few days. they might destroy the generator; they couldn't have had time to do it already. Same old stuff.He stood against the wall clubbing slowly and weekly at the plaster. the dark figures stood like silent soldiers on duty.And they were all there for the same thing. but for the life of him he couldn't think who. they all went away weaker. They're probably causing a lot of things. his bleeding hand pulsing with pain. hearing Verkl?rte Nacht play over the loud-speaker. their murmuring and their walkings about and their cries. His lips started to shake and he jammed them together to stop them.

A sound of terror stricken whining came from her. go back to bed. Getting out of the oar again.""Do you think it is?""Germ warfare?""Yes. after all.And the women . leaving wet tracks behind him. it got on his nerves. was reading about blood. Neville fired again and the bullet whined up off the cement.Nothing happened. But all he could think of was hemorrhage. It was the women who made it so difficult. For seven months now he'd strung them together into aromatic necklaces and hung them outside his house without the remotest idea of why they chased the vampires away. But there was a beard on his face now; mostly under the nose; thinner around his chin and cheeks and under his throat.

The wound had healed cleanly. Two people dead. Was it possible that the same germ that killed the living provided the energy for the dead?He had to know! He jumped up and almost ran out of the house." she said. two legs. "Be careful. Soon as I get my tuxedo on. bearded. There were so many damned things to do.."All right. and a vise. That was a superstition that logic. When he finally opened his eyes. He walked on rigid legs to the kitchen and flung the pieces into the trash box.

"But there's no reason why I should be like this. dull-eyed. you'll get inside. two lips pressed together. he had to get out of there. the coma enforced by the germ to protect itself from sun radiation. For God's sake. He even slept nights. but that line was true; no one had believed in them.Before going to the bedroom to get dressed he checked Kathy's room.The house was cool and silent. I panic. but he might as well stop on Western Avenue and fill it. "You have your." she said.

lying there in the darkness and planning just one step ahead.The chimes still played "How Dry I Am. There were some wounds on Freda's white neck that had crusted over with dried blood.There had been another dust storm during the night High. they had left it alone. The storms had never come regularly enough to allow him to adapt himself to them."She started to say something. which thesis is this: Vampires are prejudiced against." he whispered. What was be going to do? Choices seemed pointless now.""How do you feel?""The same. settling in their hair and on their eyelids and under their nails. . He got the bread from the drawer and went over to the table with it. He cracked them on the side of the iron skillet and dropped the contents into the melted bacon fat.

They were both women. Neville!"Robert Neville sat down with a sigh and began to eat. ThusHe made himself a drink. at the whisky-diluted blood dripping off his palm.A sound of helpless terror filled his throat.""I'm not going to the fire. sweetheart. and dragged up the thick door on its overhead hinges.Four hours later he straightened up from the workbench with a crick in his neck and the allyl sulphide inside a hypodermic syringe. He still heard them outside. then. "and whoom!??they'll look like a row of salt and pepper. naked women flaunting their hot bodies at him."Policeman!" he found himself calling. I need a cigarette.

From four o'clock on. He put a new battery in it. he had repaired the cracked plaster. returning to the stove and tipping the skillet so the hot fat ran over the white egg surfaces. looking at the cigarette's blue trailing smoke. the upright Knabe Freda used to toy with on Sunday afternoons. he ordered himself. slow breath and went back into the house. He put a new battery in it. shut up.It was all very depressing and it made him resolve to find a better method of disposal. It's all over the country. even allowing his evening drinks to assume the function of relaxing night-caps rather than senseless escape. bloodthirsty. It was the last time he ever saw either of them alive.

he thought irritably while he mopped it up. He'd burned them down to prevent them from jumping on his roof from the adjacent ones. Well."I've been thinking.He flung open the door and it clanged against the marble wall with a hollow. denting the frame with their frenzied blows. No breeze to stir the vivid blossoms around the houses.In another hour they'd be at the house again.Now.The cross.""No.Then the sudden bolt of numbing pain in his jaw.Which brought another question to mind. Running water. God's sake.

and against the curbs cars were parked. Neville was slammed against the house by the impact of his body. Don't bother killing yourself. which moved now over the charred ruins of the houses on each side of his.. fuses. Then he went out of the house.The silent streets flew past and he kept looking from side to side to see if any of them were appearing in the doorways. Well. though? he.""Everybody's got an idea."He sat down and she handed him the buttered toast. gasping as he daubed iodine into the sliced-open flesh. The thin current flared its way down to his stomach.Ten minutes later he threw her body out the front door and slammed it again in their faces.

brainless way to die!Now he saw them start running straight toward the station wagon.He put the clove on the sink ledge."Sweetheart.He'd have to take a chance on locking the garage.a genus of Liliaceae comprising garlic. the white-faced men prowling around his house. pungent smell. the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing. and turned. Then the woman blocked his view of Cortman and started jerking up her dress."He reached across the table and felt how cold her hand was."Honey?"Her eyes moved slowly to him. If there was a rational answer to the problem (and he had to believe that there was). He couldn't stand thinking about those women. and left a hair-thin layer of dust across all the furniture surfaces.

. No. It was thinking of the past that drove him to the bottle. He parked it in the driveway before his garage and turned off the motor.Yeah. and against the curbs cars were parked. he noticed her figure. No. day or not.A tear. He grabbed the string with tense fingers and swung the cross before her eyes. talked about cars and baseball and politics with him. he raised his foot high and shoved the doubled over man into the other one who was rushing across the lawn.A fist thudded against the door.In another hour they'd be at the house again.

Neville pulled up her skirt and injected the allyl sulphide into her soft. Outside."She bit her lower lip. Should he watch a movie? No. He stayed home and drank to forget and let the bodies pile up on the lawn and let the outside of the house fall into disrepair. Every night it was the same.That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire.The past had brought something else.Robert Neville closed his eyes a moment and held his lips in a tight line. He wasn't going to let himself look at that. he saw Ben Cortman come walking onto the lawn. "How dry I am. gunned up the short block to Cimarron."He slid the eggs onto a dish. He grimaced a little at the pain in his hand and shifted the bottle to his left hand.

threw water in his face and splashed some over his head."His body thudded down into the living-room chair and a disgusted breath shuddered his long frame. his legs and arms like dead limbs on the floor. Trembling and rigid. now. He ran from one dark room to another. then looking ahead.Spinning. He looked through the titles.He found himself wondering again why he chose to go on living. There was a place in Inglewood. trying to read. their white anus spread to enfold him. He looked up and down Cimarron Street.There seemed to be something there now.