sitting like a bug in a rug.

he thought
he thought. and how could they fight something they didn't even believe in?That was what the situation had been. He picked up the book and tried to read. they heard the bar being lifted. he thought.He sat in the kitchen staring into a steaming cup of coffee. it was a natural drive.He looked back and saw them gaining. slow breath and went back into the house. The women. determined mouth and the bright blue of his eyes. Another night was ended.Deep in his body."He reached across the table and felt how cold her hand was. punctured by knives."Sure you don't want some coffee?" he asked her.

. in some apparent knowledge he had not yet connected with the over-all picture. He knew it had to be that way. bending at he waist. the seventy. Once he had spoken to that man. commented his mind.. in some obscure crevice of memory. she started to move.For a while he stood on the front lawn looking up and down the silent length of Cimarron Street."I'm not going there!" Neville shouted without looking at the man. and he didn't want to feel that they were forcing him into a shell. the sounds outside were starting to nibble at his eardrums. during the time he now called his "frenzied period.He straightened up and stood.

Then.Oh. Pain exploded in his right knee. there was danger there." she said. buddy. Neville fired again and the bullet whined up off the cement. Now he'd straightened up and taken his finger out."She sighed wearily and shook her head. Fat? No. now.Nothing happened. go back to bed. The body rolled onto its back. looking at Ben Cortman. he knew.

and switched off the heat under the string beans. he went outside and nailed them over the window boarding. their snarling and fighting among themselves. Into the legs and the arms.His chest filled with night air. she was one of the vampires who had originally started the plague.At Sears he got the lathe. How was it that he always managed to hit the heart? It had to be the heart; Dr. 64. You're getting blotto. which he drove into Cortman's face. It seemed fantastic that it had taken him five months to start wondering about it. the repairing of the house's exterior. groaning. their white anus spread to enfold him. what else can I do? he asked himself.

there was no such thing as that.He read on. No. suddenly furious. enjoying fiercely the burning pain in his flesh. lips pressed into a hard line. 100-proof hemoglobin. he ordered himself. Virginia.Now.His fingers tightened slowly and his head sank forward on his chest. Four-thirty. no measures for proper education. He pressed down on the accelerator.The man looked at him blankly. rhythmically.

It had made the house a gloomy sepulcher. his eyes Staring at the bit as it gnawed away the wood and sent floury dust filtering down to the floor. the mirror. his mind still pulsing. the bookcase across from him. Her eyes.. "Oh. and that didn't explain that woman. Won't that be fun? He thought irritably. Half the whisky he poured splashed onto the rug. and already you've fallen fiat on your face. that was clear. they heard the bar being lifted.He put the clove on the sink ledge. There was no solace in liquor.

of course you shall. picking up stones and bricks and putting them into a cloth sack. breathing heavily. Kathy's tiny body in his arms."Good morning."Neville!"His body jerked back as Cortman came lunging out of the dark shadows of the garage. he thought. lying there in the darkness and planning just one step ahead. Finally one day he'd torn off the plywood and nailed up even rows of planks instead. In the beginning he'd made a peephole in the front window and watched them. he ran to the next house. his body inclined to corpulence. so he had to try using one of the many cars parted around the neighborhood. He put a new battery in it. spinning winds had scoured the house with grit. but she gasped and muttered and her body kept trying to writhe out of his grip.

listening to the whisky gurgle out of the bottle mouth and spread across the floor. he thought. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't that he had to listen to them. It was the last time he ever saw either of them alive. He went the short block to Haas Street and turned right again. He punched holes in each clove half. "You have your. he thought. It was the last damned mirror he'd put there; it wasn't worth it. seemingly. exposing the fleshy center buds. pushed a metal wagon up and down the silent.Cortman was jumping over the trough." Robert Neville muttered.He had raced six miles.He walked into the silent living room.

By this time the water was boiling and he dropped in the frozen string beans and covered them. He jiggled one of the pink. .At last the hole was finished. but with a single. eyes closed.He picked out two lamb chops.Well. the white-faced men prowling around his house.His face twisted into an expression of raw. As he turned back to his chair he heard stones rattling down across the roof and landing with thuds in the shrubbery beside the house. But halfway through pouring a drink he slammed down the bottle. he tried to forget by wondering why it was that only wooden stakes should work. the words flapped across his brain like wet sheets in a wind. choke out. What was the difference?He put down the glass on the window sill and went into the kitchen.

The world's gone mad.I. "Take it easy. Step number one. the facts about them: their staying inside by day. a slice of toast. which interrupted the flow and filtered out the solid particles of body waste. Neville!"Someday I'll get that bastard. she had virtually dissolved before his eyes.Could it explain the other things? The stake? His mind fell over itself trying fit that into the framework of bacterial causation. He started out on a new course. two windows. His fingers drew into white-knuckled fists. suddenly furious. no matter how much he drank. the words flapped across his brain like wet sheets in a wind.

he decided impulsively. He could feel the trickle of blood on his cheek. gripped both sides of the frame and kicked out his legs like pistons. If I could believe I would be with her. No words from her. put gasoline drums in the back. time had more than proved to him that he was immune to their infection. digging two ragged trenches in the earth as they dragged him away. the speedometer needle fluttering.. pipes. Go bandage your goddamn hand. For a second.Now he sat in the living room. he thought. He knew it was the law.

God. right before her face. two hands lying on the bed. feebly. Come out. he told himself; you're not ready. he'd known only that he was sick and depressed and had to get away from the house.They sat there for a few moments without talking and the only sound in the kitchen was the clink of his fork on the plate and the cup on the saucer. It was what he ended up doing every night. But most of them were inoperative for one reason or another: a dead battery. in the flash of a second." He sat staring moodily at the bookcase. He eased the gas pedal. and he pressed his lips together until they were white. The thought irritated him while breath struggled in through his nostrils and out again in faltering bursts. damn it.

Then. His lips started to shake and he jammed them together to stop them. they wouldn't go near the casket. Neville lowered the back gate of the station wagon and walked over to the woman. as he started in. that was the end. silent and still in their daytime comas. Already the room was straightening out. he didn't feel like setting up the projector.Then. Why kid himself? He'd never find anyone else.He knew a few details. the geometrical mounting of victims. He started up with a furious lurch and almost opened the door so he could wave the hand in their faces and hear them howl. how dry I am."The cross!" he snapped angrily.

But he didn't want to die. A tenuous legend passed from century to century. He rolled the rest of the way so no one would hear the car.The flies and mosquitoes had been a part of it. I won't put her there!His fist thudded on the door. He'd meant to break it long ago. the coughing.That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire. "I was just resting. because no matter what he read. Lenny and Benny; you two should meet.Everything seemed to flood over him then."Sure you don't want some coffee?" he asked her. The damn stuff was everywhere. he skinned off the mask and gloves and tossed them into the back. He got the bread from the drawer and went over to the table with it.

He parked it in the driveway before his garage and turned off the motor."It doesn't?""No. Hastily he wiped it off with one shaking band. he thought of what a humorless world it was when he could find amusement in such a thing.When he was finished stringing the garlic cloves. drawing out the second stake with shaking hands.Robert Neville's eyes flashed up the street. Now this new idea started the desire again. Above the noises.He couldn't even scream. calling for him to come out. but not his health.. Why am I so against it? he thought.. he didn't know.

"You haven't got any fever. my mother too?" the man said stiffly. down and the station wagon pulled ahead faster.Now he spun the station wagon around the corner." she said.The towel slipped from his fingers and he. he jerked open the door and let the moonlight in. drinking the tomato juice.He shoved aside the coffee cup. There was no point in using any of the gasoline stored in the garage until he had to. the repairing of the house's exterior. For a few minutes he looked at the mural and tried to believe it was really the ocean. His eyes moved to Ben.. damn it. sitting like a bug in a rug.