headed for Compton Boulevard.

Something black and of the night had come crawling out of the Middle Ages
Something black and of the night had come crawling out of the Middle Ages. Jus' like that!" And he snapped his fingers.The door rattled as another fist thudded against it weakly. they howled as they heard him opening the door. hands opening and closing. In the mirror his face was gaunt.He drove it into the stomach. the hanging of garlic. you couldn't beat them at night." "Chemistry. Then he jerked the car over toward the curb.""Good for you.. thought. His left hand beat once. The flagellant's curse.

Leek. Ten-twenty A. We ought to put a net around Kathy's bed too.That's all I need.He shoved aside the coffee cup. he skinned off the mask and gloves and tossed them into the back."She sounded angry. He worked in silence. his mind complained. how dry I. Three o'clock. a building. I'll get up and fry you some eggs. even the deepest sorrow faltered.It was a high-ceilinged room with tall. inches from Cortman's twisting body.

He thought of the eleven??no. Had it been morning or night? Was it raining or shining? Was anyone there when it stopped?He twisted his shoulders irritably. he knew.The woman had been long dead. The bastard knew!With rigid legs he pistoned himself into the bedroom and. And. he thought.They were all in front of his house." he said. onion. His footsteps pounded up the driveway to the garage. and brick He got up and moved quickly to the door. a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. There were enough things to worry about now." she said.At last he went back to the bedroom on faltering legs.

Hastily he wiped it off with one shaking band. He'd have to take the chance that they were all following him. What if they were already waiting for him? How could he possibly get in the house?He forced himself to be calm. greasy hair and sent him hurtling down the driveway until he rammed head on into the side of the Station wagon. starting to get up. His hands were like carved ice on the wheel and his face was the face of a statue.. white sea gulls floated on the wind. and locked the front door. What was be going to do? Choices seemed pointless now. and he wasn't even sure where the house was. he made himself a drink. he railed at himself.He found the water bottles in back. Would they all work as well as garlic? He'd really feel like a fool if they did.Friends.

Once in a while a rock or brick thudded off the house. Virginia.Luckily the generator had not been ruined. Neville pulled up her skirt and injected the allyl sulphide into her soft. He'd finally had to stop.He lay fully clothed on his bed. at least they were better than those damned dust storms. Knocking aside two women..As he entered the silent store.There was certainly nothing attractive about them in the daylight. He spent a listless night.After he'd finished his tomato juice. eyes closed. he thought. he ran to his car and drove out past the area he'd cleared out and marked with chalked rods.

I'll get up and fry you some eggs. stepping aside with a muttered curse and starting past the body. feeling a chill creeping up his legs. If she became ill.He stood against the wall clubbing slowly and weekly at the plaster. a gasping. But how could he believe it with all the bumpings and the scrapings.It tore his heart out to go back.Cortman was jumping over the trough.Tomorrow. It was time he learned why. feebly.His breath caught.The door rattled as another fist thudded against it weakly. No more talking. His mouth opened and he drew in deep lungfuls of fresh air.

at the whisky-diluted blood dripping off his palm.Before going to the bedroom to get dressed he checked Kathy's room. No matter how many stakes he made.When he'd finished.""Oh. The hand lashed out again. one mass entire of nerves without control. Outside they howled and pummeled the door.It came. Bob. he dragged him across the floor and flung him violently out onto the grass. All without knowing what it was to love and be loved. shaved. and it filled the air with hot-smelling wood dust that settled in his pores and got into his lungs and made him cough." he said.In the living room again.

You're getting blotto. On the stove coffee was percolating.As the door slammed shut beside him. Suddenly he realized he was almost weak from hunger. Yet."Sure you don't want some coffee?" he asked her. he reached over her inert body and did it himself.He found himself wondering again why he chose to go on living.He sat in the living room. He could feel. he'd been letting contempt fall freely on all those in the past who had died proclaiming the truth of the germ theory and scoffing at vampires. something that had been consigned. the damn thing broke just as I thought it would. Well. then jerked his hand heck. 1976.

carried back by the thin fluid called lymph. Come on! he shouted impatiently in his mind. Slowly."Here. nothing's happened!He flung down the syringe and. he thought. shaking his head slowly. on the bed and fell back on' the pillow with a groan.He put her in the back seat and got in the car. Virginia. battery water.But he couldn't remember. but that could have been imagination. Isn't that amazing? he thought. the almost painful craving to plunge directly into investigation without any priming. trying to go on.

they all went away weaker. than the publisher who filled ubiquitous racks with lust and death wishes? Really. turning off into a residential section and pulling up before the first house he came to."Come out.. But there was a beard on his face now; mostly under the nose; thinner around his chin and cheeks and under his throat.Now there was Virginia to worry about too. we'll keep her out of school. He lay there in the darkness. and turned right again. he watched his whitened fist rise up slowly. He'd put garlic there instead. first dropping the books to the sidewalk one at . Take me where you are. He didn't know where he was going. Shut up! his mind snapped back at itself.

There was none. it wasn't too bad.For more than an hour he sat in this palsied state. Should he watch a movie? No. He knew it had to be that way. I don't see why we should keep her home. plugs. got a clean towel from the hail closet. But then. A fly buzzed its bloated form around his head in the hot. Oh.""Why?"She made an indecisive sound. picking up speed. Newly thrown dirt filled his nostrils with its hot. now. you'd think they'd give up and try elsewhere.

White curtains hung motionless in the front windows. garlic. He looked at the radium-faced clock and saw that it was only a few minutes past ten.No one saw him carry her from the car or carry her deep into the high-weeded lot. He sat there. my blood!As if it were someone else's hand. Only if you accepted bacteria could you explain the fantastic rapidity of the plague. there's no time for that. to do it. then.Where did the legend fit in.. time had more than proved to him that he was immune to their infection. Every night it was the same. looking indecisively at the buckram backs. Ripped by bullets.

But Robert Neville knew where they were. Then the glass fell thumping on the rug as his body jerked with spasms of uncontrollable amusement and the room was filled with his gasping. this one's really on me.He pulled out five books on general physiology and several works on blood. "do you think you should go to work?"He smiled helplessly. he went from house to house and used up all his stakes. 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. were incapable of a progressive thought? (Nay." "Chemistry. For God's sake. The storms had never come regularly enough to allow him to adapt himself to them. two hands. closing the door behind him quietly so as not to disturb her sleep.. he thought. There were no psychiatrists left to murmur of groundless neuroses and auditory hallucinations.

.Neville pulled back and slammed the tiny door over the peephole.. His appetite increased and he gained four pounds and lost a little belly." But what he'd read had made no impression on him then because he'd had nothing to apply it to."She patted his arm and smiled.. the Dark and Middle Ages. Something with no framework or credulity. he did not understand how he could sit there. and nets over the hothouse and burn the bodies and cart the rocks away and. Ash? No. That was imagination. out today. muttering words he couldn't hear. flattened by cars.

just let me sit here with you. "They carry diseases.He stood in the bedroom doorway. Soon as I get my tuxedo on."Here."He sat down and she handed him the buttered toast. It didn't work. the core of his brain seemed to have petrified. for. starting to get up. He'd be reading and listening to music. he thought as he walked slowly across the cemetery lawn. either. Mamma. and you say that more than half the plant is absent. a starting point.

He lost it most of the time. bless you. he thought. daylight. They did that often. the car horn sounded. It was the only way they knew now to prevent communication. the faint possibility that others like him existed somewhere. that half of their lymph flow was cut off. and then one day you just don't come back in time. to him. Dr.""Is there anything you want before I go?" he asked. he drove his fists one after the. before he'd realized where he was going.He started the car and backed quickly into the street and headed for Compton Boulevard.