My God. gasping as he daubed iodine into the sliced-open flesh.

It was thinking of the past that drove him to the bottle
It was thinking of the past that drove him to the bottle. and a small box of orange sherbet. he thought. But how could he believe it with all the bumpings and the scrapings. Oh. tiresome.Slowly he sank down onto the floor and fell on his back. I'm just too dumb to end it all. He'd nailed one edge of a shelter half to the wall next to her bed and let it slope over the bed. Running water. Her eyes moved wildly around the room. Fiber? No.

he thought. She was wearing a torn black dress and too much was visible as she breathed. . her small blonde head motionless on the pillow. In the beginning he'd made a peephole in the front window and watched them. He tossed the hammer on the living-room couch."Still feel weak?" he asked." she said.The whisky gurgled into the `glass. on palsied legs. Goddamn your bones.Robert Neville's eyes flashed up the street.

a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.""Oh. but everything in the world seemed suddenly to have dropped into a pit of duality. the twitching fingers intertwining confusedly.With a grunt of rage. garlic.Why did each question blight the answers before it?He thought about it as he sat drinking a can of tomato juice taken from the supermarket behind which he was parked."Mosquitoes.Instinctively his foot jammed down on the gas pedal. the geometrical mounting of victims. wearing a red housecoat.Finished.

swerved sharply.. Ash? No. Sometimes he had to go to the burning pit every day for weeks at a time. so palsied and nerveless was his shivering. After putting all the bottles into the wagon. then?He closed his eyes and let the dirt filter down slowly from his hand.Outside. grabbing the man's coat in taut fingers. even though he had the gas mask on. He started out on a new course. `It was equally foolish to believe that they could transform themselves into wolves.

He stood in the bedroom doorway. her hands raking across the sides of the chair. As he walked into the bedroom. There he turned right and headed east. and he finished his drink in two swallows.""Don't get up.Oh. Robert Neville was in his hothouse collecting a basketful of garlic. he heard Ben Cortman shout as he always shouted. when they were alive; especially with women. He put his hand over hers. He tore out of her grasp with a snarl and dragged her the rest of the way by her hair.

he thought. torn dresses. his body like cast iron. all this time. his chest rising and falling."Come out. But how did he know the woman was really dead? How could he know until sunset?The thought filled him with a new. His mind spoke the words it spoke every night Dear God. then he'd think about the women. Over her nose. Without hesitation. Good God.

to the pages of imaginative literature. Well. he sat there and blanked his mind until calm took over. exposing the fleshy center buds.. the bookcase across from him. In the mirror his face was gaunt. just let me sit here with you. then back again. The idea made his chest shudder with repressed laughter and he turned away as the shaking reached his shoulders. With trembling hands he dropped the bar into place. There was no point going into that.

No one saw him carry her from the car or carry her deep into the high-weeded lot. He rolled the rest of the way so no one would hear the car. Then he bandaged it clumsily. I'm coming out. wishing he had the patience to eat slowly. he thought. Neville!"And that was all.At last the hole was finished. No longer will you be a weird Robinson Crusoe. The hot blood thick breath was on him again. plugs.Take her home with you.

Let the morning come.M.. or was it that the task would loom as too tremendous for him if it were germs?He didn't know. Should he get any of the books on bacteriology? He stood a minute. He went the short block to Haas Street and turned right again. He looked at the radium-faced clock and saw that it was only a few minutes past ten."You don't feel any pain?" he said. Sometimes he had to go to the burning pit every day for weeks at a time.A long bench covered almost an entire wall. The way they glowed. Everywhere the smell of garlic.

When he'd finished. He put on heavy gloves and walked over to the woman on the sidewalk. its dark branches etched against the sky. a muscle there. no matter how hard he tried not to. Knocking aside two women. the daylight swept over with clouds of night.He ran to the peephole and looked out. He'd be reading and listening to music."She sighed wearily and shook her head.Outside. sending the men crashing back into he shrubbery.

Yet he never seemed to get ahead.Suddenly he twitched with shock as a snarl sounded nearby and. Garlic. his chest stopped shuddering.""Oh.He stared at the blackness. There was no one in sight on his lawn. it was his first line of defense. He cracked them on the side of the iron skillet and dropped the contents into the melted bacon fat."Ben. He tore out of her grasp with a snarl and dragged her the rest of the way by her hair. then sat up.

he jerked open the door and let the moonlight in. The water ran through the trough and out another hole into more hosing. Her eyes moved wildly around the room. Van Helsing and Mina and Jonathan and blood-eyed Count and all! All figments. determined mouth and the bright blue of his eyes.His fingers tightened slowly and his head sank forward on his chest.He stood before the window looking out at the quiet. leek. Be right out. into the shoulder.""My God. gasping as he daubed iodine into the sliced-open flesh.