NEVILLE BENT1 OVER AND picked up a little soil in his right hand. He ran it between his fingers, crumbling2 the dark lumps into grit3. How many of them, he wondered, slept in the soil, as the story went?
He shook his head. Precious few.
Where did the legend fit in, then?
He closed his eyes and let the dirt filter down slowly from his hand. Was there any answer? If only he could remember whether those who slept in soil were the ones who had returned from death. He might have theorized then.
But he couldn't remember. Another unanswerable question, then. Add it to the question that had occurred to him the night before.
What would a Mohammedan vampire4 do if faced with a cross?
The barking sound of his laugh in the silent morning air startled him. Good God, he thought, it's been so long since I've laughed, I've forgotten how. It sounded like the cough of a sick hound. Well, that's what I am, after all, isn't it? he decided5. A very sick dog.
There had been a light dust storm about four that morning. Strange how it brought back memories. Virginia, Kathy, all those horrible days ...
He caught himself. No, no, there was danger there. It was thinking of the past that drove him to the bottle. He was just going to have to accept the present.
He found himself wondering again why he chose to go on living. Probably, he thought, there's no real reason. I'm just too dumb to end it all.
Well—he clapped his hands with false decision—what now? He looked around as if there were something to see along the stillness of Cimarron Street.
All right, he decided impulsively6, let's see if the running water bit makes sense.
He buried a hose under the ground and ran it into a small trough constructed of wood. The water ran through the trough and out another hole into more hosing, which conducted the water into the earth.
When he'd finished, he went in and took a shower, shaved, and took the bandage off his hand. The wound had healed cleanly. But then, he hadn't been overly concerned about that. time had more than proved to him that he was immune to their infection.
At six-twenty he went into the living room and stood before the peephole. He stretched a little, grunting7 at the ache in his muscles. Then, when nothing happened, he made himself a drink.
When he got back to the peephole, he saw Ben Cortman come walking onto the lawn.
"Come out, Neville," Robert Neville muttered, and Cortman echoed the words in a loud cry.
Neville stood there motionless, looking at Ben Cortman.
Ben hadn't changed much. His hair was still black, his body inclined to corpulence, his face still white. But there was a beard on his face now; mostly under the nose; thinner around his chin and cheeks and under his throat. That was the only real difference, though. Ben had always been immaculately shaved in the old days, smelling of cologne each morning when he picked up Neville to drive to the plant.
It was strange to stand there looking out at Ben Cortman; a Ben completely alien to him now. Once he had spoken to that man, ridden to work with him, talked about cars and baseball and politics with him, later on about the disease, about how Virginia and Kathy were getting along, about how Freda Cortman was about.
Neville shook his head. There was no point going into that. The past was as dead as Cortman.
Again he shook his head. The world's gone mad, he thought. The dead walk about and I think nothing of it.
The return of corpses9 has become trivial in import. How quickly one accepts the incredible if only one sees it enough! Neville stood there, sipping10 his whisky and wondering who it was that Ben reminded him of. He'd felt for some time that Cortman reminded him of somebody, but for the life of him he couldn't think who.
He shrugged11. What was the difference?
He put down the glass on the window sill and went into the kitchen. He turned on the water there and went back in. When he reached the peephole, he saw another man and a woman on the lawn. None of the three was speaking to either of the others. They never did. They walked and walked about on restless feet, circling each other like wolves, never looking at each other once, having hungry eyes only for the house and their prey12 inside the house.
Then Cortman saw the water running through the trough and went over to look at it. After a moment he lifted his white face and Neville saw him grinning.
Cortman was jumping over the trough, then back again. Neville felt his throat tightening14. The bastard15 knew!
With rigid16 legs he pistoned himself into the bedroom and, with shaking hands, pulled one of his pistols out of the bureau drawer.
Cortman was just about finishing stamping in the sides of the trough when the bullet struck him in the left shoulder.
He staggered back with a grunt8 and flopped17 onto the sidewalk with a kicking of legs. Neville fired again and the bullet whined18 up off the cement, inches from Cortman's twisting body.
Cortman started up with a snarl19 and the third bullet struck him full in the chest.
Neville stood there watching, smelling the acrid20 fumes21 of the pistol smoke. Then the woman blocked his view of Cortman and started jerking up her dress.
Neville pulled back and slammed the tiny door over the peephole. He wasn't going to let himself look at that. In the first second of it, he had felt that terrible heat dredging up from his loins like something ravenous22.
Later he looked out again and saw Ben Cortman pacing around, calling for him to come out.
And, in the moonlight, he suddenly realized who Cortman reminded him of. The idea made his chest shudder23 with repressed laughter and he turned away as the shaking reached his shoulders.
My God—Oliver Hardy24! Those old two-reelers he'd looked at with his projector25. Cortman was almost a dead ringer for the roly-poly comedian26. A little less plump, that was all. Even the mustache was there now.
Oliver Hardy flopping27 on his back under the driving impact of bullets. Oliver Hardy always coming back for more, no matter what happened. Ripped by bullets, punctured28 by knives, flattened29 by cars, smashed under collapsing30 chimneys and boats, submerged in water, flung through. pipes. And always returning, patient and bruised31:
That was who Ben Cortman was—a hideously32 malignant33 Oliver Hardy buffeted34 and long suffering.
He couldn't stop laughing because it was more than laughter; it was release. Tears flooded down his cheeks. The glass in his hand shook so badly, the liquor spilled all over him and made him laugh harder. Then the glass fell thumping36 on the rug as his body jerked with spasms37 of uncontrollable amusement and the room was filled with his gasping38, nerve-shattered laughter.
Later, he cried.
He drove it into the stomach, into the shoulder. Into the neck with a single mallet39 blow. Into the legs and the arms, and always the same result: the blood pulsing out, slick and crimson40, over the white flesh.
He thought he'd found the answer. It was a matter of losing the blood they lived by; it was hemorrhage.
But then he found the woman in the small green and white house, and when he drove in the stake, the dissolution was so sudden it made him lurch41 away and lose his breakfast.
When he had recovered enough to look again, he saw on the bedspread what looked like a row of salt and pepper mixed; just about as long as the woman had been. It was the first time he'd ever seen such a thing.
Shaken by the sight, he went out of the house on trembling legs and sat in the car for an hour, drinking the flask42 empty. But even liquor couldn't drive away the vision.
It had been so quick. With the sound of the mallet blow still in his ears, she had virtually dissolved before his eyes.
He recalled talking once to a Negro at the plant. The man had studied mortuary science and had told Robert Neville about the mausoleums where people were stored in vacuum drawers and never changed their appearance.
"But you just let some air in," the Negro had said, "and whoom!—they'll look like a row of salt and pepper. Jus' like that!" And he snapped his fingers.
The woman had been long dead, then. Maybe, the thought occurred, she was one of the vampires43 who had originally started the plague. God only knew how many years she'd been cheating death.
He was too unnerved to do any more that day or for days to come. 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.
For days he sat in the chair with his liquor and thought about the woman. And, no matter how hard he tried not to, no matter how much he drank, he kept thinking about Virginia. He kept seeing himself entering the crypt, lifting the coffin44 lid.
He thought he was coming down with something, so palsied and nerveless was his shivering, so cold and ill did he feel.
Is that what she looked like?
收听单词发音 |
1
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
crumbling
|
|
| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
grit
|
|
| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
vampire
|
|
| n.吸血鬼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
impulsively
|
|
| adv.冲动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
grunting
|
|
| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
grunt
|
|
| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
corpses
|
|
| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
sipping
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
shrugged
|
|
| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
stiffened
|
|
| 加强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
tightening
|
|
| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
bastard
|
|
| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
flopped
|
|
| v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
whined
|
|
| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
snarl
|
|
| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
acrid
|
|
| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
fumes
|
|
| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
ravenous
|
|
| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
shudder
|
|
| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
hardy
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
projector
|
|
| n.投影机，放映机，幻灯机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
comedian
|
|
| n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
flopping
|
|
| n.贬调v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的现在分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
punctured
|
|
| v.在（某物）上穿孔( puncture的过去式和过去分词 )；刺穿（某物）；削弱（某人的傲气、信心等）；泄某人的气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
flattened
|
|
| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
collapsing
|
|
| 压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
bruised
|
|
| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
hideously
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
malignant
|
|
| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
buffeted
|
|
| 反复敲打( buffet的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续猛击； 打来打去； 推来搡去 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
hilarious
|
|
| adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
thumping
|
|
| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
spasms
|
|
| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
gasping
|
|
| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
mallet
|
|
| n.槌棒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
crimson
|
|
| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
lurch
|
|
| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
flask
|
|
| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
vampires
|
|
| n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
coffin
|
|
| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |