THE SCIENCE ROOM WAS on the second floor. Robert Neville's footsteps thudded hollowly up the marble steps of the Los Angeles Public Library. It was April 7, 1976.
It had come to him, after a half week of drinking, disgust, and desultory1 investigation2, that he was wasting his time. Isolated3 experiments were yielding nothing, that was clear. If there was a rational answer to the problem (and he had to believe that there was), he could only find it by careful research.
Tentatively, for want of better knowledge, he had set up a possible basis, and that was blood. It provided, at least, a starting point. Step number one, then, was reading about blood.
The silence of the library was complete save for the thudding of his shoes as he walked along the second-floor hallway. Outside, there were birds sometimes and, even lacking that, there seemed to be a sort of sound outside.
Inexplicable4, perhaps, but it never seemed as deathly still in the open as it did inside. a building.
Especially here in this giant, gray-stoned building that housed the literature of a world's dead. Probably it was being surrounded by walls, he thought, something purely5 psychological. But knowing that didn't make it any easier. There were no psychiatrists6 left to murmur7 of groundless neuroses and auditory hallucinations. The last man in the world was irretrievably stuck with his delusions8.
He entered the Science Room.
It was a high-ceilinged room with tall, large-paned windows. Across from the doorway9 was the desk where books had been checked out in days when books were still being checked out.
He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue10 of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile11 minds, the leftovers12, the potpourri13 of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.
His shoes clicked across the dark tiles as he walked to the beginning of the shelves on his left. His eyes moved to the cards between the shelf sections. "Astronomy," he read; books about the heavens. He moved by them. It was not the heavens he was concerned about. Man's lust14 for the stars had died with the others. "Physics," "Chemistry," "Engineering." He passed them by and entered the main reading section of the Science Room.
He stopped and looked up at the high ceiling. There were two banks of dead lights overhead and the ceiling was divided into great sunken squares, each square decorated with what looked like Indian mosaics15. Morning sunlight filtered through the dusty windows and he saw motes16 floating gently on the current of its beams.
He looked down the row of long wooden tables with chairs lined up before them. Someone had put them in place very neatly17. The day the library was shut down, he thought, some maiden18 librarian had moved down the room, pushing each chair against its table. Carefully, with a plodding19 precision that was the cachet of herself.
He thought about that visionary lady. To die, he thought, never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one's embrace. To sink into that hideous20 coma21, to sink then into death and, perhaps, return to sterile22, awful wanderings. All without knowing what it was to love and be loved.
That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire23.
He shook his head. All right, that's enough, he told himself, you haven't got the time for maudlin24 reveries.
He bypassed books until he came to "Medicine." That was what he wanted. He looked through the titles. Books on hygiene25, on anatomy26, on physiology27 (general and specialized), on curative practices. Farther down, on bacteriology.
He pulled out five books on general physiology and several works on blood. These he stacked on one of the dust-surfaced tables. Should he get any of the books on bacteriology? He stood a minute, looking indecisively at the buckram backs.
Finally he shrugged28. Well, what's the difference? he thought. They can't do any harm. He pulled out several of them at random29 and added them to the pile. He now had nine books on the table. That was enough for a start. He expected he'd be coming back.
As he left the Science Room, he looked up at the clock over the door.
The red hands had stopped at four-twenty-seven. He wondered what day they had stopped. As he descended30 the stairs with his armful of books, he wondered at just what moment the clock had stopped. Had it been morning or night? Was it raining or shining? Was anyone there when it stopped?
He twisted his shoulders irritably31. For God's sake, what's the difference? he asked himself. He was getting disgusted at this increasing nostalgic preoccupation with the past. It was a weakness, he knew, a weakness he could scarcely afford if he intended to go on. And yet he kept discovering himself drifting into extensive meditation32 on aspects of the past. It was almost more than he could control, and it was making him furious with himself.
He couldn't get the huge front doors open from the inside, either; they were too well locked. He had to go out through the broken window again, first dropping the books to the sidewalk one at .a time, then himself. He took the books to his car and got in.
As he started the car, he saw that he was parked along a red-painted curb33, facing in the wrong direction on a one-way street. He looked up and down the street.
"Policeman!" he found himself calling. "Oh, police- man!"
He laughed for a mile without stopping, wondering just what was so funny about it.
He put down the book. He'd been reading again about the lymphatic system. He vaguely34 remembered reading about it months before, during the time he now called his "frenzied35 period." But what he'd read had made no impression on him then because he'd had nothing to apply it to.
There seemed to be something there now.
The thin walls of the blood capillaries36 permitted blood plasma37 to escape into the tissue spaces along with the red and colorless cells. These escaped materials eventually returned to the blood system through the lymphatic vessels38, carried back by the thin fluid called lymph.
During this return flow, the lymph trickled39 through lymph nodes, which interrupted the flow and filtered out the solid particles of body waste, thus preventing them from entering the blood system.
Now.
There were two things that activated40 the lymphatic system: (1) breathing, which caused the diaphragm to compress the abdominal41 contents, thus forcing blood and lymph up against gravity; (2) physical movement, which caused skeletal muscles to compress lymph vessels, thus moving the lymph. An intricate valve system prevented any backing up of the flow.
But the vampires42 didn't breathe; not the dead ones, anyway. That meant, roughly, that half of their lymph flow was cut off. This meant, further, that a considerable amount of waste products would be left in the vampire's system.
Robert Neville was thinking particularly of the fetid odor of the vampire.
He read on.
"The bacteria passes into the blood stream, where...
"... the white corpuscles playing a vital part in our defense43 against bacteria! attack.
"Strong sunlight kills many germs rapidly and"
"Many bacterial44 diseases of man can be disseminated45 by the mechanical agency of flies, mosquitoes"
"... where, under the stimulus46 of bacterial attack, the phagocytic factories rush extra cells into the blood stream."
He let the book drop forward into his lap and it slipped off, his legs and thumped47 down on the rug.
It was getting harder and harder to fight, because no matter what he read, there was always the relationship between bacteria and blood affliction.. Yet, all this time, he'd been letting contempt fall freely on all those in the past who had died proclaiming the truth of the germ theory and scoffing48 at vampires.
He got up and made himself a drink. But it sat untouched as he stood before the bar. Slowly, rhythmically49, he thudded his right fist down on the top of the bar while his eyes stared bleakly50 at the wall.
Germs.
He grimaced51. Well, for God's sake, he snapped jadedly at himself, the word hasn't got thorns, you know.
He took a deep breath. All right, he ordered himself, is there any reason why it couldn't be germs?
He turned away from the bar as if he could leave the question there. But questions had no location; they could follow him around.
He sat in the kitchen staring into a steaming cup of coffee. Germs. Bacteria. Viruses. Vampires. Why am I so against it? he thought. Was it just reactionary52 stubbornness, or was it that the task would loom53 as too tremendous for him if it were germs?
He didn't know. He started out on a new course, the course of compromise. Why throw out either theory? One didn't necessarily negate54 the other. Dual55 acceptance and correlation56, he thought.
Bacteria could be the answer to the vampire.
Everything seemed to flood over him then.
It was as though he'd been the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike57, refusing to let the sea of reason in. There he'd been, crouching58 and content with his iron-bound theory. Now he'd straightened up and taken his finger out. The sea of answers was already beginning to wash in.
The plague had spread so quickly. Could it have done that if only vampires had spread it?. Could their nightly marauding have propelled it on so quickly?
He felt himself jolted59 by the sudden answer. Only if you accepted bacteria could you explain the fantastic rapidity of the plague, the geometrical mounting of victims.
He shoved aside the coffee cup, his brain pulsing with a dozen different ideas.
The flies and mosquitoes had been a part of it. Spreading the disease, causing it to race through the world.
Yes, bacteria explained a lot of things; the staying in by day, the coma enforced by the germ to protect itself from sun radiation.
A new idea: What if the bacteria were the strength of the true vampire?
He felt a shudder60 run down his back. 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. Then, at the last moment, he jerked back from the door with a nervous laugh. God's sake, he thought, am I going out of my mind? It was nighttime.
He grinned and walked restlessly around the living room.
Could it explain the other things? The stake? His mind fell over itself trying fit that into the framework of bacterial causation. Come on! he shouted impatiently in his mind. But all he could think of was hemorrhage, and that didn't explain that woman. And it wasn't the heart....
He skipped it, afraid that his new-found theory would start to collapse61 before he'd established it.
The cross, then. No, bacteria couldn't explain that. The soil; no, that was no help. Running water, the mirror, garlic...
He felt himself trembling without control and he wanted to cry cut loudly to stop the runaway62 horse of his brain. He had to find something! Goddamn it! he raged in his mind. I won't let it go!
He made himself sit down. Trembling and rigid63, he sat there and blanked his mind until calm took over. Good Lord, he thought finally, what's the matter with me? I get an idea, and when it doesn't explain everything in the first minute, I panic. I must be going crazy.
He took that drink now; he needed it. He held up his it shaking. All right, little boy, he tried kidding himself, calm down now. Santa Claus is coming to town with all the nice answers. No longer will you be a weird64 Robinson Crusoe, imprisoned65 on an island of night surrounded by oceans of death.
He snickered at that, and it relaxed him. Colorful, he thought, tasty. The last man in the world is Edgar Guest.
All right, then, he ordered himself, you're going to bed. You're not going to go flying off in twenty different directions. You can't take that any more; you're an emotional misfit.
The first step was to get a microscope. That is the first step, he kept repeating forcefully to himself as he undressed for bed, ignoring the tight ball of indecision in his stomach, the almost painful craving66 to plunge67 directly into investigation without any priming.
He almost felt ill, lying there in the darkness and planning just one step ahead. He knew it had to be that way, though. That is the, first step, that is the first step. Goddamn your bones, that is the first step.
He grinned in the darkness, feeling good about the definite work ahead.
One thought on the problem he allowed himself before sleeping. The bitings, the insects, the transmission from person to person—were even these enough to explain the horrible speed with which the plague spread?
He went to sleep with the question in his mind. And, about three in the morning, he woke up to find the house buffeted68 by another dust storm. And suddenly, in the flash of a second, he made the connection.
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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psychiatrists
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| n.精神病专家，精神病医生( psychiatrist的名词复数 ) | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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leftovers
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| n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜 | |
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potpourri
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| n.混合之事物；百花香 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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mosaics
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| n.马赛克( mosaic的名词复数 )；镶嵌；镶嵌工艺；镶嵌图案 | |
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motes
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| n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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coma
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| n.昏迷，昏迷状态 | |
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sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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vampire
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| n.吸血鬼 | |
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maudlin
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| adj.感情脆弱的，爱哭的 | |
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hygiene
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| n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic） | |
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anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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capillaries
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| 毛细管，毛细血管( capillary的名词复数 ) | |
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plasma
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| n.血浆，细胞质，乳清 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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activated
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| adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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abdominal
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| adj.腹（部）的，下腹的；n.腹肌 | |
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vampires
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| n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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bacterial
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| a.细菌的 | |
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disseminated
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| 散布，传播( disseminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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thumped
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| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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bleakly
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| 无望地，阴郁地，苍凉地 | |
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grimaced
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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negate
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| vt.否定，否认；取消，使无效 | |
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dual
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| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
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correlation
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| n.相互关系，相关，关连 | |
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dike
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| n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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buffeted
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| 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 | |
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