I Am Legend
恐怖的生化战争席卷而来，人类为自己掘下了死
亡的坟墓。世纪末日随即而来，人类快要灭绝了，唯
一存活下来的是纽约一个才华横溢的病原体学者，罗
伯特·奈维尔。这种通过空气传播的病毒快速地笼罩
了整个城市。血液天生的免疫力使罗伯特成了仅存的
人类。作为人类最后的希望，他用自己血液中的免疫
系统，寻找逆转病毒的方法。他别无选择，因为他的
时间不多了。
[ 美] 理查德·马瑟森（ Richard Matheson）
On those cloudy days，Robert Neville was never sure when
sunset came，and sometimes they were in the streets before he
could get back.
If he had been more analytical，he might have calculated the
approximate time of their arrival ；but he still used the lifetime
habit of judging nightfall by the sky，and on cloudy days that
method didn’t work. That was why he chose to stay near the
house on those days.
He walked around the house in the dull gray of afternoon，
a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth，trailing
threadlike smoke over his shoulder. He checked each window
to see if any of the boards had been loosened. After violent
attacks，the planks were often split or partially pried off，and he
had to replace them completely ；a job he hated. Today only one
plank was loose. Isn’t that amazing? he thought.
In the back yard he checked the hothouse and the water
tank. Sometimes the structure around the tank might be
weakened or its rain catchers bent or broken off. Sometimes they
would lob rocks over the high fence around the hothouse，and
occasionally they would tear through the overhead net and he’d
have to replace panes.
Both the tank and the hothouse were undamaged today. He
went to the house for a hammer and nails. As he pushed open the
front door，he looked at the distorted reflection of himself in the cracked
mirror he’d fastened to the door a month ago. In a few days，
jagged pieces of the silver-backed glass would start to fall off.
Let’em fall，he thought. It was the last damned mirror he’d put
there ；it wasn’t worth it. He’d put garlic there instead. Garlic
always worked.
He passed slowly through the dim silence of the living
room，turned left into the small hallway，and left again into his
bedroom. Once the room had been warmly decorated，but that
was in another time. Now it was a room entirely functional，and
since Neville’s bed and bureau took up so little space，he had
converted one side of the room into a shop.
A long bench covered almost an entire wall，on its hardwood
top a heavy band saw ；a wood lathe，an emery wheel，and a
vise. Above it，on the wall，were haphazard racks of the tools that
Robert Neville used.
He took a hammer from the bench and picked out a few nails
from one of the disordered bins. Then he went back outside and
nailed the plank fast to the shutter. The unused nails he threw
into the rubble next door.
For a while he stood on the front lawn looking up and down
the silent length of Cimarron Street. He was a tall man，thirtysix，
born of English-German stock，his features undistinguished
except for the long，determined mouth and the bright blue of his
eyes，which moved now over the charred ruins of the houses on
each side of his. He’d burned them down to prevent them from
jumping on his roof from the adjacent ones.
After a few minutes he took a long，slow breath and went
back into the house. He tossed the hammer on the living-room
couch，then lit another cigarette and had his midmorning drink.
Later he forced himself into the kitchen to grind up the five-day
accumulation of garbage in the sink. He knew he should burn up
the paper plates and utensils too，and dust the furniture and wash
out the sinks and the bathtub and toilet，and change the sheets
and pillowcase on his bed ；but he didn’t feel like it.
For he was a man and he was alone and these things had no
importance to him.
It was almost noon. Robert Neville was in his hothouse
collecting a basketful of garlic.
In the beginning it had made him sick to smell garlic in such
quantity his stomach had been in a state of constant turmoil. Now
the smell was in his house and in his clothes，and sometimes he
thought it was even in his flesh.
He hardly noticed it at all.
When he had enough bulbs，he went back to the house and
dumped them on the drainboard of me sink. As he flicked the wall
switch，the light flickered，then flared into normal brilliance. A
