第60章 我是传奇 (1)

　　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