Then he was standing up beside the chimney and Neville’s face was white and taut as he watched Cortman start to raise his right leg.
And then the hammering machine gun splattered Cortman’s flesh with lead. For a moment Cortman stood erect in the hot blast, palsied hands raised high over his head, a look of berserk defiance twisting his white features.
“Ben,” Neville muttered in a croaking whisper.
Ben Cortman’s body folded, slumped forward, fell. It slid and rolled slowly down the shingled incline, then dropped into space. In the sudden silence Neville heard the thump of it from across the street. Sickeyed, he watched the men rush at the writhing body with their pikes.
Then Neville closed his eyes and his nails dug furrows in the flesh of his palms.
A clumping of boots. Neville jerked back into the darkness. He stood in the middle of the room, waiting for them to call to him and tell him to come out. He held himself rigidly. I’m not going to fight, he told himself strongly. Even though he wanted to fight, even though he already hated the dark men with their guns and their bloodstained pikes.
But he wasn’t going to fight. He had worked out his decision very carefully. They were doing what they had to do, albeit with unnecessary violence and seeming relish. He had killed their people and they had to capture him and save themselves. He would not fight. He’d throw himself upon the justice of their new society. When they called to him he would go out and surrender, it was his decision.
But they didn’t call. Neville lurched back with a gasp as the ax blade bit deeply into the front door. He stood trembling in the dark living room. What were they doing? Why didn’t they call on him to surrender? He wasn’t a vampire, he was a man like them. What were they doing?
He whirled and stared at the kitchen. They were chopping at the boarded-up back door too. He took a nervous step toward the hallway. His frightened eyes rushed from the back to the front door. He felt his heart pumping. He didn’t understand, he didn’t understand!
With a grunt of shocked surprise he jumped into the hall as the enclosed house rang with the gun explosion. The men were shooting away the lock on the front door. Another reverberating shot made his ears ring.
And, suddenly, he knew. They weren’t going to take him to their courts, to their justice. They were going to exterminate him.
With a frightened murmur he ran into the bedroom. His hands fumbled in the bureau drawer.
He straightened up on trembling legs, the guns in his hands. But what if they were going to take him prisoner? He’d only judged by the fact that they hadn’t called on him to come out. There were no lights in the house; maybe they thought he was already gone.
He stood shivering in the darkness of the bedroom, not knowing what to do, mutters of terror filling his throat. Why hadn’t he left! Why hadn’t he listened to her and left? Fool!
One of his guns fell from nerveless fingers as the front door was crushed in. Heavy feet thudded into the living room and Robert Neville shuffled back across the floor, his remaining pistol held out with rigid, blooddrained fingers. They weren’t going to kill him without a fight!
He gasped as he collided with the bench. He stood there tautly. In the front room a man said something he couldn’t understand, then flashlight beams shone into the hall. Neville caught his breath. He felt the room spinning around him. So this is the end. It was the only thing he could think. So this is the end.
Heavy shoes thumped in the hall. Neville’s fingers tightened still more on the pistol and his eyes stared with wild fright at the doorway.
Two men came in.
Their white beams played around the room, struck his face. The two men recoiled abruptly.
“He’s got a gun!” one of them cried, and fired his pistol.
Neville heard the bullet smash into the wall over his head. Then the pistol was jolting in his hand, splashing his face with bursts of light. He didn’t fire at any one of them; he just kept pulling the trigger automatically. One of the men cried out in pain.
Then Neville felt a violent club blow across his chest. He staggered back, and jagged, burning pain exploded in his body. He fired once more, then crashed to his knees, the pistol slipping from his fingers.
“You got him!” he heard someone cry as he fell on his face. He tried to reach out for the pistol but a dark boot stamped on his hand and broke it. Neville drew in his hand with a rattling gasp and stared through pain-glazed eyes at the floor.
Rough hands slid under his armpits and pulled him up. He kept wondering when they would shoot him again. Virge, he thought, Virge, I’m coming with you now. The pain in his chest was like molten lead poured over him from a great height. He felt and heard his boot tips scraping over the floor and waited for death. I want to die in my own house, he thought. He struggled feebly but they didn’t stop. Hot pain raked saw-toothed nails through his chest as they dragged him through the front room.
