Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (recently adapted for the big screen) is an inspiration for writers who wish to master
the art of suspense.
This short novel focuses on the life of one man, Richard Neville, the last man on earth. Neville has the misfortune of being immune to a recent plague that has wiped out the human race.
Vampires, once thought to be fiction, have taken over. At first, Neville survives by following methods described in books and movies: garlic, crosses and running water ward them off; a wooden stake through the heart will kill them; they fear sunlight.
Neville takes it upon himself to read medical and psychology texts to better understand this plague that has killed his wife and child, and has turned his neighbors into crazed nightwalkers. Upon examination of the
infected blood under a microscope, Neville learns that the plague was in fact caused by an aggressive bacterial infection. Through trial and error, Neville becomes expert at understanding vampires and eradicating them.
Three years into his solitude, Neville encounters a woman who is tanned, healthy, and walking out in the daylight. After being alone for so long, Neville has a hard time trusting the woman, she doesn’t smell right to him and her story is unusual. He convinces himself that he has been alone for too long and tells her everything he knows about the vampires. Soon Neville discovers that he should have trusted his first instinct, she is one of them, an infected undead who has come to spy on him. They have a drug that helps them survive. And, they are forming a new society, without human beings. They are many. He is one. He is now the legend.