"Richard Matheson - I Am Legend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Matheson Richard)

special time. He was acting very stupidly, trying to beat them. Should he
watch a movie? No, be didn’t feel like setting up the projector. He’d go to
bed and put the plugs in his ears. It was what he ended up doing every
night, anyway.

Quickly, trying not to think at all; he went to the bedroom and undressed.
He put on pajama bottoms and went into the bathroom. He never wore pajama
tops; it was a habit he’d acquired in Panama during the war.

As he washed, he looked into the mirror at his broad chest, at the dark
hair swirling around the nipples and down the center line of his chest. He
looked at the ornate cross he’d had tattooed on his chest one night in
Panama when he’d been drunk. What a fool I was in those days! he thought.
Well, maybe that cross had saved his life.

He brushed his teeth carefully and used dental-floss. He tried to take good
care of his teeth because he was his own dentist now. Some things could go
to pot, but not his health, he thought. Then why don’t you stop pouring
alcohol into yourself? he thought. Why don’t you shut the hell up? he
thought.

Now be went through the house, turning out lights. For a few minutes he
looked at the mural and tried to believe it was really the ocean. But how
could he believe it with all the bumpings and the scrapings, the howlings
and snarlings and cries in the night?

He turned off the living-room lamp and went into the bedroom.

He made a sound of disgust when he saw that sawdust covered the bed. He
brushed it off with snapping hand strokes, thinking that he’d better build
a partition between the shop and the sleeping portion of the room. Better
do this and better do that, he thought morosely. There were so many damned
things to do, he’d never get to the real problem.

He jammed in his earplugs and a great silence engulfed him. He turned off
the light and crawled in between the sheets. He looked at the radium-faced
clock and saw that it was only a few minutes past ten. Just as well, he
thought. This way I’ll get an early start.

He lay there on the bed and took deep breaths of the darkness, hoping for
sleep. But the silence didn’t really help. He could still see them out
there, the white-faced men prowling around his house, looking ceaselessly
for a way to get in at him. Some of them, probably, crouching on their
haunches like dogs, eyes glittering at the house, teeth slowly grating
together, back and forth, back and forth.

And the women ...

Did he have to start thinking about them again? He tossed over on his
stomach with a curse and pressed his face into the hot pillow. He lay