I'M Legend

The story takes place between January 1976 and January 1979 in Los Angeles. The novel opens with the monotony and horror of the daily life of the protagonist, Robert Neville. Neville is apparently the only survivor of an apocalypse caused by a pandemic of bacteria, the symptoms of which are similar to vampirism. He spends every day repairing his house, boarding up windows, stringing and hanging garlic, disposing of vampire corpses on his lawn and going out to gather any additional supplies needed for hunting and killing more vampires.

Much of the story is devoted to Neville's struggles to understand the plague that has divided those around him into the walking dead - vampires - and the still-living infected. The novel details his research into the nature of vampirism, as the symptoms explain their legendary aversion to garlic, sunlight, and so on.

One day a dog appears in the neighborhood. Neville spends weeks trying to win its trust and domesticate it. He eventually traps the terrified dog and wins it over, but it dies from the infection a week later.

Neville encounters an apparently uninfected woman named Ruth; startled, she runs away. Neville chases her and after a struggle drags her back to his house. Suspicious that she is infected, Neville questions her. He reveals that as well as vampires, he kills the infected, believing that sooner or later they will die and come after him. Despite their mistrust, Neville and Ruth fall for each other.

However, when Neville performs a blood test on her, her infection is revealed. Ruth knocks him out and escapes, but leaves a note, explaining that she was a spy from a primitive new society; her people are infected but have discovered a means to hold the disease at bay. She warns him to leave before they come to destroy him. Neville decides to stay.

Months later, hunters from the new society capture Neville, and take him for public execution.