I Am Legend: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

Very late at night, a sound wakes Neville up from the couch, where he’s been sleeping. Neville cries out, “Virge!” only to realize that it’s Ruth, walking down the hall. Neville gets out of bed, dresses, and accuses Ruth of trying to leave him; Ruth denies this. Neville pours himself whiskey and drinks all of it right away. He tells Ruth about the night his wife came back from the dead “to drink my blood.” Neville stuck a wooden stake through his own wife’s heart, killing her for good, and then buried her for the second time.

Ruth asks Neville, “Why were we punished like this?” Neville says he doesn’t know, and apologizes to Ruth for not trusting her. He tells Ruth that, somehow, things will get better, and holds her tight. Suddenly, Neville and Ruth kiss each other. They “sat there holding each other close” for a long time.

After a long time, Neville stands up, gets his syringe and proceeds to draw blood from Ruth. He bends over a microscope, assuring Ruth that, if she is infected, he’ll find a way to cure her. Ruth cries out, “Don’t look!” Neville proceeds to look, anyway, and sees that Ruth is infected. Suddenly, a wooden mallet crashes down on his head. He falls to the floor, and “night filled his brain.”