I Am Legend: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Neville continues to explore the mystery of why vampires are repulsed by crosses. He wonders what a Mohammedan (i.e., Muslim) vampire would do if faced with a cross, and laughs. It's the first time Neville has laughed in months, if not years. Later in the day, Neville tries to see if the “running water bit makes sense,” and sprays a hose into a wooden trough, so that the water flows through the trough and down into the soil below.

That night, Neville looks out through his peephole and sees Ben Cortman on his front lawn. Cortman has a beard now, and his face seems thinner. Cortman and Neville once worked at the same plant, and used to be good friends; now, Cortman is totally alien to Neville.

Neville runs into the kitchen and turns on the water, so that the hose flows on the front lawn. Neville goes back to looking through the peephole, and sees Cortman grinning and laughing—Cortman jumps over the “running water” of the hose without any hesitation. Furious, Neville get his pistol, opens the front door, and shoots Cortman in the shoulder. Cortman collapses, and suddenly, a female vampire stands in front of Cortman and begins “jerking up her dress.” Neville goes back inside before he can see anything—he doesn’t want to feel temptation. Later that night, Neville looks outside and sees Cortman standing again, calling, “Come out, Neville!” Suddenly, Neville realizes that Cortman reminds him of Oliver Hardy (the black-and-white comedy star). He laughs hysterically, but later, he cries.

In the following days, Neville continues experimenting with vampires. He takes female vampires and stabs them with wooden stakes, sometimes in the heart, sometimes elsewhere. No matter where he stabs, the vampires die, spurting dark blood everywhere. But Neville discovers that some vampires have a different reaction to being stabbed. He stabs a female vampire, and in mere seconds, she disintegrates into “salt and pepper” ashes. Neville then remembers talking to a “Negro” at the plant, who told him that corpses eventually decompose until they look like a pile of salt and pepper. Neville concludes that this particular vampire must have been dead for a very long time—perhaps she was one of the vampires who originally started the plague. He wonders if Virginia, buried in her crypt, looks like a pile of salt and pepper, too.