RUTH'S LOG | Diariesofvampirism

Ruth's Mission Log

What you see before you appears to be a mission assignment. Careful readers will note the names “Ruth” and “Robert Neville” and should think of Richard Matheson’s 1954 horror/science fiction novella I Am Legend. Those careful readers would be correct. I can confirm for you now, reader, that, before you, is a digital recreation of the exact document that Ruth received before embarking on her mission to bring in Robert Neville. We should amend my previous statement, then, because, since this is a genuine document—that has clearly survived through some traumatic moments—Matheson’s novella is not science fiction; it is a historical recollection of a viral vampiric apocalypse that plagued our nation. Scientists have, as of yet, been unable to test the age of the paper, but I can share that the bloodstain is too old and too decomposed to retrieve viable DNA from. When exactly in history this apocalypse occurred, how long it lasted, why it has been lost to us for so long, and how we emerged from it are all questions that we can and will attempt to answer, but, for now, let us look to this first surviving document to learn more about what we once thought to be make-believe.

AGENT NAME: Ruth

ID #: 871954

RANK: Officer[1]

SKILL(S):

Close combat (hand-to-hand, mallet)
Verbal persuasion
High intellect
Feminine wiles
Emotional manipulation

MISSION CODE: LEGEND

TARGET: Neville, Robert

SKILL(S):

Close combat (stake and lathe[2])
Basic survival
Builds own protective defense mechanisms
High intellect
Knowledge of scientific equipment

INTELLIGENCE: High

DANGER LEVEL: Extreme

CRIME(S):

Mass Murder (approximately 1,440 kills/month, including 360 children)[3]
Premeditated murder
Inciting terror
Breaking and Entering/trespassing
Theft

SENTENCE: Death

TASK: Infiltrate the home of the Killer. Find his weakness(es) by whatever means necessary. Sources indicate he may be susceptible to feminine sexuality, but all previous attempts have proved futile[4]. Capture and return Killer to base. Exterminate as last resort.

[1] The organization of this mission assignment tells us that this vampire society had a clear hierarchy. Prior to Matheson’s 1954 account, vampires were portrayed as bestial. Count Dracula, for example, had “hairs in the centre of the palm” and “nails [that] were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point” (Stoker 29).

[2] Stakes, in their shape, are phallic symbols. For Robert Neville, killing has become a replacement for sexual release. In previous vampire stories, like Carmilla and Dracula, the vampires themselves posed a sexual threat, because other characters found them irresistibly attractive. In I Am Legend, Neville views the prospect of having sex with a vampire as “an insult to a man” (Matheson 19). And while Matheson’s language—“he lay there, breathing heavily, body writhing slightly on the sheet” (22), “deep in his body, the knotting heat began again,” and “natural drive” (19)–indicates Neville’s sexual frustration, the orgasmic moment of release does not come until he kills.

[3] Here we see an exorbitant number of vampire casualties. In previous vampire stories, it has seemed that it takes many humans to kill just one vampire, and, yet, Robert Neville has managed to single-handedly slaughter thousands. Such a drastic shift in statistics could indicate that, by the time of the vampire outbreak, humans had become desensitized to vampire horror and the creatures no longer held a psychological power over us.

[4] Now that we consider Matheson’s novella an account of a historical event, we can take his writings as truth. That being said, we can verify that Robert Neville did seem able to resist the sexual advances of other female vampires who he claimed posed “like lewd puppets in the night on the possibility that he’d see them and decide to come out” (Matheson 19). Even when he meets Ruth, he notes that he is not attracted to her: “The most unusual feature of the entire affair, he thought, was that he felt no physical desire for her. If she had come two years before, maybe even later, he might have violated her. […] His sex drive had diminished, had virtually disappeared” (136).