 What was the last animal left on Earth after the mysterious plague began to spread?
There should be an epitaph for every man, big or little, but a really grand and special one for Loner Charlie. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1954. A year ago she had been unattainable, a face to conjure with in erotic dreams, far beyond his ken. New York lay quietly below him. It was the hour of indecision when day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet attacked in force. To any man, WHO HAPPENED TO BE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH! On sudden impulse he switched it on, turned the volume up full, and in grim jest left it playing Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead on full automatic. Buildings were taller, men were healthier, most of the problems of humanity seemed licked, or nearly so. Sales of poison dropped, scientific laboratories chained to a perpetual rodent-cycle began to complain bitterly. Then the lovers who hunted out and haunted the lonely lanes through the countryside began to remark that the locusts were late that year. The Southern states joyously reported that mosquito control was working to an unprecedented degree. The largest cotton crop ever was forecast and rumors from Mexico had it that no one had died from scorpion bite in several weeks. A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier. Congress was called into special session, as were all of the national governments around the world. Within a year it was obvious to everyone that man was the only animal left on earth. The panic which had begun with the death of the animals was quieted somewhat by the fact that humans seemed immune to the pandemic. But the lakes full of dead fish caused a great stink and residents along the coasts began to move inland. Then just one year ago, the first human became infected with the strange malady. Within six months, half of the world's population was gone. Less than a month ago no more than a few thousand people remained in New York. Before the plague the Bureau of Vital Statistics had been one of man's crowning achievements. Housed as it was in a huge metallic globe of a building, it contained computers which kept exact account of every human on earth. Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's four billion inhabitants. Only once, before the plague, had he seen the interior of this room. And again at the age of 10 each child returned to the Bureau for a recheck.
 Humans
 Household pets  Rats  Humans  Locusts