"I Am Legend" and how it relates to "After the Bomb"

WARNING: Includes spoilers for "I Am Legend"

I went to the movie "I Am Legend" last week and realized that in a way it kind of relates to AtB in how the world is drastically changed by a biological event.

I Am Legend is set three years after the plague which has killed 90% of humanity and caused 9.9% to change into hairless rabid creatures of the night (in the original 1954 novel they turned into vampires). Only .1% of humanity was immune to the plague, but are now hunted by the 9.9% that survive as "dark-seekers". We also find out that animals are not immune to the plague, though they are immune to the air-borne strain, and can change into "dark-seekers" as well.

One could assume that the events following the plague that occurred in AtB had similar consequences. From the 2nd Edition book (pg. 164) we know that "within a month, over 74% of the human race died", and that "once released, billions died." In all we can assume that a good 85-95% of humanity was dead within a year due to the plague, radiation, disease, starvation, exposure, murder, etc.. Those few who survived would then face not "dark-seekers" but the mutating animals that were changed by the plague.

Imagine how these animals must have looked to the survivors, or the survivors to the mutated animals. These creatures would not have been like those domesticated "pets" that were created in the EGGs, these creatures were born in the wild. I'm sure that there were those who looked for cures, or just hunted down these smart monsters. Events that probably became legend to the surviving animals, and tales to be told to their children at night to scare them from the vicious humans.

Daniel R. Christian (later to be known as Emperor Christian) was probably someone like Robert Neville from the original "I Am Legend" novel. A man whose fear of the changing drives him to kill those things that were affected by the plague. Emperor Christian may not have always been the diabolic villian we know now, but a man whose mission has twisted his perception of the world to the point we find him now. I am sure that in the ages to follow his eventual fall, Emperor Christian will forever be a legend to the mutant animals.