Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
By JAMES McCONNELL There should be an epitaph for every and special one for Loner Charlie. "Now the world is dead. The whole world is dead." day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet shining, their relays activated by darkness-sensitized solenoids. A reddish-orange pallor hung from the sky. "Why did it have to be her—or me? Why should it have to happen to anybody! Why!" His thoughts beat a rapid crescendo, activating emotions, stimulating sensations of angry rage. He wanted to cry, to weep angry tears of protest. To any man, WHO HAPPENED TO BE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH! attacking his olfactory patch with the retching smell of decaying flesh. Charles ignored it. Even smells had lost their customary meanings. He felt the rage build up inside again, tearing at his viscera. His "But I don't want to be the last man alive!" he shouted. "I don't know " Maybe I'm not the last! " The thought struck him with suddenness, promisingly, edged with conventionality. After all, it didn't make any difference now. Isle of the Dead on full automatic. The music haunted unit of population, each section of town operating on perpetual, ever-lasting, automatic atomic piles. was fun, just a bowl of cherries, until...." Two years ago the animals had started dying. Strangely enough the rats had gone first, to anybody's notice. 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 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals committed suicide. 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. Sales of perfumes and deodorants soared. 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 walked on down the bloody street. 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. who was dead, and where everybody was. Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's four billion inhabitants. Four billion names and addresses, compressed Only once, before the plague, had he seen the interior of this room. child returned to the Bureau for a recheck. It was for this latter mechanical wonder had remained with him the rest of his life. "So different now," he thought, surveying the room. "Now it's empty, so of the world. The silence became unbearable. York on the screen. "There's bound to be somebody else left here. After "Why, it was just yesterday (or was it the day before?) that ten of alive then." Including the blond young woman who had died just this Charles was by himself, the last person alive in all of New York City. The Pacific area, Asia, Australia, Asia Minor, Russia and the Near East, Africa and then Europe. plague. It's only logical that—" Alone. Such a simple question, but in those three letters lay the essence of human nature. Why. The drive of curiosity. Stronger, in a way, than the so-called "basic" drives: hunger, thirst, sex, shelter, warmth, companionship, elimination. Certainly more decisive in the history of animals, when he first asked the question: "Why?" But thinking about "why" didn't answer the question itself, Charles Park, alone except for a few stray corpses. But the park was fairly free of bodies. "You've got about ten minutes warning," he said to himself. "I guess that most people wanted to die inside of something—inside of anything. The silence was like a weight hanging around his neck. Not an insect Why. His mind kept returning to the question. Of all the people on earth, me. The last. Why me? it? Had God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, spared his life, saved What about—? Chance. That was it! The laws of probability, the bell-shaped curve, normal distribution, rectilinear regression. More people per square foot in New York than elsewhere. The first person who died was from New York, so the last person who gave way to the disease should come from here too. Spin the wheel throw the dice to be the last to go and that was— sleep out the long one, no place to rest while time came to change "I can't very well bury myself," he said. "I guess it will rain after be proper. "'In this now hallowed corner of the planet Earth—' No. That sounds Make it simple, he thought. And he finally wrote: HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE LAST MAN ON EARTH Yes. That was it. Simple. Let whoever came afterwards figure out the near the park. Later on, when there was more time, he'd find a piece Somehow, though, since things were ready and it didn't make too much difference, it seemed to Charles that he'd probably have a long time to wait. "Maybe it's just a disease, and I'm immune. I was immune to smallpox. The vaccination never took. That's probably it." He smiled. Strange, but now he wanted very much to go on living, alone or not. There were things he could do, ways to keep occupied. The tantalizing thought of "why" puzzled its way back into his mind. conclusion that he would live for a long time. Later, in a few days to the restaurant. This was the way the plague began, but—His mind quickly repressed the idea. It couldn't be the plague. He was immune! Another burst of pulsating, shattering pain crashed through his body, tearing down the defenses of his mind, putting an end of his thoughts useless. His body, out of his voluntary control, tried to run off in Charles struggled to end his body's disorganized responses, to stomach protested, he vomited. It made no difference. not think for the grave. Instantly the thought struck him with paralyzing devastation. The answer to it all poked its face out from the recesses of his mind and sapped the last bit of his energy, corroding his nerves and dying empty coffin. The world will end, not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with the last man's anguished cry at the unreasonableness of it all. Charles screamed. The large, invisible, ovular being that hung suspended over the Empire "On the next planet out. No beauty to it at all yours?" "Beautiful," said the first. "It went according to the strictest "What's that you have there?" "Oh, this?" replied the first. "It's a higher neural order compendium the Things here made up. It's what I used." "Well?" "All right, all right. You're so good, see if you can compute the scatter probability." The first being moved imperceptably and the heavy plastoid binding of the book disappeared. The thousands of pages dropped softly, caught and sloughed softly to the ground (read the names: Looman, Loomana, Loomanabsky). fluttered down into the shallow hole beneath, unnoticed. The writing on THE LAST MAN ON EARTH— CHARLES J. ZZYZST GO TO HELL!

<question>:
What was the last animal left on Earth after the mysterious plague began to spread?

<options>:
A Household pets
B Rats
C Humans
D Locusts

<answer>:

C