An Episode of Not Quite Dead.

Episode Content Warnings

Please bear in mind that this show is a work of horror fiction and frequently places characters in situations which jeopardise their psychological and physical health. This episode contains:

– profanity

– discussion of physical illness and ailments

– discussion of traumatic injury

– mentions near-death experiences

– references to medical procedures

– labored breathing

– depictions of violence

– death/murder

– sounds of a character in extreme emotional distress

Transcript

I want to understand how all of this works. Neige tells me it’s a mistake to think of the science behind it, that it’s some kind of logical reasoning error, somehow, to try and investigate the mechanics of vampirism. But it’s what I am, now. My body works differently. I want to understand how and why, because– how has nobody put in the time to work out how and why? It makes no sense to me. Surely at some point, you know, someone would’ve sat down and parsed it out. All that medical innovation over centuries of existence and human medicine, and not a single vampire has tried to push the boundaries for them, too?

How can that be possible? It can’t, it seems to me. It just can’t.

I don’t care if Neige the pursuit of knowledge is a mistake, he’s wrong. If he can’t communicate it to me, if he can’t explain why I shouldn’t do it, then why I am I listening to him? It seems like it’s just something he finds emotionally complicated, and that’s fine but it is NOT grounds for walling off this entire avenue of research.

Even if I can’t find a way to undo it. Even if there’s no way to turn me back. There are answers in this that I need. This is– like it or not this is the way my brain works. It always has been. I won’t be ashamed of it. I refuse to ignore this instinct to understand myself. Its my body, isn’t it? Isn’t it my right to know how it works?

Neige makes out like he’s a paragon of knowledge, like just because he’s old he understands everything so much better, like he thinks I’m just– like I’m a child! I’m not a child. I’m an adult. I might not be thousands of years old but I am an adult. I might be new to this life but I am not new to being alive, I’ve lived, and I–

ALFIE CUTS HIMSELF OFF

I’ve made a really, really dumb mistake with Neige. Ugh. I can’t believe how fucking embarrassing it is, more than anything. Like, Jesus Christ. I literally cannot think of a worse way for things to have panned out, honestly. I am so mortified I might just shrivel up into a tiny raisin. At least then I won’t have to deal with this. And oh my god I reacted so badly in the moment too. Like a pathetic little child. Like he’s right about me.

It’s so. Ugh. I’m so embarrassed. Fuck.

ALFIE MAKES A SOUND SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A LAUGH AND A SOB

And I’ve just woken up from sleeping off the horrible crying fit I had about this and Neige is just gone. Like actually gone. He’s taken the car, which he doesn’t always do, but like. It feels like he wanted me to know he’s gone. And he’s just – he’s gone. He’s left. He–

What if he doesn’t come back? What if this is the thing that– how serious of a fuck up it–

ALFIE TAKES A SHARP BREATH

I feel like my bones have turned to jelly and my brain is melting out of my ears.

It was just, it was such a vulnerable moment and I. No. Context, context, context. Right. I’m such an idiot. I cannot believe I did that. Fuck.

EIRA: This is Not Quite Dead, episode twenty-one, Glass Houses.

Okay. This is not the point of– there are more important things than my inability to be normal about anything. I’ve been trying to make a list of what I know about vampire blood and the change. Neige keeps telling me to be wary about it.

So. this is what I know, so far. Vampire blood will temporarily restore a human to full health. There is a limit to this; vampire blood cannot restore life in the dead, and there are some injuries too severe to be treated this way. The effect of the blood is temporary. The length of time of the effect depends on the quantity of blood consumed and the severity of any illness or injury prior to consumption.

After the blood wears off, first the person will experience flu-like symptoms: sweating; fever; nausea; congestion. For people who have only consumed a small amount of blood and who have normal immune systems, symptoms are likely to stop here. For those who have consumed higher quantities, these flu-like symptoms will persist and progress, and then new symptoms will begin to develop: disorientation; muscle weakness; shaking; fatigue; tachycardia.

After some time, if the body’s immune response doesn’t counteract the blood, and no further blood is consumed, those symptoms will progress into: re-opening of wounds the blood closed; progress of illnesses the blood prevented; haemorrhaging; respiratory distress

Eventually, the body will go into septic shock, resulting in death. You can prevent this by administering further doses of the blood, but the body appears to grow resistant to its effects, building up a tolerance which requires increased frequency and quantity of dosage. And eventually, even if this is well managed, the effect of the blood will still result in irreversible shock, and death.

And let me tell you, it’s not a nice way to go.

I’ve. Casper. He came and took me out of the hospital before anyone recognised me, after the half-mades attacked me. I have no memory of anything after the fall until I was waking up, the taste of his honey wine blood on my tongue.

Cool hands brushed my cheek. I half-opened my eyes. Casper was moving through the small room made by the drapes around my hospital bed. The pain behind my eyes was almost unbearable when I tried to focus on anything. There was something in my mouth; a horrible pull in my chest; someone tearing out my lungs. Casper was pulling out the ventilator tube from my throat. I coughed violently, my ECG bleeping violently. Casper pulled the blood pressure monitor off my finger, then his nimble fingers closed around my forearm.

‘No, Casper, no–’ I said in feeble protest as his free hand covered the IV in my arm. He pulled it free and blood bubbled up to the surface of my skin. I barely gasped at this new pain. All of me felt like it was burning. It was just a brief focused heat against the constant blaze of everything else. Casper dipped his head, his tongue a bright spot of cold as he licked the blood from the crook of my arm.

‘What’s happening?’ I said.

‘Hush. I’m helping you,’ he told me. His pupils were blown wide, his eyes a shocking shade of scarlet. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘I can’t, I–’

Casper wasn’t listening. He slipped one arm behind my shoulders and the other under my knees like I was nothing but a rag.

‘No,’ I mumbled against his chest. This close to him, my face pressed into his clothes, I could smell it, that smell, like honey and wine and heat and musk. Despite the churning in my stomach, my mouth was watering. Casper stood up, holding me close, and carried me out of the hospital. I closed my eyes, bracing myself against the slight jostles his movements made and the ripples of pain each one elicited.

Then we were outside, fresh air mixing with the heady smell leeching out of his skin. Balancing me on his knee, Casper opened and car door and slid me into the front seat. ‘I’m going to die,’ I whispered. ‘Please.’

‘You’re not going to die today.’ Casper slammed the door shut and went around to the drivers seat. I turned around so I could look at him, my eyes as open as I could stand them to be.

Casper had a hand over his face. ‘I’m sorry. Your injuries; you had internal bleeding, I didn’t realise how bad it was, I was so panicked.’

Casper took out a knife and rolled up his sleeve. The blade split his pale flesh, and red ran thick down his forearm. That smell, divine, boozy, sweet, rich, filled the car, and I could think of nothing else, not of the words Casper was saying, not even of the pain which was all I’d been able to know for days. I found myself keening forwards.

‘Woah, careful,’ Casper said, softly. He offered his arm, guided my chin towards it. I went without protest. My lips closed around the wound on his arm and in an instant my mouth was filled with his divine sweetness. He was cold, and so was the blood, but it danced hot on my tongue and in my throat, the way good vodka tastes of nothing at all and then fire. Casper kept his cool hand on my face as relief spread from my throat and first across my chest, unfurling like the petals of a spring flower, reaching out further and further, soothing the burning pain inside me as it spread.

After what felt like no time at all, Casper’s hand slipped to my throat and he pushed me back from his arm. Without meaning to, I cried out.

‘No,’ said Casper. He was breathing heavily. He leaned against the headrest, eyes closed, almost panting. ‘You can’t take more.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. I sat up fully, pain and exhaustion evaporated in the air. I touched my lips; my fingers came away red. ‘What the fuck.’ I whispered. ‘What the fuck.’

‘Your injuries,’ Casper said, swallowing hard. ‘They were too severe. You would have died in hours, if I left you in the hospital.’

I felt numb. I felt cold. ‘What are you saying?’

Casper looked at me long and hard. ‘There’s no way to save you. I’m so sorry.’

‘What do you mean, ‘there’s no way to save me’? You just– I’m fine! Your blood is magic, I’m fixed, I’m fine!’ I was breathing fast and shallow.

‘It won’t last. You know that. You’ve seen the effect of the blood. You’ve felt it yourself. It can help you heal, but at a cost. It will chip away at you. Eventually, you are going to die.’

‘We’re all going to die eventually, Casper.’

Casper shook his head. ‘You have a couple of months. Maybe less.’

‘Months,’ I repeated. I couldn’t feel my hands. My face was cold. My ears were ringing.

‘If I hadn’t stepped in, it would be hours. You’d have died without realising, without–’

‘Without what,’ I whispered.

‘I thought you’d want a chance to say goodbye to people you loved.’

I looked at him hard and cold. ‘Casper. What the fuck.’

Casper shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

It felt like the whole world was screaming at me. Outside of the car, a young woman was crossing the carpark. She had a little girl beside her. She was wearing this little polkadot raincoat. She was jumping across the dark stripes of the zebra crossing, her mother hoisting her higher by the hand every jump. I couldn’t hear her laughter but it was beautiful in her expression. And the world was crumbling around me, but it didn’t look any different.

‘What will happen to me?’ I asked, quietly.

Casper drew a long, slow breath. ‘Before I make this offer to you, I want you to remember that I have never made a vampire. I have never tried to do this. I want you to remember what you know about the half-mades, about the odds of success. I want you to remember that it is likely this process will kill you. Even if it doesn’t it will be long and painful. You will never see your family again.’

‘Casper. Are you offering to make me into a vampire?’ I asked.

Casper put his hands on the steering wheel. ‘I’m giving you the choice,’ he said.

But what choice was it, really? This decision was made the moment I met him, I think. Maybe even before then. Maybe it was made in whatever weird confluence of nature and nurture created this person I am, someone who would meet Casper and want to get closer to him, not further away.

Neige speaks about me knowing the risks of this life before I took it like it’s a privilege. To me it seems like all it does is reveal the actual extent of my idiocy. Because I should have walked away. At so many junctions, I should have walked away, but I didn’t. And I can lay it out, I can examine every choice, every moment, but now, it feels so clear to me that this was all some horrific– it’s a misunderstanding. I didn’t get it, because I couldn’t get it until I lived it.

And what I’m feeling now, is it regret? No. But there are things about this life which cannot be satisfyingly described. The hollow ache of knowing your future is now potentially infinite, but the universe has stuck a bounty on your head which means in all likelihood you won’t make it through the next decade. Maybe not even the next year. What a sick joke. You roll the dice every morning. Are you going to live forever or die gasping, writhing, hissing, senseless and in agony, within the next few weeks?

And the loneliness. You don’t appreciate how often you would just casually see and interact with other people until you can’t. And you can’t trust yourself near them, you don’t trust yourself to appear to be something normal, something that won’t alarm them, something that will cause them to turn on you and hurt you. The boneshaking fear that comes with the knowledge that if you are hurt, you become a danger to everyone in your immediate vicinity, a kind of unstoppable force, trying all you can to heal, but at what cost?

At what cost.

All I want is to be– I just. I want to touch someone without biting them. I want to–

I tried to ask Neige, to ask him if maybe this is why he does what he does, when he hunts. Maybe it’s all motivated by the rush of intoxicating flavours when people orgasm as you drink from them but how much of it isn’t, you know? He doesn’t need to kiss them before, but he does. How much of that is because he wants to be held, too? Does he feel that aching loneliness I feel? Is it like a pit inside of him the way it is inside of me?

But he– he can’t. I don’t know why but he won’t talk about it. And it was so clear that just to ask this, it made him so. He looked so different. He looked smaller than he is, somehow. He looked so young, and also I could see every day of his thousands of years of life in his expression.

And then I said, ‘did you love Casper?’

Neige laughed, but it was a sad little laugh. ‘I did,’ he told me.

‘What happened?’ I said. ‘Why did you part ways?’

Neige looked out of the window for a long time before he answered. When he spoke he did so quietly enough that I had to strain to listen to the words. ‘Because he loved me back.’

He ran his hand over his face. ‘There were other things too. He’s always been a miserable little thing, so obsessed with his own suffering, it got exhausting after a while. And then he started to refuse to bite humans, under most circumstances. He’d bite them when he’d take them as lovers, and he’d do this whole thing every time. ‘I’m in love with them,’ he’d tell me, and I’d say to him, of course you are, my love.’ but somehow these loves were never happy loves. They were always difficult, they always hurt him. I’d tell him he should stop, that it was a form of self-harm, to him, to take these lovers this way, but he either could not or would not see this for himself.

‘He’d spiral and get so caught up in his obsession and self-hatred and then. Then. Usually after just a few weeks. He’d mess up and drink them dry. Every time it happened he would mourn for longer than the relationship had been. Every time, he’d come back to me, weeping. Neige, Neige, he’d say, and I’d hold him, of course I would, I’m not that kind of monster, you know?

‘So I told him he had to stop doing this. That this wasn’t the way to solve the hurt inside of him and would only ever lead to more hurting. To my surprise, he listened. He told me he was afraid of what I was. Of how I loved to be what I am. He was scared that if he stopped proving to himself that it was impossible for him to be with a human lover, he would forget he was ever human at all, and he would–’

Neige stopped himself, then. And I don’t know what else happened. I don’t know the rest of his thought, or what the point of what he was saying was supposed to be, because I am a profoundly idiotic creature and I cannot stop myself, apparently. Neige is right. I’m a fucking animal. I didn’t think, I should have thought, but I didn’t think, I just. Fucking. Did it.

I kissed him.

He was sitting there, tears in his eyes, so angry, telling me about Casper, Casper who I love, Casper who is still, ostensibly, my fucking boyfriend. And when Neige had to pause to find the words to explain something to me, I fucking kissed him.

You know, like an idiot.

And he just.

He was so still, for a moment. And then his hands were on my shoulders. He pushed me back, stood up, and left the room.

And I fucking wept. Like an infant. I wept and wept and wept. I cried so much it fucking hurt me. My eyes hurt, my face hurt, my teeth hurt. I cried so much, so hard that Neige came back. He didn’t say a word, he just held me. He just fucking, held me in his lap and stroked my hair and. Fuck. I’m pathetic. I’m stupid and I’m pathetic and I hate myself.

Jesus.

A CAR ENGINE RUMBLES

And he’s back. Great. I am not ready for this. I am not ready to have this conversation, shit. I should go back inside. Sitting here on the step was a mistake, I should go back inside, ugh–

BRAKES SCREECH. GRAVEL CRUMBLES. A CAR DOOR OPENS.

ALFIE
Neige?

A SOFT THUD

ALFIE
Neige!

FOOTSTEPS, RUNNING. THE CAR ENGINE CONTINUES TO GROWL.

NEIGE
Mon petit…

ALFIE
Fucking– your teeth, oh my god, they’ve knocked out your teeth.

NEIGE
Just the front ones.

ALFIE
Oh baby, what happened!

NEIGE GARGLES

ALFIE

I’m sorry, fuck, what do I do? Tell me what to do!

NEIGE
Dans la… la voiture… siège arrière. S’il… s’il vous… la voiture…

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
La– la voit–

ALFIE
The car? What about the car! Baby, I don’t speak French good enough, come on, let me help you, please. Fucking, oh! Wait, let me give you my blood

NEIGE
Non, non–

ALFIE
Let me help you, please, please.

THE SOUND OF ALFIE BITING FLESH

NEIGE MOANS

ALFIE
Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay. Drink. I’ve got you. I’m so sorry, what happened, I’m so sorry. Take all you need, it’s okay.

NEIGE PULLS AWAY, GASPING.

NEIGE
You are being incredibly reckless! You are so new, it will not take much to send you into a frenzy.

ALFIE
I trust you not to take too much.

NEIGE
Perhaps unwise, but I am flattered. I won’t take anymore from you.

ALFIE
But– are you healed?

NEIGE
I have my teeth, that will do for now, but I need more blood. Look in the car, in the back.

ALFIE
Okay, okay!

SCRAMBLING FEET. A CAR DOOR OPENS.

ALFIE
Fucking hell! There’s a fucking! There’s a guy in here! There’s a guy.

NEIGE
He did this.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
He did this.

ALFIE
(suddenly calm and even toned)
I see.

NEIGE
Mon râleur…

A MUFFLED YELP

A LOW HISS

THE SOUND OF A BODY BEING DRAGGED ACROSS THE FLOOR

NEIGE
Non, non, mon coeur, please, come to me, come to me.

PANICKED MOANING AND WHIMPERING FROM THE TIED UP AND GAGGED MAN

ALFIE
I’m going to kill him.

NEIGE
Please, please, no, please. I brought him because—

NEIGE MOANS IN PAIN. ALFIE HISSES.

ALFIE
I need to kill him.

NEIGE
Mon coeur, mon coeur. Hush. Come to me. Come to me.

ALFIE WALKS TOWARDS NEIGE

NEIGE
Bien, mon petit, tres bien. Don’t kill him. I brought him here because he did this to me. Because I think he knows about the place they have taken Casper. He knew what he was doing. He knew how to take down a vampire, efficiently. He had a friend, the friend is dead. I broke his neck. He is in the passenger seat.

ALFIE
Oh, shit.

NEIGE
I went to York this evening, and I knew there was an half-made, as you call them, nearby. I was tracking it down, when I realised I was not the only one who had come to watch. I recognised the scent of these men. They’ve been around before when I have inspected the scenes of victims of les exécrebles, and also in the mortuary at l’hopital at which you worked.

ALFIE
Fuck, you think– you think they’ve got something to– you think they did this to Cas? What they did to you?

NEIGE
Mon petit, mon petit! Regardez-moi, mon petit.

ALFIE
Neige– Neige, I can’t. I can’t.

NEIGE
Yes, you can! Tu vas si bien, regarde toi! Tres bien.

ALFIE
Why didn’t you kill them both, Neige.

NEIGE
Because he might be able to tell us what they did to Casper, they might be able to– wait, mon petit, look out!

A MEATY THWACK SOUND

ALFIE HISSES

THUDS, THE SOUNDS OF A SCUFFLE

THE GAGGED MAN YELPS, STILL MUFFLED BY THE CLOTH IN HIS MOUTH

NEIGE
Mon petit!

THE THUDDING OF A HEART

NEIGE
Mon petit, can you hear me?! Stop, you’re going to kill the man!

THE RAPID PULSE BEGINS TO SLOW.

NEIGE
Alfie, mon coeur. You are not ready for this. Listen to me It’s okay. It’s going ot be okay. Alfie, can you hear me? Alfie?

THE PULSE GETS SLOWER, SLOWER, SLOWER

A RATTLING EXHALE

THE PULSING HEARTBEAT STOPS

ALFIE PULLS BACK WITH A GASP

ALFIE
(breathless)
Wait. 

NEIGE
Mon petit?

ALFIE
No, no, no. Wait. Fuck. Wait. Hey, hey! Wake up, wake up! 

NOTHING

ALFIE

He’s dead. 

NEIGE
I know, I know!

ALFIE

Neige, I– 

NEIGE

Shhh, shhh. Je t’ai. 

ALFIE

Neige, he’s dead. 

NEIGE

Je t’ai.

ALFIE

Neige. He’s dead, Neige.

NEIGE
Shh, shh. Je t’ai. It is going to be okay.

ALFIE
Neige. I didn’t – I didn’t mean to.

ALFIE
I didn’t mean it, Neige, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

NEIGE
Shh, d’accord. Shhh. Je t’ai. I have you. Shhh.

ALFIE
I killed him, I killed him, I killed him.

NEIGE
I know, mon amour. I know.

ALFIE

I didn’t mean it Neige. I’m sorry. 

NEIGE

It’s okay. 

ALFIE

I promise I didn’t– I didn’t mean mean to. 

NEIGE

Shhh! It’s going to be okay, I promise. Shh. 

[END]