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

– depictions of depression

– discussion of traumatic injury

– discussions of death, including murder

medicalised descriptions of medical torture (descriptions of unethical medical experiments on unwilling participants from the perspective of a clinician)

– discussions of violence

Transcript

ALFIE

Hey. Uh. It’s. Me. Jesus fuck. Right.

ALFIE SNIFFS

So! I’ve been looking more into our friend Dr Bonham.

I’ve managed to pull together a few profiles from what I could find of records online. The patients he was treating back in the nineties, it seems like they’re all kids. The oldest was fourteen. There’s the girl whose stuff I found first, the one with leukaemia, and then a boy with complex heart failure, another boy who was in a car accident, a girl who had a serious fall. I found a bunch of news reports about them, some charity stuff connected to them, you know. The kid in the car accident, his name was George Felton. He’s a woodworker now, makes videos for youtube of him turning bowls on a lathe. They’re kind of hypnotising, actually.

Anyway, in a couple of the videos, he mentions being sick as a kid, how he has some fleeting memories of his experimental treatment, but that’s all. He and his family got a lot of compensation after Bonham’s license was revoked, but George seems pretty uncomfortable with that, you know? He’s glad he got the treatment. It’s. Hmm. It’s interesting.

A lot of the articles about these kids, they talk about others, ones I couldn’t find any evidence for. There are mentions of kids with brain tumours, complex medical needs, once they mention a girl with cystic fibrosis, which. Hmm. But I can’t find any information on them, and there’s absolutely nothing about any kids who might not have made it, so. Yeah.

Ugh, it’s. Yeah. It’s hard to take this stuff I’m reading about Bonham here and compare it to what was on Vimes’ patient notes for that fucking. Torture he was committing upon those vampires.

The thing is, though, the humans he was taking, it seems different. It’s like he’s picking them up off the street after accidents, like, I don’t know. Like he’s wired into the radio system for ambulances. Maybe that’s how he’s getting them. If he was navigating the medical system before, he could do it again, and the kinds of experiments and procedures in those notes. Yeah. You need equipment. They’re talking about monitoring heart rates, testing blood, even observing brain activity. That’s a full set up. Expensive. You’d need connections to get it.

Vimes, presuming he’s not the only doctor. He and the others probably could get Bonham the access he’d need to that kind of thing, I suppose. It stands to reason they could have access to an ambulance, too. It’d be convenient for transport and monitoring, too. They’re big, people are used to seeing them around at the edge of streets, it’s not unusual, you know? They’d blend right in.

The doctors might have other jobs, maybe in mainstream hospitals. I can’t imagine being convinced to do this kind of work, but. Like.

Okay, this is pure conjecture, but what I’m imagining is that it’s kind of like what happened with me and Cas? I mean, not like that, not really. I don’t think they’re fucking Bonham or anything, or at least I hope they’re not, but yeah. I think maybe they see the half mades, maybe that’s enough to inspire them to listen to whatever Bonham’s argument is, and then they get pulled in. My other main theory is that they’re just get paid a lot of money.

I do have another thought, too, but. It’s more far fetched. It feels kind of stupid to even say it, really. But maybe the doctors. Maybe they’re there because Bonham helped them. Maybe he saved them. Or maybe he didn’t, not completely, and they need the blood. They keep coming back because he needs their help and– yeah. Maybe. Yeah.

Whatever is going on here, it’s. There are layers to it. I don’t know that I can work it all out without like, actually going there, without watching and seeing what’s going on, you know. Which is probably what Casper was doing.

ALFIE SIGHS

Oh, Cas. I’m sorry. What did you get caught up in, what is this stuff and why didn’t you tell me about it? Maybe there was some kind of way for me to help. I don’t know vampires, I don’t know experiments, but I know medicine. I know people. Maybe, if they’ve got connections to the hospital, maybe there was a way I could have helped him get information faster. I know he’d got himself a job as a porter, but he’d not been there long, and it’s not the kind of job where you make deep bonds with people. It’s good for getting to meet a wide range of folks.

Great if the main reason you’re there is to steal blood from unconscious patients, though.

Ugh. I don’t know how I feel about it all. I just. How do I trust that now? How do I– there’s so much that’s been recontextualised. There are so many questions I have that only Casper could answer, and he can’t because he’s–

Fuck.

Well. I hope that he’s not has brain cut out piece by piece whilst he was conscious.

Like. Neige would be more worried, wouldn’t he? If he thought that was a real possibility. Which stands to reason, why doesn’t he think that’s a real possibility?

Honestly there’s no point trying to examine Neige’s motivations, here. He’s an ancient vampire I’ve known for less than three months, how the fuck could I even begin to unpack that, frankly. Casper, though. I like to think maybe I’ve got a shot at understanding what was motivating him, maybe. Or like, I should have. But there’s the Casper I know, and there’s the Casper he thought he was, and then, as well, there’s the Casper that Neige knew. The one that slept with priests and swam oceans and lived.

And, of course, the Casper that’s a liar.

Of course, maybe Neige is lying, too. In fact I’m pretty sure he’s lying about some stuff, or at the very least, there’s a lot he’s keeping from me. I mean like, logistically, he’s just had so much life that there’s no way he couldn’t keep things from me. But I don’t know. Sometimes I get the sense he’s talking around things. That there’s stuff he’s deliberately excluding when I ask him about himself. When I ask him about Cas, too.

But like I said. Neige’s motivations are a black box. There’s no way I can figure them out. I just don’t know him well enough. I don’t even know if it’s like. Possible to know someone like Neige well enough to understand his motivations. If he’s telling the truth about how much of his life he’s just completely forgotten, well. Maybe not even Neige understands Neige’s motivations.

What’s not up for debate is that Neige said Casper was looking for someone. He said it in the last recording. I went back through my recordings to check, and I’ve found.

Ha.

Well. Neige left me a message on my laptop. I didn’t realise, and I feel so stupid. I don’t know what the point of it was, like, but that’s just Neige really, isn’t it? What’s the point in anything he says?

And he has the nerve to call me ridiculous.

ANXIOUS TAPPING

These things together… I could take the car, go back to York. Speak to Ros and Eponine. Cas met with them before he disappeared. They must have known what he was doing. He told me he was the one vampires called when something was going wrong, like he was some kind of visiting avenger. Neige said he was hunting Dr Bonham. Hunting him down because of these experiments.

ALFIE BREATHES IN AND OUT SLOWLY

I… Neige doesn’t want me looking into the science of vampirism. Maybe he didn’t want Cas looking into it either. Maybe that’s what he was doing. He was working as a porter, he did what Bonham was doing, in a way, when he saved Linda, didn’t he? But all the vampires I’ve spoken to seem to know the blood can heal humans. Admittedly it’s not that many vampires I’ve spoken to. Four. And if things are as disparate and desperate as they seem from Ros and Eponine’s collection of new strays, then. Maybe the knowledge isn’t common. Maybe, ugh. I don’t know.

Cas would never hurt anyone the way that Dr Bonham was hurting those other vampires.

PAPERS MOVE

I read the other notes Neige found. The ones about the vampires are. Ugh. I don’t. They’re awful. As bad as the first. One’s a little bit easier as a read because she dies before they decide to try haemapheresis on her. The other guy lived three days into stage three. It doesn’t describe what stage three is.

I’ve tried to look up what haemapheresis actually is, but according to the internet, it doesn’t exist. There’s plasmapheresis, where they take plasma out of the body, remove antibodies, to treat autoimmune disorders. I’ve heard about that. Not used very widely, popular in Japan for some conditions, but overall, a bit of obscura. Haema as in greek for blood, apheresis as in greek for ‘take from’, so. Take blood from. Only ‘apheresis’ is mostly used to mean taking blood from a donor so it can be separated into its components, you know, like platelets, plasma, so on.

Sorry, I’m just.

ALFIE RUNS A HAND OVER HIS FACE, BREATHING THROUGH HIS FINGERS

It’s been a long day.

Stage one of haemapheresis is um, ‘exsanguination and salination’, according to the chart for Subject 105. Exsanguination is draining the blood, and salination. Well, usually it means adding salt to stuff but here I think they’re talking about adding saline. I’m assuming so anyway. Like they’re draining vampires of the blood and filling them up with fucking saline solution.

Christ.

ALFIE TAKES A DEEP BREATH

Anyway, they don’t describe what happens in stages two or three, but three seems to be much longer than stages one and two, and both 105 and 84 died during it, whatever it is. In plasmapheresis, the blood is pumped out of the body, the plasma separated out and replaced with healthy plasma, and then the blood is pumped back in. Sort of similar to dialysis, where the blood is pumped out and cleaned the way the kidneys are supposed to clean the blood.

So I wasn’t able to find that much about Dr Bonham online, like I said, because most of his work happened before the internet was really a thing. He called the treatment he was offering to patients in the 80s and 90s ‘haemaprosthesis’, which is like the opposite of haemapheresis, because ‘prosthesis’ is greek for ‘adding to’, which makes sense because he seems to have been treating them by giving them his blood, in microdoses.

Which is what I was trying to do, diluting it with saline.

Sound in principal. Maybe drinking it was the mistake I made, maybe administering it through IV would have–

PAUSE

ALFIE

Neige?

NEIGE

Am I interrupting?

ALFIE

Yeah. But it’s fine.

NEIGE

You are ignoring me.

ALFIE

Patently not ignoring you. Actually currently in the process of directly conversing with you, in fact.

NEIGE

No. My advice. You are ignoring my advice.

ALFIE

Oh.

NEIGE

Oui. Did I not tell you this wouldn’t help?

ALFIE

No, you’ve never said that, specifically, before.

NEIGE

À contre-courant.

ALFIE

What did you just call me?

NEIGE

I know why it is compelling to look into the mechanics. But I promise—

ALFIE

It will only lead me down a dark path? Did you know Cas was saving people with the blood, Neige? One I saw with my own eyes, but who knows how many more.

NEIGE

I did not know this for sure, not until–

ALFIE

You said he was hunting Dr Bonham. You sure that’s what he was doing?

NEIGE

You’re not suggesting that he would work with such a person?

ALFIE

I don’t know what I’m suggesting.

NEIGE

You know Casper would not do such a thing.

ALFIE

Do I know that? Really? I feel like I don’t know Casper at all. He didn’t tell me about you. He didn’t tell me what he was really doing here. What else about him don’t I know?

NEIGE

Do not insult him this way. Casper was a lot of things but he would not have been party to this kind of cruelty. You know him, mon râleur. Perhaps not entirely, but who wholly knows anyone?

ALFIE

He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t hurt people like that. You know, he said to me one he thought whoever was making the half-mades was trying to find a way to make the benefits of vampire blood permanent without turning people. That would be consistent with the kind of experiments Dr Bonham was running before, if he’s a vampire. But what’s haemapheresis, then? A treatment for vampires, which happens in stages? One of the sets of notes you gave me talks about taking out the cardiac muscles to replace them with a pump. Vampire hearts only beat when we’re eating. Whatever this treatment is, it needs functioning circulation.

NEIGE

Why does it matter?

ALFIE

You were talking about how we need to know what we’re dealing with. I’m trying find that out.

NEIGE

Whatever atrocities they commit are irrelevant. We need to know about the layout of the building, the situation with their security, where they are holding the vampires.

ALFIE

‘The building.’

NEIGE

Oui? It stands to reason they are not performing their experiments out in the middle of a field.

ALFIE

It’s just funny that you’d say ‘the’, you know. Almost like you know which building it is.

NEIGE

Don’t be ridiculous.

ALFIE

Is it ridiculous?

NEIGE

I am not going to dignify that with a response. I do not need to justify myself to you. I do not discourage your pursuit of this because I think it is not worthy of interest. I discourage it because I think it is a distraction.

ALFIE

Maybe I need a distraction.

NEIGE

Non. You want one. But you cannot save Casper this way.

ALFIE

Says who?

NEIGE

Me. Évidemment.

ALFIE

Don’t fucking sass me.

NEIGE

Excusez-moi! Sass! What is this, mon petit?! Sass, he says! Foutre! Pute! Ha! As though he is not brand new to this life, and I am not older than fucking agriculture.

ALFIE

How the fuck am I supposed to have a conversation with you then, huh?

NEIGE

I don’t know what you mean.

ALFIE

If I’m supposed to just, what, trust you implicitly because you’re a billion years old, how the fuck am I supposed to talk to you? Ever?

NEIGE

Ferme ta gueule, you are right.

ALFIE

Thanks.

NEIGE

You can be so like him, sometimes.

ALFIE

Who?

NEIGE

Casper.

ALFIE

Hmmm.

NEIGE

What?

ALFIE

You say that like he’s dead.

NEIGE

No. I just.

ALFIE

What?

NEIGE

Il me manque.

ALFIE

What does that mean?

NEIGE

C’es sans importance. Does not matter.

ALFIE SIGHS

NEIGE

What do you want from me?

ALFIE

What?

NEIGE

Non, you heard me, what is it you want from me, Alfie? When you ask these things, when you push me like this, what is it that you are expecting for me to say?

ALFIE

Sorry, I just–

NEIGE

You just what?

ALFIE

I don’t know.

NEIGE

No. You don’t.

ALFIE

Now you sound like him.

NEIGE

Like Casper?

ALFIE

He just. There were things he couldn’t say. I get why. I get why there are things you can’t say, too. But it feels shitty to be on the other side of it. I’m a vampire now, you don’t have to protect me.

NEIGE

You are still so new to this life. I don’t want to frighten you.

ALFIE

Good news. Or bad news, depending on how you look at it. I’m already frightened. Everything is terrifying. How many times do you need me to tell you how shit scared I am for it to sink in?

NEIGE

It’s complicated.

ALFIE

Yeah. I get that. I do. But I don’t like it when you’re keeping things from me.

NEIGE

That’s fair.

ALFIE

If you could just. Be honest about it. That would make a big difference.

NEIGE

How can I be honest about it without simply telling you what I should not?

ALFIE

You can just say ‘sorry, I can’t talk about this’ instead of trying to gaslight me into thinking I’m overreacting or reading too much into stuff, maybe?

NEIGE

Gaslight?

ALFIE

Oh, it’s this film. No. You know what, you can google that one. Have fun.

NEIGE

I’m sure I will?

ALFIE

You actually won’t.

NEIGE

You’re still upset.

ALFIE

Yeah. If Cas saved Linda as an experiment. If she wasn’t the only one. I could have– it might have. Maybe I could have helped. I’m a nurse. It’s what I do. I. I’m interested in this. I want to help people.

NEIGE

La la, mon râleur. You can. But not this way.

PAUSE

ALFIE

What do you think it’s a distraction from?

NEIGE

Processing the situation. Learning how to live with yourself, as a vampire.

ALFIE

What do you want me to do? Wander around an empty mountain range for a few years? We’re a bit short on them in Yorkshire.

NEIGE

You listened to it.

ALFIE

Yeah.

NEIGE

So?

ALFIE

I’m sorry you were so alone for so long.

NEIGE

It has been a long time, and it is not your fault.

ALFIE

I know. But I’m still sorry. I wish it hadn’t been like that.

NEIGE

I do not know what I wish. My life has been long. Has it been full? I do not know. I don’t think I’ve been alive so long because I’m particularly deserving of it. It’s not because I’m clever, either, though I have become so now even if I never was before. It is luck. Luck and tenacity.

ALFIE

Are you the oldest one?

NEIGE

(faintly)

The oldest vampire?

ALFIE

Yeah.

NEIGE

(quietly, distantly)

Perhaps. It is a possibility.

ALFIE

You must be lonely.

NEIGE

(very, very quietly)

At times.

ALFIE

You called me ‘mon coeur’.

NEIGE

I did?

ALFIE

I– yes. You did. A few times actually.

NEIGE

There is no conversation to be had.

ALFIE

Okay.

NEIGE

Dauphin of distractions, tell me what you have been learning, then.

ALFIE

Oh, about this?

NEIGE

Oui.

ALFIE

Um. Well, you must’ve heard what I was saying about what ‘haemapheresis’ means. You were already at the top of the stairs by then.

NEIGE

And you noticed. Tres bien. I am proud.

ALFIE

Shut it. Ehem. Right. So. I’m just trying to work out the why, you know? Bonham was experimenting on saving humans, that was Cas’ theory for whatever this project was about. But there’s a lot of thought put into what he’s doing with the vampires, so. What’s it meant to achieve? Bonham himself is a vampire. The point doesn’t seem to be killing vampires, though he doesn’t seem to particularly value their lives, not if he’s willing to take out their brains in pieces.

NEIGE

That would suggest not.

ALFIE

So why? They’ve been taking vampires for MONTHS and making a bunch of half-mades. None of this has made any sense to me. Why would you do it? If it was just about torturing vampires, then why would you be trying to make more of them? It doesn’t make sense. Unless!

NEIGE

Unless?

ALFIE

They’re trying to make a cure for vampirism. The half-mades, maybe they’re not proper half-mades at all, maybe they’re vampires who they’ve tried the cure on but it wasn’t working yet, maybe that’s–

NEIGE

Non, non, arrêt! Arrêt.

ALFIE

What?

NEIGE SIGHS

NEIGE

I had been hoping you would come to this conclusion on your own. But you are so young still, you are so naive. You do not yet understand.

ALFIE

What don’t I understand?

NEIGE

They are not trying to make a cure.

ALFIE

But–

NEIGE

I know this to be true. Without a shadow of a doubt.

ALFIE

How can you possibly know that?

NEIGE

Because there has been a cure for almost a century.

ALFIE

I– what?

NEIGE

It is not even very difficult. You need a pacemaker or some other way to stimulate the beating of the heart, which you can do by drop feeding a vampire blood, if necessary, and a round of chemotherapy.

ALFIE

What?

NEIGE

It takes about four days and is effective at treating the virus to a success of almost ninety percent, with no amounts of the virus present in the body at the end of the treatment. A remarkably reliable course of therapy.

ALFIE

But–

NEIGE

Alfie. When the virus takes hold in the body, it does not leave our cells alive. Do you understand?

ALFIE

I– but–

NEIGE

It becomes us. We become it. We cannot live without each other. To cure a vampire, whether by treatment like this or by crushing his brain or letting him starve to death, the answer is always the same. The vampire dies.

ALFIE

But that doesn’t make sense.

NEIGE SIGHS AGAIN

NEIGE

I– there is something I have to see. I will need to take the car. You can come too, if you would like. There is something I would like to show you.

ALFIE

Okay.

[END]