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

– threats of violence

– discussion of traumatic injury, terminal illness (the plague), death

– detailed discussion of medical terminology and procedures, including autopsy and dissection (with consent)

– mentions of blood

– discussion of traumatic injury

– discussions of death, including murder

– detailed discussion of medical terminology and procedures, including autopsy and dissection (with consent)

– mentions of blood, drinking and smelling blood

– sounds of a character in distress

– scenes of a sexual nature with sounds of kissing and biting, drinking and smelling blood (confined to last 2-3 minutes of the episode)

Transcript

THE SOUND OF A SHOWER

NEIGE IS HUMMING TO HIMSELF, OCCASIONALLY SINGING A FEW WORDS IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES. THEY DO NOT MAKE SENSE IN SEQUENCE, EVEN TRANSLATED.

ALFIE

Neige?

NEIGE

(distant, raised over the sound of the shower)

Oui?

ALFIE

Nothing, I just–

NEIGE

What?

ALFIE

It’s fine.

THE SHOWER STOPS

THE BATHROOM DOOR OPENS

NEIGE

Are you okay?

ALFIE

Yeah I just– I don’t remember getting back to this hotel last night.

NEIGE

I’m not surprised. You drank a lot.

ALFIE

We can get drunk?

NEIGE

It takes a lot of alcohol, but yes. We can get drunk.

ALFIE

Can we get drunk by drinking blood from drunk people?

NEIGE

Hmm. I mean. Possibly. But they would need to have been so drunk themselves that they would be dead, so.

ALFIE

Hmm. Like drinking vodka with blood as a mixer?

NEIGE

Yes. I suppose.

ALFIE

I don’t feel hungover.

NEIGE

But you do feel hungry, non?

ALFIE

Yeah. A little. But. I– I drank enough.

NEIGE

Oui. And then you drank too much.

ALFIE

This is so weird. I feel so weird.

NEIGE

How bad is it?

ALFIE

It’s. Bearable.

NEIGE

I can give you—

ALFIE

No! No. Don’t.

NEIGE

Uh. Okay. If you need–

ALFIE

I don’t. It’s fine.

NEIGE

You are being strange.

ALFIE

Yeah. Uh. Maybe I am hungover.

NEIGE

Hmm.

ALFIE

What about you?

NEIGE

What about me?

ALFIE

Did you drink?

NEIGE

Yes. But. Like most things, it takes a lot more to effect me, after all this time.

ALFIE

Cas said something about that.

NEIGE

About old vampires being no fun at all?

ALFIE

No, about, like. Old vampire need less blood.

NEIGE

Yes. He always found that most intriguing. I’m sure if microscopes had been powerful enough back then, he would have examined my blood more closely. He suspected its healing properties were more potent than his own, but.

ALFIE

But?

NEIGE

He never tested it.

ALFIE

You didn’t let him?

NEIGE

I offered it to him. He refused.

ALFIE

Oh. Why?

NEIGE

Peur.

ALFIE

Fear?

NEIGE

Oui.

BEDSPRINGS CREAK

ALFIE

What are you doing?

NEIGE

Laying down.

ALFIE

I’ll move over.

NEIGE

Uh. Okay?

ALFIE

I want to talk.

NEIGE

You can hear me. Mon râleur, you could hear me if I were sat out in the car and you exactly as you are right now.

ALFIE

I know. I’ll move over.

FABRIC AND BEDSPRINGS MOVE

ALFIE

So what was Cas afraid of?

NEIGE

Oh, many things.

ALFIE

Why wouldn’t he take your blood?

NEIGE

Because. It was one thing to identify that vampire blood had temporary healing properties. It would be another entirely to discover that the blood of ancient vampires had even more potent properties.

ALFIE

Why’s that more significant?

NEIGE

I forget sometimes that you have been so isolated from other vampires.

ALFIE

Why is that relevant?

NEIGE

Because it means you do not know who I am.

ALFIE

Alarming thing to say.

NEIGE

Désolé. I don’t mean anything particularly sinister about it. It’s just that by now, had you been made in different circumstances and been exposed to any other vampire more than six months past their making, you would not be asking this question.

ALFIE

Neige? What are you saying.

NEIGE

Eh. It. It’s complicated. I do not want to speak about it.

ALFIE

Then why bring it up?

NEIGE

It was an accident.

ALFIE

Now you’re being weird.

NEIGE

I just do not want to speak about it. I am enjoying you not knowing. I am aware that is unfair.

ALFIE

Neige. What don’t I know?

NEIGE

Many things.

ALFIE

Yeah I’m as thick as two short posts, thanks. Not what I meant.

NEIGE

Do not push me.

ALFIE

I– yeah. Sorry. You were drawing a boundary. I don’t mean to push that. That’s a dick move, sorry.

NEIGE

It is okay to be curious.

(pause)

You asked me the other day if I thought I was the oldest vampire alive.

ALFIE

You said you might be.

NEIGE

I was lying.

ALFIE

You mean you’re not a million billion years old? Your first bite wasn’t on a t-rex?

NEIGE

Oh, you’re being a little creature, you know!

ALFIE

An animal? Oh, sorry an ‘an—eee—moll’.

NEIGE

Eh, I do not sound like this!

ALFIE

‘Wah wah ulfie ulfie you are a big sud vam-pie-uh, oo la la’.

NEIGE

Mon dieu, tu es un monstre!

ALFIE LAUGHS

ALFIE

You know, I bit Casper?

NEIGE

Quoi?

ALFIE

I bit him. When I was human, I– I bit him.

NEIGE

My, my. And to think, as soon as you had real teeth, it took months to remember how to use them.

ALFIE

I never broke the skin.

NEIGE SIGHS

NEIGE

You see this?

ALFIE

Your arm?

NEIGE

These marks on the skin.

ALFIE

A bite?

NEIGE

Oui. Casper. The only thing that will scar a vampire’s skin. The bite of another vampire.

ALFIE

He bit me too. A lot.

NEIGE

I know. I have seen. He bit you dizzy, little one.

ALFIE

I’m taller than you.

NEIGE

Oui. And yet, I tower over you in spirit.

ALFIE

That is such a short guy thing to say.

NEIGE

I was very tall for much of history. Huge. Colossal.

ALFIE

Yeah, yeah, I get it. I saw Cas’ sketch, you don’t need to impress me.

NEIGE

Se faire baiser! That is not what I meant.

ALFIE

You’re like, the opposite of compensating for something. Unless Casper was enhancing your appendages, if you catch my drift.

NEIGE

Oh, be quiet you imbecile.

ALFIE

Okay, okay!

THEY BOTH LAUGH, BUT IT FADES QUICKLY

ALFIE

So like. Are you not super old, then? Because, your blood. I don’t know how to explain what I mean, but it tastes like. Ugh. This is going to sound really stupid. But it tastes like spring water. It tastes like. I don’t know. Ancient.

NEIGE

You have a keen tongue, though I am surprised to hear you acknowledge it.

ALFIE

So what was the lie?

NEIGE

I am the oldest.

ALFIE

Like, for real?

NEIGE

Yes. I have known this for some time.

ALFIE

How long?

NEIGE

About a thousand years or so.

ALFIE

Oh, fuck.

NEIGE

Oui. Putain.

ALFIE

That sounds kind of. Lonely.

NEIGE

Ha. You have no idea.

ALFIE

You were alone so long in the beginning.

NEIGE

Yes. But it is okay. Do not feel bad for me. I was also not alone for so long, too.

ALFIE

Oh yeah?

NEIGE

Oui.

ALFIE

Anyone famous?

NEIGE

Yes.

ALFIE

Shit, anyone I’d know?

NEIGE

Perhaps?

ALFIE

Who? Try me.

NEIGE

Hmm, let me think. There was a woman in Constantinople. Her name was Theodora. I used the blood to cure her of an illness; she and I remained, ah, close for the rest of her life.

ALFIE

Sorry, when was this? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

NEIGE

Eh, it was some time ago. They had been having popes for a while, I think? Hmm, yes. It was around the time where they could not decide where to keep them. Oh, and the plague! Not the Black Death, but the first time it truly ravaged the continent. That’s actually what led to some complications. Theodora convinced me to save her husband from the plague. This did lead to some more long term issues. He was emperor at the time.

ALFIE

Wait, sorry. You. Saved. You saved the emperor of Rome. From the Black Plague? As a favour to his wife. Who you were sleeping with.

NEIGE

Mon cherie, I was sleeping with them both.

ALFIE

What the fuck.

NEIGE

It was an interesting place at an interesting time. Theodora was an interesting woman.

ALFIE

Right. Jesus. Okay, so when you say you saved him from the plague?

NEIGE

I made him vampire. He was too far gone for the blood to have helped him, only hours, if not minutes from death’s clutches. I told this to Theodora, I said I could not fix him and leave him human. She did not care, so I drained him and fed him from my thumb. We sat with him together the next few days. It was unclear if he would wake. We talked at length about the benefits of her perhaps becoming vampire too. She decided that the risk was too great then, she could not bear the thought of turning into a monster like those she had seen back in her days on the street and was unsure of the benefit of my long years of life. Quite rightly she observed that a longer life opened one up to increased opportunity to suffer.

ALFIE

I’m sorry.

NEIGE

It also offers increased opportunity for joy, mon cherie, do not forget that. Anyway, her husband survived. Six years later, Theodora was taken with a strange sickness. When I saw her I recognised the smell. A disease of the blood which would not be known for hundreds of years by any name. It makes the blood taste different, smell different. I offered her the blood, and this time, she accepted at her husband’s encouragement. We sat with her together, but Theodora never woke from the long sleep after tasting the blood. After her death, Justinian was never the same. I could not leave the city, I had made one of the most powerful men in the world a vampire at the behest of the only woman who could control him, a woman who was now dead. For his part he played things safe but he became increasingly obsessed with religion. In the end, he asked me to take his life.

ALFIE

Did you?

NEIGE

There are some requests that you cannot refuse. This is one of those requests.

ALFIE

Why? Because you made him?

NEIGE

Non, mon amie. Because we were friends, and he was suffering, and that suffering was in part my fault. A vampire can take his own life, of course, but it can be swifter, more painless with the help of a friend. Cruel of me to deny him that, wouldn’t you agree?

ALFIE

I don’t think I could do it.

NEIGE

You are a kind and helpful soul, Alfie. If you were put in such a position, whatever decision you made would be kind and thoughtful, and the best you could offer.

ALFIE

Um.

NEIGE

Don’t think on it. For vampires, death is different. Provided we have all the resources we need, it will not come for us. Few vampires have that level of luxury but the ones who can survive do not owe their existence to the ones who never had the chance to. It is okay to live for ever. It is okay to not. Some people simply reach an end of what the world can offer to them. If you know their needs are met, they are not being forced, that they are not plagued by some temporary grievance. If they are of sound mind, then who are you to say they cannot choose an ending, should they desire it?

ALFIE

How old was Justinian?

NEIGE

Eighty three.

ALFIE

Huh. About as old as humans live for.

NEIGE

Yes. Though such a long life was unusual back then. Less so for a king or an emperor but still worthy of note.

(pause)

Sorry. I think you were looking for a more fun and jaunty tale, non?

ALFIE

I don’t mind. I like hearing about you.

NEIGE

Hmm.

ALFIE

‘Hmm’ what?

NEIGE

I just worry.

ALFIE

About what?

NEIGE

You.

ALFIE

Yeah?

NEIGE

Of course I worry about you. I did not spend weeks and months nursing you to health to have you keel over on me, oui?

ALFIE

That’s not what you meant then, though.

NEIGE

Is it not? Care to enlighten me on the meaning of my own words, then?

ALFIE

You’re worried because I care about you.

THERE IS A LONG MOMENT OF QUIET

ALFIE

Neige?

NEIGE

It is getting close to midday. See the sun around the edge of the curtains? We should sleep so we can drive home when it gets dark again.

ALFIE

(hurt, but resolved)

Okay.

NEIGE

I’m sorry about. Me.

ALFIE

No. I get it.

NEIGE

Hmm.

ALFIE

Stop humming at me. You can go get in the other bed, if you want.

NEIGE

No. I don’t.

ALFIE

What does it feel like?

NEIGE

Quoi?

ALFIE

The sun.

NEIGE

Oh. Why don’t you see?

ALFIE

I— does it hurt?

NEIGE

Oui, of course it hurts, mon coeur, what sort of question is this?

ALFIE

Yeah. That was stupid.

NEIGE

Non, come on. See.

ALFIE

Um. Okay.

BEDSPRINGS CREAK

SOFT FOOTSTEPS ON CARPETED FLOOR

ALFIE GASPS SOFTLY

ALFIE

It– it feels like. It feels… hot, like air fresh out of the oven. I can feel it burning me, an itching, writhing sensation–

CREAKS, FAST STEPS

NEIGE

Do not hurt yourself too much.

ALFIE

What about you? Is that like alcohol and hunger? Does the sun get easier with time?

NEIGE

A little, yes.

ALFIE

The oldest vampire in the world. Barefoot.

NEIGE

Don’t make it weird.

ALFIE

Sorry. God. I can’t even imagine. So much life.

NEIGE

No. you can’t.

ALFIE

I– just, what you were saying about Justinian, but you. You don’t feel like that. You don’t want an ending.

NEIGE

How could I?

ALFIE

What do you mean?

NEIGE

If I die, how will I know what happens next?

ALFIE

Yeah but. Doesn’t it. Isn’t it boring?

NEIGE

Everything is always changing, how could it be boring? The future is forever bringing unknown pleasures.

ALFIE

Pain, too.

NEIGE

Yes. Pain is inevitable. But, think on it. Surely if that is true, so is the inverse, and pleasure is always coming too. You live as long as I have, you suffer more, it is true, but I have experienced more joy than any other thing that has ever lived. And isn’t that remarkable?

ALFIE

Yeah. You are remarkable.

NEIGE

Alfie–

ALFIE

Just. Let me compliment you about something, alright?

NEIGE

I worry I have let you get too close to me. I worry I have put you at unnecessary risk. Casper would not have wanted that for you.

ALFIE

I’m not his property.

NEIGE

No, of course not. That was not what I was suggesting. Don’t put words in my mouth.

ALFIE

He lied to me. And he’s– he left. Why did you bring me all the way out here? To show me that fucking laboratory? What was it meant to tell me?

NEIGE

I hoped seeing it would tell you things I cannot phrase aloud. I wanted you to see what we could not tell you. What Casper was protecting you from.

ALFIE

And what is that, exactly, because I still don’t see it.

NEIGE

The conclusion of his and his friend’s research is that we are fucking dead, Alfie! Do you not understand? He thought that we are corpses, we are animated mummies, we are exhibits. We are human remains puppeted around by something like an infection that makes us walk and talk and fools us into thinking we are still alive but we are not, that is what he thought, that is what he believed about himself, about me, about all of us. And it is now what he thinks about you.

ALFIE

Neige—

NEIGE

He sent me a fucking letter. He said he needed my help, told me to come at once, it was important, he had met a boy who was resistant to some of the side effects of the blood–

ALFIE

Sorry, I was what? Because I felt—

NEIGE

You could throw off the glamour, you were not afraid of him, it took you almost half an hour to succumb to the bite of a half-made. That would have killed most people in minutes.

ALFIE

What?!

NEIGE

He had an interest in you, the same way you had an interest in the victims of the half-mades.

ALFIE

What– no– didn’t. Everyone was interested in them!

NEIGE

You were interested in him, too! You are good at your job, you have an enquiring mind, this is what you do! You are interested in the mechanics! It is your first thought!

ALFIE

Yeah, but, that’s– we. We were fucking! I was. We were in love.

NEIGE

Ne sois pas stupide! That is not you. You loved each other, yes. But you were fucking fascinated by him, weren’t you? How did it work, the strange racing of his vampire heart. You didn’t love him in spite of it like he thought. You loved him because of it. And he was fascinated by you right back, little human who was not afraid of the big bad wolf, who even wanted to fucking bend the big bad wolf over a table and fuck him raw, who could not be fucking fascinated, non?

ALFIE

You’re lying, you’re a liar.

NEIGE

What part am I lying about, huh? What part?

ALFIE

He loved me.

NEIGE

Yes, he did, passionately, more than anything. He even– he would have died, you see? He would die to save you. And to him, that would mean to keep you human.

ALFIE

What. Are you saying, Neige.

NEIGE

I do not think— Argh! It is so complicated! I stand by what I said, he would not torture anyone, he would not have stood for it. That was why everything stopped at the house. His friend. He wanted to taking living humans, try to treat them, believed the blood might be some miracle cure. Casper, he would not have this.

ALFIE

What are you talking about.

NEIGE

He told me— fuck, in his letter he said I was the only one who could help. So I came. I came looking for him. And I did not find him, I found you, and I knew what he had hoped to happen by calling me. That I would come, I would give you my blood and somehow, magically, it would save you in a way that his could not. But even though my blood is more potent than his, it would not have saved you, neither of us could have saved you without turning you, he would have known this, so there was something else, and–

ALFIE

You’re just– at this point you’re just fucking. Talking. You’re literally just saying words and it doesn’t mean anything.

NEIGE

Ugh! It does! Just listen! Casper knew he and his friend’s methods differed. They stopped speaking. Casper would not speak about it but it think he burned down the whole house so that he would not have to speak about it to anyone. I thought maybe he had even killed him in the fire.

ALFIE

Killed. WHO.

NEIGE

His friend.

ALFIE

What has this got to do with anything. Neige. What the fuck. Are you talking about.

NEIGE

Casper never told me what happened between them but I added it all up. It was an unresolvable disagreement, but there was one thing, one thing in the whole world that could have made him overlook that disagreement. Desperation that can come only out of a place of love. Love for you. Desperation to save you.

ALFIE

You—What are you saying.

NEIGE

Casper was not captured, not the way they tried to catch me, not the way they have been taking the others. He went to them willingly.

ALFIE

But he called me. He called! He was so fucking scared. He told me to run.

NEIGE

I know. I listened to the tapes. He went there willingly, and he was betrayed.

ALFIE

Why would he go willingly after everything we’d seen? After Moira, the other vampires that were disappearing?

NEIGE

How can you not understand? He was desperate, he would have done anything. When he wrote me that letter, he told me he was going to see if an old friend had come good on a sour promise. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but when I came to York, when I was looking for Casper, I thought I recognised a familiar scent. I was not sure it was him until I came here to check. But. Now I am certain.

ALFIE

About?

NEIGE

Casper’s friend. It is Dr Bonham.

ALFIE BREATHES FAST

ALFIE

You knew, you knew him, you knew!

NEIGE

Not for sure, not until I came here.

ALFIE

You’re a liar. You’re a liar.

NEIGE

No, mon râleur–

ALFIE

I don’t know what that fucking means but I’m not your anything. I need to get out, I need to get out.

NEIGE

There’s too much sun, you can’t, Alfie– you–

ALFIE

Fucking fuck! FUCK.

NEIGE

Please.

ALFIE

He– he left me with enough. I thought he meant that– if he– but—

FABRIC MOVES

NEIGE

Alfie, what are–

ALFIE

I want to feel the sun, it makes me feel– I–

NEIGE

What is wrong with you!

ALFIE

No, I want to burn!

FABRIC FALLS

NEIGE

Finis!

ALFIE

(straining)

Neige– let me—

NEIGE

No, you have lost your mind.

THUDDING, STRUGGLING

ALFIE

Let me go!

NEIGE

Fuck you, all this effort to keep you alive, fuck you!

ALFIE

I never asked you to save me.

MORE THUDDING AND STRUGGLING

ALFIE

Go on. Snap my neck. It’d be easy, wouldn’t it.

NEIGE

Assez, assez!

ALFIE

Just do it. Come on, Neige, break me, bite me. Fucking tear out my throat, you know you want to– ah!

WET SOUND

ALFIE

(rasping)

Yes, yes, drain me, drink me dry.

THUDDING, STRUGGLING

NEIGE

(breathless)

Fuck you. Fuck you.

ALFIE IS PANTING AND LAUGHING

NEIGE

You’re fucking crazy.

ALFIE

Mmm.

NEIGE

Ta tête est cassée! C’est que ton problème!

ALFIE

I don’t speak fucking French. If you want to insult me it’ll have to be in English.

NEIGE

Why? So you can look can look at a friend and call him a liar?

ALFIE

You’re not my friend!

STRUGGLING, THUDDING HEAVY BREATHING

ALFIE

You just– you just do this so you don’t have to face the fact you’re too much of a coward to actually deal with your own problems, you fucking—

NEIGE

Tais toi! Tais toi!

ALFIE

Stop yelling at me in French you fucking–

STRUGGLING, AND THEN A WET SOUND, ALMOST LIKE A KISS, BUT NOT QUITE

NEIGE

Ah! Ah.

ALFIE MOANS

NEIGE

You do have fangs after– ah!

ALFIE

(breathless, furious)

Shut up.

NEIGE

Or what?

ALFIE

I’ll make you–

A VIOLENT KISS

NEIGE

Can you taste your blood on my tongue?

[END]