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:

– sounds of a character in distress and experiencing dissociation

– sounds of a character displaying symptoms analogous to drug withdrawal and delirium

– loud sound effects (falling rocks)

– mentions of traumatic bodily injury

– consensual blood drinking

– scenes with sexual implications

– descriptions of violence and torture

– descriptions of nonconsensual blood-drinking

– discussion of violent abuse and torture

Transcript

ALFIE
Hi, Haley, um. Yeah. I know you said it’d be a few days before you’d know anything because you need to look at the images you took, but. Yeah. Just. When you know. Please. Call.

SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH

Uh…

Sorry again. About the whole of everything.

Yeah.

Bye.

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK5

ALFIE
Haley, hi, me again, I know I just called you literally twenty minutes ago and you said you were on shift, but it’s been like. A week now?

I know you’re really busy but I am. I am so fucking anxious about this.

Uh, we should meet up for drinks? I can still get drunk, but. Basically it’s a vodka-like-it’s-water situation? It requires a lot. Maybe that’s something which you’ll be able to explain with the blood tests. Yeah. Um. Anyway. Yeah. Call me, when you can.

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK

ALFIE
Hey, it was so good to FaceTime on Tuesday, but we didn’t really get to chat for long and you said you needed to hear back from your friend about something from the– yeah. I get it. Sorry. I know I’m. I just. It’s. Him, you know, Casper, so. Yeah. If you’d. Call.

And if you see Neige when you go out tomorrow night, say hi. Actually, don’t say hi. Just. Tell me. No. don’t. Ugh. Whatever, call me, when you can, I love you.

SOUNDS OF A SCREAM WHICH CUT OFF ABRUPTLY

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK

ALFIE
(sounding frayed at the edges)
Yeah I know you just text me to arrange to talk in person? Honestly I don’t think that’d– uh— I can’t really. Right now. I just don’t. Uh. Yeah. So if you could just call me and tell me like that. That’d be. Yeah. I know you– I know you wanted to speak in person but I just. I can’t right now? Uh. It’s been two weeks, I’m losing my mind, I–

ALFIE SIGHS

Have you– have you spoken to Neige, at all? I just. Yeah. I. Yeah. When you have chance please. Call.

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK

ALFIE
Hi. Know you’re busy. Wh– what’s, what’s… what’s. What’s happening. Haley. I’m. Why aren’t you… let’s arrange to meet.

No.

No. Let’s not I– No. Don’t come over. I.

Fuck. Sorry.

Do NOT come over.

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK

ALFIE
(sounding groggy and weird)
Sorry, missed your call. Was. Sleeping. Yeah. Just. I know it’s… yeah.

Tell me about Cas.

Tell me I can fix Cas.

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK

ALFIE
Hay… ugh. Sorry. Soup brain.

Call.

CLICK

ANOTHER CLICK

ALFIE
Um. Missed call again, sorry.

SOMETHING CRACKLES IN THE BACKGROUND

Didn’t mean to worry you. Please don’t yell. Do NOT come over. Please. Not safe.

CLICK

SOUNDS OF MOVEMENT

ALFIE
Okay, right, okay, I know this is— it’s mad but– I’m– I need you to. See look, he’s. Casper’s arm is.
(pause)
Oh, I sound mad.

ALFIE LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY

ALFIE
I am going mad aren’t I?

SOMETHING SHATTERS DISTANTLY

ALFIE
What the fuck was that?

FOOTSTEPS

OBJECTS MOVE

ALFIE
What the fuck is–

HUGE TUMBLING SOUND, BRICKS HITTING BRICKS. ALFIE YELPS. THE SOUNDS STOP.

CLICK.

INTRO MUSIC (Eira: This is Not Quite Dead, Episode 32: Sound and Fury)

RUMBLE OF A CAR’S ENGINE. TYRES SCREECH. A DOOR SLAMS.

DOOR SLAMS OPEN. RUNNING FOOTSTEPS.

NEIGE
(yelling)
Alfie

NEIGE
(distantly)
Salut? Alfie–

FOOTSTEPS

ROCKS FALL

NEIGE
Oh. Alfie.

ALFIE STARTS AWAKE WITH A GASP

ALFIE
Shit.

NEIGE
Your head, Alfie–

ALFIE WHINES

NEIGE
Here, here, take my arm– AH, or the neck, that is fine too– Ah! Careful, careful, little love. ALFIE. Enough, merci!

ALFIE GASPS

ALFIE
Fuck. So– sorry.

NEIGE
Not at all. How do you feel?

ALFIE
Bite.

NEIGE
Better than unconscious.

ALFIE
No. Bite.

NEIGE
What do we have left in storage?

ALFIE
Uh. Couple of pints of Tim.

NEIGE
Only a couple?

ALFIE
I’ve. Not getting out.

NEIGE
Wait, look at me.

ALFIE
Oh, don’t.

NEIGE
When was the last time you went to hunt?

ALFIE
Don’t know. Before. Cas scan.

NEIGE
Oh Alfie, that was almost a month ago! What is wrong with you, you– You had barely eaten when I—

(little sigh)

You know what, fine.

FRIDGE DOOR OPENS, SLAMS SHUT.

ALFIE
No, not– put back!

NEIGE
You need all of it.

ALFIE
But– for Cas!

NEIGE
No. I’m not arguing. How do you make it… liquid? How?

ALFIE
Oh. Leave out. Warm slow.

NEIGE
Are you going to jump me again if we wait?

ALFIE
If– if I. Move. Or think.

NEIGE
Right. We need another solution then.

ALFIE
Yeah. Just– Cas.

FOOTSTEPS

NEIGE
He doesn’t look touched. A little dusty, but unharmed. Besides, you know. The obvious.

ALFIE
No! Blood. Cas!

NEIGE
Ah, Alfie! Non! You need this more than–

ALFIE
Cas.

NEIGE
Alfie. Be serious. We’ll get more blood for him, but right now you need it more, okay?

ALFIE
Promise?

NEIGE
I do. Now. Unfreezing the blood. How do I do this?

ALFIE
Um. Microwave, thirty. Chaos.

NEIGE
I am certain you said words to me in English, but I have no idea what they could possibly mean in that context.

ALFIE
Ugh. I’ll just— AH!

NEIGE
I think your ankle is broken. You really have not been eating. Idiot boy.

FOOTSTEPS, FABRIC MOVES. NEIGE MAKES A SMALL SOUND OF EFFORT.

ALFIE
Hey! Don’t just– put down! Now!

NEIGE
Reality suggests otherwise.

ALFIE
NOT potatoes.

NEIGE
Oui, they are much lighter, come on.

FOOTSTEPS

NEIGE
Alright?

ALFIE
Yeah. Just. No talk.

NEIGE
Okay. Understood.

FOOTSTEPS

ALFIE
Counter, please.

NEIGE
Of course.

MICROWAVE OPENS, BEEPS, THEN HUMS.

ALFIE
Ugh.

NEIGE
Woah, Alfie–

ALFIE
No, no. Stay back. Hurts. Hurt Neige. No.

NEIGE
You won’t hurt me.

ALFIE
Try. Shhhh.

NEIGE
You are going to fall if I don’t hold you. You don’t have the energy to sit. What have you done to yourself?

ALFIE
Sorry.

NEIGE
Enough. Enough.

ALFIE
Tired.

NEIGE
I know. I know. Me too, little one.

MICROWAVE BEEPS, AND IS OPENED FAST AND VIOLENTLY.

NEIGE
Good. Very good.

A RUSTLE OF PLASTIC. ALFIE MOANS.

NEIGE
Can you sit without me holding you up?

ALFIE DOES NOT RESPOND

NEIGE
Tres bien.

ALFIE
Mmm…

NEIGE
I despise those things.

ALFIE
(breathlessly)
What, microwaves?

NEIGE
Food should not take this short a time to cook.

ALFIE
You hardly have to use them, why does it bother you.

NEIGE
Hmm. Let me look at your head.

ALFIE
Ah. Still hurts.

NEIGE
The wound has closed, but it’s not healed fully. You were barely hunting before, but to just stop entirely? So reckless. You could have starved yourself.

ALFIE
I’m fine.

NEIGE
You are covered in blood and brick dust. You are not fine. Let me– may I?

ALFIE
Sure, lick my forehead. Be my guest.

NEIGE
Merci.

WET SOUND

NEIGE
A little better. How does it feel?

ALFIE
Not so stingy. Thanks.

NEIGE
Hmm. You’ve not finished what I gave you.

PLASTIC RUSTLES

ALFIE
It’s still a bit frozen. Tastes weird.

NEIGE
Ah. May I?

ALFIE
Be my guest.

PLASTIC RUSTLES AS THE BAG OF BLOOD IS HANDED OVER

NEIGE
Hmm. I. Hmm.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
What he has been dosed with, it is a… mélange?

ALFIE
May…? Oh, mélange! Mixture. Fuck, a mixture! The synthetic blended… oh, whatever the fuck they gave to those rats? Maybe? I thought it tasted weird. Like. Some kind of whisper of vampireness, but. I couldn’t place it, and I thought like. Surely at how dilute it would be– You’re looking at me funny.

NEIGE
(emotionally)
Your french is getting better.

ALFIE
Oh. Yeah.

NEIGE
I noticed before, too. You’ve been practising. And I saw the book on your bedside.

ALFIE
(embarrassed)
I was hoping you’d missed that.

NEIGE
Also hoping I would miss the fact you’ve been sleeping in there with him, I presume.

ALFIE
Yes. What were you saying about recognising the taste?

NEIGE
That you are right. You know how humans can find faces in everything? We are programmed to find the taste and smell of others of our kind.

ALFIE
Huh. Interesting.

NEIGE
Have you eaten enough?

ALFIE
Probably not.

NEIGE
Finish what’s there. Then I’ll take you out.

ALFIE
But–

NEIGE
You need to eat or you’re no use to anyone! You can barely string a sentence together. The state you’re in. I knew you were in blood debt but I didn’t know it was this bad.

ALFIE
You told me not to sit by the river.

NEIGE
Oui, this has nothing to do with hunting, I don’t know why you are mentioning it.

ALFIE
You said we were being watched.

NEIGE
We are. You still need to eat.

ALFIE
Why are they watching us?

NEIGE
They want us dead. What else?

PAUSE

ALFIE
Why did you come here?

NEIGE
You were hurt.

ALFIE
Yeah, but. You left.

NEIGE
You told me to go, so I went.

ALFIE
I know. But now you’re back.

NEIGE
I have thought on this a lot, Alfie, and I don’t think there is a deeper explanation. I just want to help. Does it matter what the reason is?

ALFIE
Yes.

NEIGE
I will leave again as soon as I know you are not going to curl up and die on me.

ALFIE
Why?

NEIGE
Do you want me to stay?

ALFIE
No.

NEIGE
Then that is why.

ALFIE
Why do you want to stop me from just curling up and dying? What’s it to you if that happens?

NEIGE
What is it to…?! Non. I will not get drawn into this.

PLASTIC RUSTLES AS NEIGE HANDS THE BAG OF BLOOD BACK

NEIGE
Bien. Drink.

PLASTIC RUSTLES, STOPS

NEIGE
What?

ALFIE
Have you spoken to Haley?

NEIGE
Your doctor friend? No.

ALFIE
She texted me. She went to look for you in Colloquium, said you weren’t there.

NEIGE
Shortly after our trip to the hospital, I handed in my resignation.

ALFIE
Why were you even working in a bar at all?

NEIGE
It’s a good way to get information. And make an impression.

ALFIE
Ha. I knew it was bullshit when you said you were trying to be inconspicuous.

NEIGE
Not bullshit, exactly. I don’t want to draw attention to myself; there are rumours I’m nearby, because of Casper disappearing. It’s making the locals… unsettled. More and more of them are going missing, and it’s not just new vampires anymore. People are afraid, and rightly so. They feel watched. They are watched.

ALFIE
Have you spoken to Ros and Eponine?

NEIGE
They told me a rather troubling thing.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
You went to them begging for their help to retrieve Casper when you were still human.

ALFIE
I. I didn’t know where else to go. You know Ros, don’t you?

NEIGE
A little.

ALFIE
Why is it troubling that I went to them. What did they do?

NEIGE
You know they have a halfway house, of sorts. That young vampires seek refuge with them.

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
Word travels out of that house, and it travels fast. Casper must have told you about his reputation?

ALFIE
Yeah, he said he was here because Ros and Eponine asked him to come.

NEIGE
Did he now?

ALFIE
Well. Maybe not in so many words but he strongly implied it.

NEIGE
There is a general sense of panic.

ALFIE
Of course there is; people are going missing.

NEIGE
Non, mon amie, not just people. Casper Novotny, Vampire Avenger, who slayed his maker, has been disappeared.

ALFIE
So they’re more scared now?

NEIGE
Yes.

ALFIE
And that’s my fault for speaking to them.

NEIGE
They doubtless would have found out anyway. But it was not wise of you to go to them.

ALFIE
Why?

NEIGE
Besides the real risk they would have killed you? Because this is a complicated matter. There is politics involved. Surely Casper told you things are complicated?

ALFIE
Kind of. He hinted at it. A bit?

NEIGE
Well. So far your sample size for vampires is small, and Casper and I are both outliers in our own ways. Casper was never one for airs and graces. He would have done terribly at court. Ros, and Eponine too, though she is younger so it is less pronounced, I think, they are both vampires who were part of society before they died.

ALFIE
Society. What do you mean, don’t we all live in a society?

NEIGE
High society, Alfie. Socialites.

ALFIE
Ah. Rich people.

NEIGE
Yes indeed.

ALFIE
What’s that got to do with anything?

NEIGE
Well, Ros in particular, she was one of Claudio’s… ah. How should I call them? Spies? Cuckoos? Many of them were chosen by him strategically so they could apply political pressure on their relevant governments. He had an habit of choosing young women he believed would do well as debutants, or else were very marriageable. Noble lords, to turn them could be risky. They had so much power of their own. But the ladies, their wives? They offered knowledge, insight, influence, and importantly, there was generally a ceiling upon how powerful they could be individually.

ALFIE
So what?

NEIGE
So, with Claudio gone, modern technology moving on, the age of the absolute monarch and old high society shifting, these vampires. Where did they go?

ALFIE
Well. Ros ran a brothel for a bit, I think.

NEIGE
Is there judgement in your tone, for that? If there is, I do not take kindly to it.

ALFIE
No. No judgement. Just saying.

NEIGE
Showing off the one piece of information you know.

ALFIE
She closed it because of you, right?

NEIGE
Yes. What do you want to talk about, hmm? Do you want to talk about me and Ros, or do you want to know why things are complicated amongst vampires of a certain age and disposition?

ALFIE
First one; I get why it’s complicated. They’re privileged fucks who started their vampire lives thinking they would be little princesses of the new vampire king, but then you killed their daddy so they make it everyone else’s problem by making it as difficult as possible to get anything done. Just like old rich humans. It’s not that deep.

NEIGE
Hmm. You have grasped the basics of it, yes. But I killed their ‘daddy’, as you call him. And it is no secret that I have a fondness for Casper.

ALFIE
Oh. So they were expecting you to kill them like you did all of Claudio’s other little followers.

NEIGE
I killed Claudio’s fanatics, mon râleur. I did not kill every vampire he made, or even every one who was loyal too him. If they were willing to give up their political power and live a quiet life, I let them.

ALFIE
(mocking, annoyed)
And they just. Do as you say, do they? These vampires?

NEIGE
Yes. Unequivocally.

ALFIE
Because you killed Claudio.

NEIGE
Because I killed Claudio. Because some of them think I am the source of all vampirism. Because some of them are afraid I will kill them. Because they have seen the penalty for those who cross me.

ALFIE
Right. Am I supposed to be frightened of you now?

NEIGE
It would make things perhaps more convenient if that were so.

ALFIE
That’s why you were at the bar then. That’s the impression you were making. If the oldest vampire can shut up and be a bartender, everyone needs to pipe down and toe the line?

NEIGE
Exactement.

ALFIE
Are they doing that?

NEIGE
For the most part. But they are afraid, which makes them more dangerous and puts them at greater risk.

ALFIE
Why?

NEIGE
Because fear makes people vulnerable, non? I think this is why so many more are being taken. Everyone is scared; they’re making foolish decisions because of it. I have wondered if this is deliberate on Bonham’s, and his team’s part, non? Are they causing this dissent on purpose?

ALFIE
And the more that disappear, the more frightened they get.

NEIGE
Oui. It is a vicious cycle. But you know all about that, non? Such a cycle of fear is how we manage to fall through holes in our back rooms and not eat for four weeks solid, and almost kill ourselves.

ALFIE
Sorry.

NEIGE
It is okay. I’m glad you are not more seriously hurt. You would not have needed my help to heal at all if you had been eating. When was the last time you even left the house?

ALFIE
You know the answer to that.

NEIGE
Yes. But I was hoping I was somehow mistaken. You cannot go weeks without eating, Alfie. It will drive you mad, and then it will kill you. Do you want that?

ALFIE
No.

NEIGE
So why…?

ALFIE
Haley. Said she’d call.

NEIGE
She wanted some time, she told me—

ALFIE
You said you’d not seen her! Has she said something to you? I keep asking and she says she needs to speak to her friend first because– Neige. She won’t show me any of the scans of Casper. It’s been weeks.

NEIGE
I have not seen her. I only know what she told me at the hospital. What would she have said to me?

ALFIE
I don’t know. Something. Anything that– to indicate if—

NEIGE
She told me she had no idea what she was looking at. That is all she said to me. And then she asked if she might image me, as well.

ALFIE
Did she?

NEIGE
Oui.

ALFIE
You were okay with that?

NEIGE
Why would I not be?

ALFIE
Because it’s– oh, never mind.

NEIGE
You want to know what is wrong with Casper, non?

ALFIE
Yeah?

NEIGE
The scans will not help if she does not have a healthy vampire to compare them to.

ALFIE
Oh that’s. That’s actually smart.

NEIGE
Merci.

ALFIE
Though ‘healthy vampire’ feels like a bit of an oxymoron.

MOVEMENT

ALFIE YELPS IN PAIN

NEIGE
What are you doing! You’re still not properly healed, you need to eat!

ALFIE
But—

NEIGE
No! Eat! Immédiatement!

ALFIE
Fine! Fine.

PLASTIC RUSTLES

ALFIE
You make a good point about comparisons between you and Cas, though.

NEIGE
If you say so.

ALFIE
Oh, spit it out.

NEIGE
Spit out what?

ALFIE
The argument you want to have with me about comparisons, even though it was literally your suggestion.

NEIGE
Not an argument. Not about comparisons. But if you eat, I will talk.

ALFIE
Great.

PLASTIC RUSTLE.

NEIGE
You seem to think that we are… suffering from a condition, oui?

ALFIE
Yeah? We are.

NEIGE
Eat!

ALFIE
You prompted me!

NEIGE
My mistake, finish the blood. I do not know… something about this. Henri– he didn’t— Henri, he… don’t stop eating!

ALFIE GROANS WITH IRRITATION

NEIGE
We are not sick. We are not humans with a condition. That’s why Henri’s cure killed us.

ALFIE
HENRI WAS THE ONE WHO CAME UP WITH THE CURE?!

NEIGE
Alfie!

ALFIE
If you can suck a drop more of blood out of that I’ll– well I don’t have a hat and neither do you.

NEIGE
What do you need a hat for?

ALFIE
Nothing, I’m finished, we don’t have any more blood. I’m still hungry, I know, don’t bitch at me! The cure! You told me there was a cure before, you just dropped it, no explanation, and I’ve been– Henri! You killed him, he had notebooks and–

NEIGE
CALME! Alfie!! Calme! Alfie!

ALFIE IS BREATHING FAST

NEIGE
You are panicking!

ALFIE
Shit, I am, I am.

NEIGE
Come here, come here.

ALFIE
No, I don’t— I need a bit of. Space.

NEIGE
Okay.

ALFIE
Fucking. Talk to me. Tell me about Henri.

NEIGE
Uhhh. He was French?

ALFIE
NO SHIT, HIS NAME IS HENRI.

NEIGE
Desolé! Fuck. Paris. Uh. Chemotherapy. That’s not what he called it, but that’s what it was.

ALFIE
You killed Henri in 1902. Chemo wasn’t invented until the 40s!

NEIGE
Not in a practical sense, no! And drugs like the ones Henri was synthesising to treat vampirism were not used to treat humans until more recently than that.

ALFIE
Hang on. I thought you didn’t know anything about medicine?

NEIGE
Why?

ALFIE
You asked me to explain stuff.

NEIGE
I have an interest in some things! I never got a medical degree but I have taken an interest from time to time! It is interesting! I just don’t understand much about it.

ALFIE
You’re fucking. Insane.

NEIGE
Quite probably.

ALFIE
Henri. What did he say.

NEIGE
It’s not what he said. It’s what his work concluded. You are not infected with vampirism. It is you. One and the same.

ALFIE
But…

NEIGE
Hmm?

ALFIE
I’m just trying to– I don’t. I’m. I’m going to try to walk on my foot.

NEIGE
Okay.

MOVEMENT. A FOOTSTEP.

ALFIE
Help?

NEIGE
Of course.

ALFIE
No, I meant to walk, you don’t have to—

BLOOD DRIPS. ALFIE WHINES QUIETLY.

NEIGE
Please.

ALFIE
(pathetically)
Ah, Neige.

NEIGE
Let me help.

A SMALL, WET SOUND. ALFIE MAKES SMALL SOUNDS OF PLEASURE.

NEIGE
(softly)
You prefer it still, don’t you?

ALFIE PULLS AWAY

ALFIE
So what if I do?

NEIGE
Fascinating little thing, you are.

ALFIE
Still think I’m broken, then?

NEIGE
I never thought you were broken. As I have made extremely clear. Multiple times. Was that enough? Are you healed?

ALFIE
I think so.

NEIGE
Good. Where are you going to?

ALFIE
There’s this paper I was reading, part of Bonham’s notes…

THEY WALK

BOXES MOVE, PAPERS RUSTLE

NEIGE
It would be remiss of me not to ask.

ALFIE
About what?

NEIGE
The chimney.

BOXES AND PAPERWORK MOVING

ALFIE
Oh, right. Um. Yeah. Dunno what happened really. It just. Collapsed on me.

NEIGE
How?

ALFIE
I don’t know. It just fell.

NEIGE
How unusual. I did not realise there were structural problems, you’d have that that Casper–

PAPERS MOVE

ALFIE
Aha! Here. Yeah.

FOOTSTEPS

ALFIE
Yeah, you see, here, it’s talking about something right there, a malignant transmissible… and then the next page it says ‘helix’, and that doesn’t make sense, and I’m not stupid but I can’t figure it out.

NEIGE GRABS THE PAPER

NEIGE
There are pages missing.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
Here, where it is talking about fibrous tissues. There are pages missing.

PAPER IS HANDED OVER AGIN

ALFIE
Oh my god, you’re right. Fuck, and—

PAPERS RUSTLING MORE

ALFIE
And at the bottom of the page here, the last sentence, ‘this seems to be determined by the presence of the proteins in the tissue. Given the way that white blood cells—’
(pause)
Shit. HLAs.

NEIGE
What?

ALFIE
Um. So, human blood comes in a few different types. Something I’ve actually been wondering about is how we can just seemingly eat humans with all different blood types, which is fascinating, and like. I was wondering if maybe blood type had an impact on how likely someone would be to survive the change, but, no. I should have thought.

NEIGE
You still have failed to explain HLAs.

ALFIE MOVES PAPER AS HE SPEAKS, TAPPING IT FOR EMPHASIS OCCASIONALLY

ALFIE
Right, sorry, sorry. So when humans need a blood transfusion, when they need donor blood, we look at blood type to make sure that the blood we introduce to the system isn’t going to make them have an autoimmune response. But when we’re looking for matches to transplant organs, not blood, we look at the HLAS. Which is interesting, here, because! The way we check the HLAs is by looking at white blood cells. White blood cells don’t have any of the antigens we use to determine blood type but they’re the best cells to look at when working out tissue compatibility because they do show the HLAs.

NEIGE
So what do these things do?

ALFIE
Uh, it’s basically a part of the DNA which determines tissue building and also how your immune system works. They are in charge of proteins on the surface of cells? They’re… yeah. This. This is what’s missing. There are pages here where that must be what they were talking about, but they’ve taken them away.

PAPERS MOVE A LITTLE MORE AS THEY CONTINUE TO SPEAK

NEIGE
What does this mean?

ALFIE ROUTES THROUGH A BOX AS HE SPEAKS

ALFIE
It means that. Ugh. Okay, so. I’ve been thinking it’s weird that there’s nothing about the change itself, here. Nothing documenting that process. We’ve got things about what happens when vampires die, we’ve got killing methods, we’ve got all sorts. But the actual mechanics of the change itself? Nothing. And it’s weird, and it has been bugging me, but I guess I was assuming that this was just… knowledge Bonham had in his head and he didn’t need to write it down. But.

ALFIE MOVES

ALFIE
I think! Ugh, maybe. I think. I think maybe these documents have been more deliberately edited than I thought.

NEIGE
But they tried to burn the lab down to destroy them. Why edit them?

ALFIE
Did they actually try to burn it though? These are experienced scientists. They’re smart. They knew they had fire suppression, that starting a fire right next to the document storage area which had gas fire suppression in place would mean the flames would get smothered almost immediately. They must have known that.

NEIGE
But they sealed their victims behind the fire proof door so they would be unaffected.

ALFIE
No. I think– I think it’s theatre. I think they left the subjects there to horrify us but also to distract us? I think they wanted us to take the paperwork, they wanted us to see it, but they wanted us to think they didn’t leave it on purpose. They’ve taken some of it out, so they didn’t want us to see all of it. They’re directing us to something. Or away from something? Why?

NEIGE
Merde.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
Henri! When we captured Tim Sherman he was asking about Henri. He even asked specifically asked about the notebooks. Shit.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE GROANS

NEIGE
Henri knew I was coming, the day I killed him. He was ready when I found him, ready to die. He even had some idea that it would be a painful death. He relished it. And he had prepared a series of notes to outlast him, separate from his records of his experiments. These notebooks read as a kind of treatise on his beliefs, on why he was doing his work. But they also codified his methods, breaking them down in easily identifiable chunks.

ALFIE
You read them.
(pause)
Neige. What the fuck is that expression, Neige? What was in those notebooks?! Could Bonham have them?

NEIGE
It is extraordinarily unlikely. I hid them very well.

ALFIE
So they’re not destroyed?

NEIGE
I never claimed they were.

ALFIE
Well, no, not explicitly, but— oh, never mind. Why didn’t you get rid of them entirely?

NEIGE
Casper, he—

ALFIE
Casper was there?! When you killed Henri?! He went to Bonham, Neige— what if he—

NEIGE
I know, I know!

ALFIE
Tim was trying to– he was trying to get you to talk about Henri, he was, the way he said it made it sound like he was certain we’d have talked about it before. But you’d never mentioned Henri to me before that day.

NEIGE
Just. This is complicated.

ALFIE
Explain it, then!

NEIGE
Of course Casper was interested in Henri! Of course he was! He was young, he had not lived through what happened with Claudio, he didn’t understand that—

ALFIE
Claudio?

NEIGE
Henri was one of the last made before I killed Claudio and brought an end to his conquests.

ALFIE
Claudio made Henri?

NEIGE
No. Claudio had by that time set up a system of packs of vampires, all over Europe. It was— He was made by one of Claudio’s captains, the one who lived in Normandy.

ALFIE
Just like Cas was made by Antoinette. Wait. Henri wasn’t made by Antoinette, too?!

NEIGE
Non.

ALFIE
But? I’m sensing there’s a ‘but’, here?

NEIGE
The group which made Henri? There was a deep fanaticism, amongst them. A desperation. They knew, I think, that Claudio was not going be successful in his endeavours, but they still believed in his bullshit about the blood, and purity, and me. By that point, I had done a significant degree of, ah. Convincing.

ALFIE
Murder, you mean?

NEIGE
In some instances, yes. But more important was the literal convincing of Claudio’s captains that his cause was not just lost but ill-founded. The more who turned against him, the easier he would be to topple. At his height, he had constructed near religious significance about himself. If anyone challenged him, they would be killed by his loyalists, so it was important to destroy the fanatics, first.

ALFIE
And you missed that Henri was a fanatic. Is Bonham one of Claudio’s

NEIGE
I don’t know. I don’t recognise the smell of him. Always, it been filtered through other things; a trace on Casper’s clothes; a lingering, centuries old smell, in that basement. I do not know this vampire at all, have never seen him in the flesh.

ALFIE
Antoinette… she was doing a version of what Claudio set out to do, wasn’t she? When she made Cas? Casper talked about Bonham like he was trying to make a cure, but you say that’s what Henri was doing, and he was trying to follow in Claudio’s footsteps at the same time. Those things feel like a contradiction but they don’t have to be. They weren’t for Henri.

NEIGE
I don’t think we can expect Henri’s conscience to be consistent.

ALFIE
Hang on… didn’t you say you thought that Henri was a friend before you killed him?

NEIGE
I did. I was good friends with his maker. She was key in helping me resolve the, ah. Situation.

ALFIE
And Casper? How does he come into this?

NEIGE
As I say. It makes sense that Casper was interested in Henri’s work, different although his focus was from Casper’s. Henri was obsessed with the mechanism which called half-mades, specifically, and whilst they were important to Casper’s own studies, they were merely a tool for trying to understand what the rest of us are, because to Casper, in a way, the half-made is the most pure form of the vampire. We are the halfway point, in his view of things, though Henri’s research pointed to them being insufficient in several ways which challenged Casper’s views on this.

ALFIE
They… they studied together? Worked together?

NEIGE
Not to my knowledge, I don’t think so. But they spoke at length, mostly in letters, I believe, it is hard to be sure. Things had already become… strained, between Cas and I. Which I won’t… What is important is that he came to me in Paris. I remember how strange the whole thing seemed, right from the beginning. His whole manner was just… off. He’d always been strange, always wore the weight of the world on his shoulders, but this? It was different. He seemed… I am tempted to say resolved, though I’m not sure it’s the right word.

He– he was.. He— he was, was–

ALFIE
Neige– are you–

NEIGE
Non, non, I’m fine. I am fine.

ALFIE
I’m sorry. I didn’t think that–

NEIGE
What? You thought that this would be something easy to discuss? That I could enact violence upon one which I had once called a friend in so trivial a way that I could speak freely about it, with no difficulty at all?

ALFIE
I don’t know. I’m sorry.

NEIGE
I am fucking– I am thousands of years old, this does not mean I am– I am not impenetrable!

ALFIE
I know. I’m sorry.
(pause)
I do have pretty compelling evidence you’re not impenetrable.

NEIGE
Is this funny?

ALFIE
Clearly not.

NEIGE
It was late, when Casper came to me in Paris. I wasn’t expecting him, but of course, I smelled him as soon as he walked down the street. I thought I was imagining it. It had been months, weeks…

We’d fought, you see, the last time we’d spoken. About the nature of his studies, the way they had driven him, about what he’d told me about this… friend he had reconnected with on his travels. Stupid boy, listening to stories shared by vampires too young to know what they were talking about.

Old stories.

I have wondered at times what little Abraham Stoker knew of our kind. There was little of fact in his novel, of course, but the stories. They matched up with some things about me, things which made– Casper…

ALFIE
They made him what?

NEIGE
I want to make it clear I was never worried he would become like Antoinette. For one thing, he hated himself too much to think of his lineage as anything special, and was distasteful enough of the rest of us, so strongly believing that we were just marionettes, puppeted by some infection, that I believed I was not at risk of him developing that superiority complex that had consumed his maker. But I feared what he would find in the Romanian hills.

ALFIE
Why?

NEIGE
Like many old vampire stories, Alfie, that one is tied to my past. Another death on my hands, a vampire to whom I owed my life, in fact, and then… and then…

ALFIE
When Cas was in Romania, he found that village. With the barn full of dead people. The vampire in the coal shed.

NEIGE
Thankfully not someone I knew. It would have got a lot more complicated, otherwise.

ALFIE
There’s— we’re. I want to know about all of this. I– what does this have to do with Henri? Why does this matter?

NEIGE
Because of Claudio.

ALFIE
What? I’m lost!

NEIGE
I— I am attempting to– it is very difficult to explain this. Everything loops around, you see? It is complicated.

ALFIE
So, what… Claudio wanted to make vampires—?

NEIGE
I– I do not. I do not think I can do this.

ALFIE
What? What do you mean?

NEIGE
I can’t, I– I can’t. I’m trying to tell you these things. I’m sorry. But I just– I can’t. I– it feels like– it’s caught, here, stuck on my ribs, locked in place. It hurts when I–

ALFIE
Neige. What did Claudio do to you?

NEIGE
Our teeth, as you have so cleverly deduced, leave open wounds when we don’t tongue them shut. Our teeth interfere with our healing process. Something to do with the compounds, I think, I do not know—

ALFIE
Compounds? What are you—

NEIGE
Alfie. Not now, Alfie.

ALFIE
Fucking– sorry. Shit.

NEIGE
The bites. On my chest. That was how he bled me. We fought first, you see, and he caught my throat. He bit, he drank, he– and when I was too weak to fight, he tied me down. And he bit me again. Over and over. He wouldn’t let the wounds close. And so the blood, it– it pooled and ran and he siphoned it away, kept it to. To turn them.

ALFIE
Fuck. That’s. Fuck.

NEIGE
I– it was not– there was. Ceremony. To it. I. It is in my head still now, sometimes, the– the words? The screams of the humans he– the sound of the blood, the bite of the chains in– in my– through me. Metal on bone, trying to heal around it. The constant drip of human blood into my face from a jug he held aloft whenever he was not tearing into me, I–

ALFIE
Stop, Neige. Stop.

NEIGE
I made Claudio. I made him, with my own teeth and blood. I had tasted his blood, too, I had kissed him, I had fucked him, let him fuck me, I had– he.

ALFIE
Shhh, shh.

NEIGE
No, Alfie. No. I’m sorry. You want to– to know. And you are right.

ALFIE
Jesus fuck. This isn’t what I meant when I– I’m sorry.

NEIGE
Then what?! If not this, then what do you want to know?!

ALFIE
You and Cas, Cas and Bonham, how it all connects! I–

NEIGE
This! This is how it connects. My stupid blood, Alfie.

ALFIE
Neige! Your blood isn’t stupid.

NEIGE
No. It’s– it’s all I…
(pause)
Come. We should hunt, I think. It will all be much easier if we hunt.

ALFIE
Okay.

[END]