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:

– characters in extreme emotional distress (including crying, hyperventilation)

– discussions of death, grief and loss

– detailed discussions and descriptions of medical abuse and torture

– descriptions of violent injury and murder

– depicition of a character in a state of deliriousness and semi-coherence

– depictions of physical distress, including struggling to breathe

– gun shots (not dreadfully loud but fairly loud)

– depiction of a character in physical pain

– loud sound effects (motorbike engines, banging sounds)

– depiction of extreme, gory violence, including screaming, gargling, and sounds of tearing flesh

Transcript

WHEN HE SPEAKS, ALFIE SOUNDS WEAK, FRAIL, AT TIMES TEARFUL.

ALFIE
Yeah. Uh. It’s been a few days since–

PAUSE. THERE IS NO OTHER SOUND.

ALFIE
Sorry. Thought I… never mind. I– I don’t know how many day’s it’s– there was the night in York, they took him. Then I drove and drove, and, fuck.

My uh. My burner phone died on the drive. I didn’t think to bring more than one, we were only supposed to be going to the river, I–

This is the first chance I’ve had to charge the phone, first chance I’ve had to– to think–

ALFIE BREAKS OFF, CRYING

ALFIE
Sorry, sorry, I’m just. So fucking tired. I’m so tired. I haven’t slept since– since the day before the river. Uh.

Um.

We’re in. It’s a little cottage in the middle of nowhere. Nothing for miles, then this. A little barn, some goats, some horses. Nothing else. The couple that lived here… I didn’t mean to–

ALFIE BREATHES THROUGH HIS TEETH, HE SNIFFS HARD.

ALFIE
It was an accident, I’m so tired, I’m so tired. I didn’t meant to let it go so far, I– I don’t know if they’ll make it. I drove them a few hours towards where I could smell more cars and traffic, where I could tell cars drove by at least every hour.

There was nothing else I could do.

SNIFFLING, ANGRY MOVEMENTS OF FABRIC AS ALFIE SWATS AT HIS FACE, CRYING STILL.

ALFIE
We can’t stay here, we need to move on, to get somewhere where there’s not a chance of locals or relatives coming knocking, but. Neige. It’s too much of a risk to move him right now. To him. To me.

Fucking, honestly, I– I don’t know how I got him here! We’re fucking. Miles from anything.

I need to hunt again. I don’t know where I can. The car is twenty minutes walk away, I– I’ve been trying to build myself up to it. I think I can make the walk, I don’t know how sane I’ll be at the end of it, but–

I left it there because I tried to make it sure we couldn’t be easily followed but. I don’t where to go, what to do. The nearest place with a large population is over an hour away.

That’s the safest option, for me and whoever I’m hunting. But that’d mean leaving him here alone, exposed. And I’d have to take the car, and I need to get rid of the fucking car because, fuck. Fuck.

ALFIE SIGHS AND RUNS HIS HANDS OVER HIS FACE

So many people, so many, I–

ALFIE DRAWS A SHAKY BREATH

I– I don’t know how I made it here. Neige, I thought– I genuinely thought he was going to kill me. I had to—

ALFIE WHIMPERS

I had to fucking. Drug him. Didn’t even know it was possible before I saw— But. Enough barbiturates to kill two horses. That’s what they were using at the place they were keeping him. I just. I loaded him up with everything I could, I had to. He wasn’t– it wasn’t safe. And I needed him to be quiet.

ALFIE DRAWS A LONG, SHAKY BREATH

He’ll. He’ll understand. If I can find– if.

J– Jesus, there’s still blood in my hair. When we first got here and I made sure Neige was… yeah. I showered. The water was just. Red. It didn’t even look diluted, the blood, there was that much of it. The clothes I was wearing are completely ruined. I’m wearing stuff from the drawers of the people who own this cottage, people I nearly killed, who I might have actually killed, I don’t—

I thought I might have to shave my fucking head, there was that much blood and viscera in my hair, I–

I’ve been a nurse for ten years, I’d never seen anything like that. And so much of it was– it was me and I–

ALFIE’S BREATH CATCHES. HE SNIFFS.

Right. No. I can’t be like this. I can’t fucking be like. This. I have to stop crying. It’s gonna make the blood debt worse. God, what am I going to do?

I can’t feel Casper anymore.

A TINY, SAD LITTLE SOB.

Maybe it’s just distance, but I– I can’t feel him. I want to ask Neige, but he’s… he’s. I can’t fucking ask him.

Ugh.

Okay. I need to do this now whilst I can still think.

I drove out of the city, following that pull I feel that ties me to Neige, but it was. It was very fucking hard because of Casper. Neige, he was heading North, but whoever took Casper, they’ve gone South, and I. The further away he got, the worse it felt. Like they were actually tearing something out of me, it felt like.

Eventually, though, it just. Stopped. I don’t even know when it stopped. There was so much pain, I was– I was trying to focus, to block it out, to drive, but I was driving for hours and hours, further and further North. I had to stop, refuel the car, f-find something to eat. Almost killed a guy. And sometime around there I just.

I just became aware that– that. It was gone. He–

I started to panic, I wanted to drive South, try to chase it, to– to see if I could—

But Neige. It’s a different sort of feeling with Neige? It’s fuzzier, more generalised. But I had this pit in my stomach. I knew they were hurting him.

The more I tried to hang on to those threads of Casper, and it just– I don’t know where he’s gone. I don’t know where they. Or what. But he’s sleeping, it’s okay, he’s sleeping. He can’t– he can’t feel it. So.

Shit.

Stop crying, stop crying.

SOFT PATS AS ALFIE HITS HIS HEAD WITH THE HEELS OF HIS HANDS

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

So yeah. I. Lost track of him.

I don’t know what it means. I hope it doesn’t mean.

ALFIE SNIFFS

The uh, the second petrol station I stopped at had one of those sad hotels on it. The ambulance van they had Neige in, I hadn’t seen it for a while. I’d been trying to stay back in the traffic so they didn’t realise I was following them, but. I — I honestly don’t know.

I became more and more aware there too many ambulances on the road and none of them looked right. They were too old, too battered-looking, I don’t know. And I was worried I was going to lose track of which one they had Neige in so I closed the gap a little.

I was so scared they’d recognise the car so I– I just. Took a different one. one. I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I swear I intended to give it back. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I’m sorry.

I waited by the side of the hotel for a while until someone came out to smoke, and I– fucking. I jumped them. I– I don’t like how it felt, grabbing them, holding them close, feeling that funny prickling feeling I get in my nose when I’m glamouring them without meaning too, feeling them go slack in my arms. I only drank from them a little. Just enough that my blood debt didn’t feel so awful after all that healing and panic and stress.

I took their keys. I just stood in the parking lot, pressing the button on the keys until I found the car, and then I just. Took it. And fortunately their car is a little sturdy thing that can run for miles and miles on fumes, thank fuck, but– look. I’m sorry.

It took a while for me to find Neige and the van again, after. The connection between us, i– it– I can follow the tie to Neige but it’s vague? It doesn’t help very much with following roads or getting to specific destinations. It’s not really a… it’s not in my brain, it’s hard to explain it. It’s like my body knows where he is, and it follows, but it just kind of… it’s hard to explain. With Casper, it was a little different. Or maybe not different, just stronger, I… yeah. It’s weird.

I nearly lost them around Glasgow. The roads got busier there. It was still four in the morning so it wasn’t crazy, but I was having to rely too much on that fuzzy, wordless, senseless pull towards him. It was hard to try to concentrate on that too much because the more I tried to follow the feeling the more I became aware that Neige was hurting. It’s like I’m hurting too? It’s like pain without sense or meaning, coming from no particular place in your body, it just. It made my eyes sting and my ears ring.

Argh.

By the time we were out in the countryside, I was shaking.

There was a benefit to the open, empty, winding roads; I could smell the recent tyre tracks. They were at least half an hour ahead of me. I tried to follow slowly so I could definitely stay out of sight, but it was getting close to dawn, so there was only so much I could dawdle.

I wasn’t sure when the sun would come up. We’re pretty close to the Winter Solstice so I knew it would be after eight, but I didn’t know when because who the fuck knows that kind of thing. I was so far North I wasn’t sure if that would have effected anything?

The car I’d stolen was small, the boot was not big enough to get in and there was nothing to cover the windows. I hadn’t seen anything outside substantial enough to shelter me, not a house, not anything, for an hour.

What could I do? Hide in my own clothes? UV can get through some fabrics, I– I didn’t know what to do. There were just hills and bushes and long grass and I was terrified I was going to run out of petrol, and the sun would come up, and I’d be blistered and cook in my own skin!

And then I saw it.

It looked like an ordinary office building, the kind you get on the way out of a big-ish town. That sort of 1960s office block, in its least fashionable iteration. It wasn’t near anything. It was just there, in the middle of nowhere, grey and uniform, peeking out from behind a hill.

I pulled off the road, turned off the little car’s engine.

There were lights on in the office building.

I walked towards the building in the undergrowth, several metres in from the road. I kept as low as I could whilst still moving fast. There was wind rustling the bushes and trees around me, hiding my footsteps even as I crunched through fresh frost. It stirred the smells of cars, plants, hydrochloric acid, and hospital disinfectant into a swirling, nonsensical mess. There were people in that building, I could just about tell. And there were vampires.

Importantly, though, I knew Neige was there. When I paid attention to that nasty tug inside of me, it was like my whole body was just vibrating slightly? A low, constant buzz of pain. He’d been suffering like that for fucking hours.

I shook myself, pushed past it, and crept along the edge of the carpark.

Behind the row of vans was a covered driveway, like an ambulance bay. It even had yellow painted grids on the aging tarmac. They didn’t look as though they’d been refreshed in years. Instead of attaching to an A&E, though, under the covered drive were just two large garage doors. One of them was shut. The other, though, showed a sliver of darkness about two feet high.

I pressed my back flat against the wall of the building. The rough concrete was smoothed over with green algae and under my finger tips, I could feel the frosted surface crack and give way to the softness underneath, squishy between my hands and the hard wall. I lowered myself down and strained my ears to listen. I couldn’t hear breathing, or the thud of human hearts, but there was something moving not far inside the garage door.

I breathed in deep and low. Sheltered from the wind by the building and the cover overhead, the smells inside it were easier to distinguish. Fifty or so humans came here regularly. Some of them seemed to be living in the caravans, stationed on the hills nearby. I could smell them sleeping.

Of the cars outside, most had been parked for hours, but two of the van’s engines were still cooling, giving off that hot metal smell. One of them was the one Neige had been taken in. The others had had different vampires inside. The smell was a knotty mess, I couldn’t unpick it.

Through the gap in the garage door I could smell dry heat. Everything was humming, like I was standing at the back of a giant fridge. When I crouched down by the gap, I could feel warm air leaking out of it. And on that air, I could smell more vampires.

It was… odd. I was confused, at first. There was– there was too much of it, too many layers. It was not immediately recognisable for what it was, so many nuances in tone and fragrance conflicting and competing.

I remembered Casper saying once that some vampires learned to have an exceptional nose. Neige said Casper was like that; he could tell apart two scent trails weeks old; smell a vampire’s maker in his blood even if he’d just drunk from someone else. With humans, I can smell blood type, cortisol, dopamine, and make out any recent additives, medicinal or recreational, but nothing complicated.

But even to me– even to me. I…

Probably to human noses, that intake bay would just smell of cleaning products, and maybe some unpleasant sickly undertone but to me, to any vampire brought through those doors, overwhelmingly, it stank of death. It was like being hit in the face with an entire brick wall, overwhelming, impossible to process.

There were so many layers, so much. Like walking into a headache.

Overwhelmingly, it stank of death.

I had to lie very still and hold my breath because if I let myself breathe it in too long, I– I was sure I was going to throw up. It was like getting screamed at, it was– yeah.

But I had to smell it, I had to find Neige, somehow, in the noise of it all.

So I took a little breath, let it burn the inside of my nose.

There were layers on top of it, layers of bleach and disinfectant, and all of it, none of it could really hide the smell of rot. It oozed up from the concrete floors, from the drains at the corners of the room, even though I could tell they poured hydrochloric acid down there regularly.

There were large, industrial air vents coming out of the wall. They oozed the boozy, familiar smell of living vampires and the horrid sweet stink of the recently half-made. The hot air wafted in and accumulated near the high, high ceilings, only barely noticeable above the stink radiating up from the cold floor.

I got, shaking, to my feet. I could hear that small, barely audible sound beneath the hum of whatever machines were going. It was dark, but there was enough light for my vampire eyes to make out white tarpaulins hiding something on the floor by the wall. That’s where the rustling was coming from.

I walked over slow.

Standing over the tarps, I could tell they were covering bodies. One of them was moving, just a little. A vampire. The smell of their blood was overwhelming, making my head throb and my throat ache. They had barely anything left inside of them. Not enough energy for even the drive to kill to make them move up from the wooden pallet they were lying on under the tarp.

There was nothing I could do to help. I had needed to hunt before we went to the river. More than five hours of panic and driving had burned through the new reserves from the man I’d eaten at the service stop and it would have taken huge quantities of blood to save them, and I–

I said I was sorry. I don’t know if they heard.

DISTANT THUD

Oh, fuck. He’s waking up.

ALFIE MOVES, HIS CLOTHES RUSTLING

NEIGE MUMBLES WORDLESSLY

FOOTSTEPS

A DOOR CREAKS OPEN

NEIGE
(voice cracked, wrecked)
Alfie? Alfie, please.

ALFIE
(his voice is very small)
I’m sorry.

SOUNDS OF MOVING FABRIC, OF METAL HITTING METAL AS NEIGE STRAINS AGAINST SOMETHING.

NEIGE
(voice cracked, wrecked)
Alfie.

ALFIE
I– I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m– I don’t have enough.

MOVEMENT. A SOFT THUD.

NEIGE
Alfie.

ALFIE
I can’t let you out I’m sorry.

SOUNDS OF STRUGGLING AND EFFORT FROM NEIGE

NEIGE
(more distressed)
Alfie.

A BED CREAKS AND THUDS

NEIGE
Alfie, jai besoin. Alfie. ALFIE.

ALFIE
Shh, shh.

NEIGE IS STRUGGLING, MOANING, THRASHING SIDE TO SIDE.

ALFIE
Please stop, sweet, please don’t break anything else. Please.

A SOUND OF MOVEMENT; GLASS CLINKS.

ALFIE
Here.

NEIGE MAKES AN ODD SOUND OF SURPRISE AND PAIN

ALFIE
I know, I know.

NEIGE
(sounding betrayed)
Alfie…

ALFIE
I’m sorry! I don’t think there’s enough left to knock you out but hopefully it’ll make it hurt less. I’m sorry.

NEIGE
(weak, barely audible)
Morte.

ALFIE
No, you’re not dying. You’re not.

NEIGE
Hurt.

ALFIE
I know, kitten. I know.

NEIGE
Alfie.

ALFIE
I can’t come closer to you, darling, I– I’m sorry. It’s not safe.

NEIGE
Alfie.

ALFIE
I— I know! I know. I–

NEIGE

Froid.

ALFIE SOBS

ALFIE
Fucking. I can’t– I can’t even– be in here. I’m scared I.

HURRIED FOOTSTEPS, DOOR SLAMS.

THUDDING

NEIGE
(muffled by the door)
Alfie, non, Alfie!

A PAUSE, THEN NEIGE MAKES A SMALL, PAINED SOUND.

ALFIE SOBS, CLOSE TO THE MICROPHONE.

NEIGE
(barely coherent)
Alfie..

DISTANTLY NEIGE CONTINUES TO CRY

ALFIE
I’m sorry, I– I have to– the car, I have to get– I’ll be back!

HURRIED FOOTSTEPS.

ALFIE
I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

FOOTSTEPS

ALFIE
But I have to. If I don’t, we’re both dead.

A DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES. A HORSE WHINNIES NEARBY. ALFIE SOBS A LITTLE.

ALFIE
And that’s the last I have of the drugs. He’s in pain, he’s barely holding onto himself. When he wakes up again, I don’t know how much thinking he’ll be able to– I’m surprised he’s still speaking now, honestly.

He’s too weak to heal. I could kill him by accident. I have to hunt, I have to find a way to hunt or we’re both going to fucking die out here. Shit. I’m. I’m pretty deep into blood debt, and there are.

A HORSE WHINNIES NEARBY.

Open wounds. On him. I. Am finding it hard to be. Near him without…

ALFIE WALKS

After I attacked that couple I gave him as much blood as I could without losing my mind. It helped him stop actively bleeding, which is good. But I think. I think there are parts of his insides missing.

ALFIE TAKES A SHARP BREATH. HE WALKS AS HE SPEAKS, FEET CRUNCHING THROUGH GRASS AND UNDERGROWTH.

Fucking fucking fuck.

That place. It was so. Corporate. The lab in the woods, it felt like. I don’t know. It felt secret, underground. It was literally half-buried. There was proper medical equipment but everything looked old. The walls were tiled. The ventilation was bad. The beds they had the people strapped to, they looked like something out of a film, they were that ancient.

This place, though, it was. Tidy. Slick. Well organised. Efficient. There were at least ten floors, including the two underground lab spaces. They were white washed, the floors covered in clean linoleum. Everything smelled clean and fresh, hospital clean. There were even full hand-sanitiser pumps next to every door, reminders to wear proper protection, to change gloves and gowns between patient rooms.

Yeah.

Patient rooms.

After I decided I couldn’t with the– the tarpaulin, I walked to the back of the intake garage, past the ambulance vans, to the wall the air vents were coming out of.

There were three doors. One was locked. The second led to a huge storage space, filled with carefully organised boxes of lab supplies and protective equipment. It was better stocked than any hospital I’ve worked at, though granted they were all NHS, so.

I spotted a box of scrubs, grabbed it off the shelf, and tucked myself away a few rows down.

I pulled into some scrubs and half-emptied a bottle of hand sanitiser onto my arms, face and head. It wouldn’t do much for my appearance but it would at least neutralise the smell of river and murder which was still clinging thickly to me, especially to my hair.

The hand sanitiser mushed all of the mess into spikes. My fingers looked like they were covered in disgusting pale brown hair gel when I was done, but at least I didn’t smell as bad. I covered my head with a scrub cap and stuck a mask over my face.

Near the door there were boxes of office supplies and I’d seen lanyards on my way out to the back. I grabbed a blank name tag, a lanyard and some paper clips to hang from it. If anyone got too close to me or looked too hard, I’d be fucked, but I hoped my disguise was good enough that nobody would think to take a second glance.

This path is a lot hillier than I remember it being. Though I was. Fucking panicking. So. You know. And last time I made this walk I was carrying Neige. I drugged the fuck out of him, I didn’t want but once I’d let him drink from me, he wouldn’t stop screaming.

The smallest bit of energy and he just used it to scream and try to kill me. I had to fucking. Gag him. I was scared he would wake up and bite me as a carried him.

In fairness to me, he chewed through the fucking cloth I tied into his mouth in two hours despite being barely conscious at all so, it’s a valid worry. If the cloth hadn’t been there it’d have been my neck.

I’ve got him tied to a bed, now. Ankles and wrists. I’ve tried to pad out the belts I used with t-shirts and socks I found in the clothes drawers but… he’s still hurting himself. It’s not intentional, it’s just instinct. Every time he gets a bit more conscious and he just. Thrashes. I’m pretty sure his shoulders are both dislocated. It’s the drive to kill, he has to get free so he can hunt, so he can heal, but there’s nobody here to hunt except me and–

ALFIE PAUSES FOR A MOMENT

I don’t want to go out like that.

ALFIE STARTS WALKING AGAIN.

There’s nothing I can do. If he bites me again, he’ll kill me. If I bite him, he’s definitely dead. He’s…

That room. What they did.

ALFIE TAKES AN UNSTEADY BREATH.

In my stolen scrubs it was pretty easy to get through the building. I spotted a woman who was also in scrubs, talking on her phone, almost as soon as I got inside. She held open a key-card controlled lift for me to follow her inside. She was talking to her kid, I think? Telling her she’d be home before she had to go to school in the morning, that she was sorry she missed bedtime again. I almost feel bad for what I did to her.

‘Here for the extraction?’ she asked me as we stepped out of the lift. It was a long hallway lit with cold strip lights. There were white doors with small observation windows at eye level. Each one had a patient code and a chart stuck underneath. No names, just numbers. As we walked down the corridor, I glanced through the windows.

Some of them were half mades. They were either missing arms entirely, or had them strapped to their sides. They stood as close to the doors as they could, murky eyes staring through the slots, though of course they couldn’t see.

Other rooms held either full-vampires or humans in hospital gowns, I couldn’t tell you which because the doors were all vacuum sealed and nobody was coming in or out of them. Some of them, too, stood with their eyes towards the observation windows, only the slightest suggestion they had anymore awareness than the half-mades. Some of them were hunched in corners. There were no beds, no chairs for them to lie on. They clung to their knees, rocking, barefoot, back and forth.

The only movement in the corridor itself was around the double doors at the end.

‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ the woman asked me.

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘I normally work at the Edinburgh operation, where have they shipped you in from?’

‘York,’ I said.

The woman gasped excitedly. ‘Oh! That’s amazing, you’ve got so much hands-on experience with this kind of thing! I’m so glad to have you. It must be great to get stuck back in; I know you’ve all been on lockdown since the incident in the spring. It’s such a shame about all your ongoing projects.’

‘Yeah. Really frustrating,’ I said.

‘I’m just hoping the hypothesis is right,’ said the woman. She held open one of the double doors.

ALFIE SIGHS. WHEN HE SPEAKS AGAIN HE SOUNDS DEVASTATED.

The smell of Neige was everywhere. Everywhere. It hit me like a punch in the face. He was in the centre of the room, and I couldn’t tell how bad it was, at first, because he was covered surgical sheeting.

The woman who had let me in went over to sink in the corner to wash her hands alongside another person in scrubs.

‘Joanna!’ he said, delightedly.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Long time no see!’

‘This someone else from Edinburgh?’ the man said, nodding at me. His eyes crinkled like he was smiling under his surgical mask.

‘No,’ I said.

‘That’s right,’ said Joanna. ‘He’s from York.’

I was only half listening to Joanna, though, because I’d taken a couple of steps towards the sinks, and in doing so, placed myself directly at the base of the operating table.

A small pump was whirring. Five thick gauge lines ran from it, dark red inside clear tubing. Neige’s blood. They were extracting his fucking blood.

I was shaking. I took a half-step towards him, knocking into a small table of surgical supplies. The equipment laid out was all familiar, but the scalpels had pale ivory blades. I peered closer.

Vampire teeth.

They had made scalpels out of our own fucking teeth so that their incisions would take longer to close.

I was so angry I couldn’t feel my face or my hands, I couldn’t move, I didn’t even think about what I was going to do next beyond noting that there were eight people in the room. Six of them were distracted. One of them had her hands inside of Neige’s chest.

ALFIE STOPS WALKING

‘You alright?’ asked Joanna.

‘Yeah,’ I said, though I absolutely fucking wasn’t.

ALFIE IS WALKING AGAIN.

‘Sorry, what did you say your name was?’ she asked.

‘Alfie,’ I said. I took off my mask. ‘My name is Alfie.’

There was a confused moment of quiet from Joanna and her friend by the sink.

I turned my back to the room and went over to the door. It had looked heavy as Joanna held it open to let me follow her inside, and it was. A lot of operating theatres have doors like that, it’s so a vulnerable patient is less likely to die in a fire should one break out. These doors also have emergency bolts at the bottom in case there’s an intruder you and your patient need to be protected from.

Oh, irony is sweet.

I bent over, and bolted the door fucking shut.

I stood up slowly.

‘What are you doing?’ said Joanna.

And t is the last thing she ever fucking said. I–

I– I honestly don’t know. I. I don’t know how I–

I remember moving but it was like. I– I felt nothing. I just. Moved. The heat of their insides on my palms, between my fingers. The give of their skin under my teeth, the rush of their blood, spilling over my tongue. Flavours mixing, spinning out.

I remember the clatter of surgical instruments, choked off screams, and the thud of the door slamming open as one of them finally wrenched the lock open and made it out of the room. They didn’t get far, I’d fucked them up too much for that, but they got far enough to trigger an alarm, their blood smearing down the wall beneath the cracked glass of the alarm, and no further.

I slammed into his back with my foot. I felt his ribs crack. When he screamed, it bubbled out of him, like he was face down in shallow water.

The alarms were so loud I could feel them in my bones.

Back in the theatre, I– when I walked back in, I saw it. What I’d done to those people. Their eyes, looking up at me, hollow. Heads barely on necks. A couple of them were just about breathing still; wet, thick, guttural.

I didn’t fucking care. I was glad. I– I’m still– I don’t. I–

ALFIE’S BREATH CATCHES

The machine Neige was hooked up to, I pulled the lines out of it, blood spilling cold over my hands. I caught as much as I could by drinking it, folding the lines in my hands to stem the flow. It tasted wrong, it tasted strange. Drugs; barbiturates. They were making me spin.

I went to the operating table and I pulled the sheets aside and–

He was cut. Like Casper had been cut. Throat to pelvis. His– sternum, I, I couldn’t think, the alarms were so fucking loud. There was surgical wire; I– I wound it around his– around his sternum, pulled it shut, folded the skin back, stapled, stapled, it was a fucking mess, and I– but– I didn’t have time– I–

Fuck.

The alarms were so loud. So fucking loud.

I disconnected him from the lines. They were still half-full of blood. I drank as much as I could out of them. I could taste the drugs they’d pumped him with, what they were, what the dose must have been. I knew if drank much more, it’d make me woozy and I needed to be sharp, I– I couldn’t– I had to fucking get him out.

I went back to the machine itself. His blood was being collected into a series of flasks, there didn’t seem to be enough of them to hold everything he was missing but I couldn’t see any others. I couldn’t drink it, he was too heavily sedated to, so I– I just kind of. Lost it. I don’t– like I hadn’t already killed a room full of people, but I just started– everything that looked like it might have his blood in it, cabinets, fridges, machinery, I started pulling objects over, kicking it to shit, just– fuck. They don’t get it. They don’t get to fucking keep it.

The blood in the machine, I pulled the vials out, poured them into Neige’s mouth. He was. So still. Horrifically still. When the blood touched his mouth, though, his eyes split open. He drank, pulling on the restraints I hadn’t realised he was locked in. I was so focused in the lines, his blood, the machine, I–

I needed to get him out, I needed a key card. I fumbled on one of the bodies on the floor, pulled out a bloody lanyard.

The doors burst open, and there was this– hot. Sharp pain. Like fire in my chest. I flew backwards away from Neige.

They. Shot me. They fucking. Shot me. Once, twice, three times. I was bleeding, I was aching, all the blood from the people I just killed didn’t matter, I was fucking, on the edge of sanity in one minute, maybe two, and I couldn’t even see, I was possessed, I just, moved.

Animal. Absent.

Why would they— fucking stupid! Idiots!

I didn’t need to think, it just happened, and most of them were dead.

I think they shot me more, I don’t– I don’t know, really, but I ended up on my knees.

A man in a bullet proof vest held a gun to my head.

Others were trying to pass us, to get to Neige, and it occurred to me then, in that moment, that if I didn’t do anything we were going to die.

I leapt to my feet, slammed the lanyard against the black box beside one of the doors in the corridor. It buzzed and I shoved it open, shrinking against the wall as the stinking, growling husk behind it shambled forwards.

I swiped the keycard against another door and another, flinging them wide as I ran. If it wasn’t chaos already it was chaos after that. Bullets rang out, their casing like bright bells as they struck the floor, cutting through the relentless, swelling ringing of the alarms blaring out around us. They weren’t shooting at me anymore, they were shooting at them. The things coming out of some of the rooms I’d unlocked.

The half-made reacted to the bullets even less than I did, not slowing in loping strides, arms reaching out towards the people holding rifles towards them, skin sloughing half from bone.

I shoved the whole table Neige was on towards the lift. As the doors slid shut behind us, one of the people with guns pointed it at me. And they shot me in the head.

And it was–

ALFIE TAKES A DEEP, STEADYING BREATH

I felt the crack of it. Everything went dark. When I came back to myself I was in the lift with Neige, and there were. Bits of people. On me. I was looking at my hands, and I just– I felt far away from myself. I felt electrified, like my whole body was vibrating, like I could spring forward like a coil.

The doors on the lift opened.

The alarms were still ringing but there was no sign that anyone was coming this time. I could hear gunfire. I pulled Neige’s restraints off. He was semi-conscious, mumbling words in dead languages, and I…

ALFIE STOPS WALKING

What is that smell?

WALKING AGAIN, BUT SLIGHTLY FASTER

Oh my god, the car. The car is on fire.

DISTANT ENGINES. ALFIE RUNS.

ALFIE
Shit. Shit! They found us!

MOTORBIKE ENGINES ARE CIRCLING CLOSE, THEN FADING AWAY. ALFIE RUNS, BREATHING HARD. A GUN IS FIRED ONCE, TWICE.

ALFIE
STOP SHOOTING AT ME.

MORE ENGINES; ALFIE RUNS.

ANOTHER GUNSHOT! ALFIE CRIES OUT. HE HITS THE GROUND, ROLLING. HE MOANS IN PAIN, AT LEAST TWO MOTORBIKES IN THE DISTANCE; THEY’RE LOOPING AROUND.

ALFIE MOVES, FORCING HIMSELF UPRIGHT IN THE GRASS.

ALFIE
Fuck you!

AS ANOTHER BIKE APPROACHES, ALFIE IS ON HIS FEET, RUNNING AGAIN. MORE GUNSHOTS.

ALFIE
Fuck you. FUCK YOU.

ANOTHER GUNSHOT RICOCHET’S OFF THE METAL.

ALFIE
OH, CHRIST. WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM.

ANOTHER GUNSHOT; THIS ONE HITS. ALFIE FALLS AGAIN.

ALFIE
(yelling)
JESUS FUCK.

ALFIE GROANS, TRYING TO GET UP, BREATHING HEAVILY.

ALFIE
Ah! Fuck! My fucking shoulder. Christ.

BIKES LOOP AROUND. ALFIE GETS UP, STARTS RUNNING AGAIN, FINALLY REACHES THE DOOR WHICH HE WRENCHES OPEN AND SLAMS SHUT.

INSIDE, THE MOTORBIKES ARE STILL AUDIBLE, BUT MORE DISTANT. ALFIE IS MOVING AROUND HURRIEDLY, SHAMBOLIC, BREATHING VERY FAST.

ALFIE
Fuck, fuck, stop shaking, stop shaking. Uh, uh, uh—

PLASTIC RUSTLES.

ALFIE
That’s everything out of the car, um.

HURRIED FOOTSTEPS, ANOTHER DOOR OPENS.

NEIGE
Alfie.

ALFIE
Yeah, it’s me, it’s me.

MOVEMENT, FABRIC, A MATTRESS.

NEIGE
Ah, faim.

ALFIE
I know, I know, I just need to–

MOVEMENT AS ALFIE FREES NEIGE FROM HIS BINDINGS. NEIGE IS MAKING ODD, ANIMAL SOUNDS, STRUGGLING AND THEN, A WET SOUND AS NEIGE BITES INTO ALFIE’S FLESH.

ALFIE
Ah! Neige, no, p– please, please let go. Let me get you—

NEIGE PULLS OFF WITH AN ANIMAL GROAN.

ALFIE
(breathless, drawn out)
Oh shit. Oh fuck.

NEIGE STARTS TO CRY

ALFIE
Shh, shhh it’s okay. It’s okay, it’s okay.

NEIGE
Desole.

ALFIE
It’s okay, it’s okay.

THE BIKES ARE CLOSE, THEY SUDDENLY STOP.

NEIGE
Affamé, Alfie.

THUDDING NEARBY.

ALFIE
(suddenly sounding almost fine, but with a horrible edge in his voice)
Oui? Affamé.

NEIGE GROANS

ALFIE
Autre chambre affamé c’est pas!

NEIGE
Quoi? Alfie, affamé.

ALFIE
In there! Don’t bite me, if you bite me I will fucking–

THUNDER OF FOOTSTEPS INSIDE, LOUDER AND LOUDER.

ALFIE
Neige, not me, Neige- them!! THEM. EUX!

NEIGE
Ah. Compris.

HURRIED FOOTSTEPS AND THEN A SINGLE GUNSHOT. IT HITS; NEIGE FALLS TO THE GROUND.

THE GUN CASING RINGS OUT LIKE A BELL.

ALFIE MAKES A SMALL SOUND OF HORROR.

SLOW, CAREFUL FOOTSTEPS. A RUSTLE OF FABRIC AS SOMEONE KNEELS DOWN.

GUNMAN
It’s dead.

PAUSE

NEIGE
(sounding utterly deranged)
Silly little man.

HORRIBLE CRUNCH. THE GUNMAN GROANS IN AGONY. THERE ARE TWO MORE SHOTS, AND THEN JUST CHAOS. SCREAMING, TEARING FLESH, NEIGE BREATHING LIKE AN ANIMAL BETWEEN WET BITES INTO SKIN, ALL UNDERPINNED BY THUDS AND SCREAMING AND GARGLING.

FINALLY, THE LAST OF THE STRUGGLING ENDS WITH A FEW STRAY KICKS OF FEET AGAINST THE FLOOR.

THERE IS A FINAL WET TEAR AS NEIGE LETS GO OF HIS VICTIM’S THROAT. HE MAKES A LONG, LOW SOUND OF DELIGHT.

NEIGE
Tres bon.

ALFIE IS BREATHING HARD AND HEAVY. HE SQUEAKS.

NEIGE
(sounding like himself, finally)
Alfie. Mon coeur?

MOVEMENT. WHEN HE SPEAKS AGAIN NEIGE IS CLOSER.

NEIGE
(soft)
Mon coeur.

ALFIE’S BREATH IS AUDIBLY SHAKING.

ALFIE
Neige?

NEIGE
Oui, oui. Have I– I did not mean to hurt you, little love.

RUSH OF MOVEMENT AS THEY EMBRACE.

ALFIE
Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

NEIGE
Shh shh, c’est bon, c’est bon, mon petit. C’est bon.

ALFIE IS BREATHING SHAKILY.

NEIGE
Alfie, my love? Where the fuck are we?

ALFIE
(shakily)
Um. I don’t know, exactly. Somewhere in the north of Scotland.

NEIGE
Okay. Little love. Are more of them coming?

ALFIE
Uh.

NEIGE
The men with guns, bijou, will there be more?!

ALFIE
Yeah. Yes. I think so, yes.

NEIGE
Merde.

ALFIE
I’m sorry.

NEIGE
Non, c’est bon, little love. Ah. My head is still not clear.

RUSTLING AS NEIGE GETS TO HIS FEET.

A RADIO BLEEPS

VOICE FROM RADIO
Unit two, come in.

NEIGE
Ugh. They are coming fast, I think, oui?

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
What is the time?

ALFIE
Uh.

NEIGE
The time, mon petit, come on!

ALFIE
Eleven. Eleven at night.

NEIGE
Bien. Tres bien, Alfie, you are so good. You are doing so good. Come now, little love, on your feet.

ALFIE
What?

ALFIE GETS UP OFF THE FLOOR.

NEIGE
We cannot stay, come on. Clothes, are there clothes, here?

ALFIE
Y—yeah.

NEIGE
D’accord.

FABRIC MOVING.

ALFIE
The car– they burned the car.

NEIGE
Ah.

NEIGE SNIFFS INTENTLY.

NEIGE
Do not worry. There is an alternative.

ALFIE
I– I checked, there isn’t.

NEIGE
Put this on.

FABRIC MOVES

ALFIE
I’m covered in– we’re both covered in blood.

NEIGE
Oui, we will deal with that at the coast, but for now, cover it up. We will be out of sight most of the way.

ALFIE
Okay.

NEIGE
Alfie. I love you. It is going to be okay.

ALFIE
Where are we going to go?

NEIGE
Somewhere safe, eventually. But first, anywhere that is not here.

PLASTIC RUSTLES

NEIGE
What is this?

ALFIE
The stuff from Cas’ car.

NEIGE
Okay. Keep hold of it.

THEY WALK INSIDE A FEW STEPS.

NEIGE
Come on.

THEY STEP OUTSIDE, FEET CRUNCHING ON THE GRASS.

ALFIE
We can’t walk, it’s too– the car is on fire— ?!

NEIGE
In here.

THEY WALK INTO A ROOM WITH A STONE FLOOR. A HORSE MAKES A SOUND OF ALARM, HOOVES CLATTERING AS HE PAWS ANXIOUSLY AT THE GROUND.

NEIGE
Bonjour, cheval, c’est tres beau, oui?

THE HORSE CONTINUES TO BE LOUD AND UNCERTAIN.

ALFIE
You cannot be fucking serious.

NEIGE
The car is on fire. This will have to do.

ALFIE
I don’t know how to ride a fucking horse!

NEIGE
Lucky for you, I do. Now come on.

THE BOLT ON THE STALL DOOR IS SLID OPEN.

THE HORSE PAWS THE GROUND. AS NEIGE SPEAKS, A BRIDLE CLINKS AS HE SLIDES IT OVER THE HORSE’S HEAD, AND HOOVES CLATTER AS THE HORSE IS WALKED OUT OF THE STALL.

NEIGE
Calme, calme, le jeune homme, calme.

THE HORSE IS HUFFING AND PAWING THE GROUND.

ALFIE
You didn’t put on a saddle.

NEIGE
I learned to ride before them. Always find they get in the way. Come on.

ALFIE
Neige. I– I can’t, I!

NEIGE
You what?

ALFIE
(very small)
I don’t know.

NEIGE
If we stay here, Alfie, we are going to die. There is no alternative to this. You have two options: die, or you come with me and you get to start whatever vampire revolution you want.

ALFIE
W– what are you talking about?!

NEIGE
What you’ve been saying between the lines, Alfie. What happened to me. What happened to Casper. We cannot let this happen again. We have to change something. And to do that, we have to leave right now.

ALFIE
(whispering)
I’m scared.

NEIGE
Do you want to die, or do you want to change the fucking world? Eh?

ALFIE
I don’t want to die.

THE OUTRO MUSIC BEGINS TO PLAY QUIETLY

NEIGE
Okay then. Give me your hand.

ALFIE
You’re insane.

NEIGE
Quite possibly. Hold on tight, little love.

ALFIE
I’m insane.

NEIGE
Oui. This, I know for certain.

ALFIE
Fuck. I love you.

NEIGE LAUGHS

NEIGE
Oui, I know.

[END; THE OUTRO MUSIC, ‘CREATURES OF PROMETHEUS: OVERTURE’ BY BEETHOVEN SWELLS]