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:

References to murder

References to severe injury

Mentions of blood and blood drinking

Discussions of sex

Depictions and discussions of grieving a loved one

Emotional manipulation

Implications of sexual conduct

Use of sex and sexual acts as a coercive/argumentative tactic

Transcript

ALFIE
(whispering)
Neige?

NEIGE
In here.

FOOTSTEPS ECHOING. THEY SOUND LIKE THEY ARE IN A HUGE, EMPTY SPACE.

ALFIE
Is it safe?

NEIGE
The last of the workers left hours ago. They won’t be back until after dawn. Come look.

FOOTSTEPS

NEIGE
In the light of the full moon, the window looks almost as bright as in the day.

ALFIE
It’s beautiful. It makes me think of the minster. Scaffolding included.

NEIGE
That is the way with these structures. They are never truly complete. As soon as you finish fixing one part another breaks, non?

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
I was once almost burned at the bottom of the steps as a demon.

ALFIE
Really?

NEIGE
Oh yes. It was not nearly as exciting as it sounds.

ALFIE
Liar.

NEIGE
Compulsively. Did you hunt?

ALFIE
Yes.

NEIGE
How are you finding the good people of Paris?

ALFIE
Forthcoming.

NEIGE LAUGHS

NEIGE
Look how far you’ve come, little love.

ALFIE
A good few hundred miles. On horseback. Then by car via Norway and Germany. When I thought about coming to Paris for the first time it didn’t picture it like this.

NEIGE
How so?

ALFIE
For starters, I thought I’d visit legally.

NEIGE
Is it illegal?

ALFIE
I– yes, Neige, it’s illegal.

NEIGE
We have no pulse. Are we strictly human? In such a case can we break laws?

ALFIE
Are you saying– no. We’re people, those kinds of laws should apply to us, too.

NEIGE
They should not apply to anyone. They never used to.

ALFIE
Yes well. That’s because people hadn’t invented planes. Or. Boats.

NEIGE
Or roads.

ALFIE
Or– seriously?

NEIGE
Oui.

ALFIE
Damn.

NEIGE
What is it?

ALFIE
Nothing, I– sometimes I think about how old you are and it’s– it’s like. It makes me feel queasy, I don’t know.

NEIGE
Vertiges.

ALFIE
Oui. Does it– You can’t remember so much, and I just. There’s no way to get that back, no records, no nothing, it’s just. Gone. What’s it like?

NEIGE
(as a sigh)
It is not like anything.

ALFIE
Liar.

NEIGE
Compulsively.

ALFIE
You know, in the UK they have these laws about cats.

NEIGE
Oh, oui?

ALFIE
Mmhmm. They’re legally allowed to go wherever they like, because it’s in their nature.

NEIGE
How charming.

ALFIE
Yeah. Do you think its in ours, too?

NEIGE
Hmm. I do not know.

ALFIE
If I live ten thousand years will I forget all of this? Notre Dame. Paris. My mum, my sisters. Casper.

NEIGE
Do you want to forget?

ALFIE
I– no. No I don’t.

NEIGE
If you live ten thousand years you will think differently about these things. When you have lived that long it will be like nothing to you, too.

ALFIE
That’s horrible.

NEIGE
It isn’t. It isn’t anything.

ALFIE SHIFTS UNCOMFORTABLY

NEIGE
Did something happen whilst you were hunting?

ALFIE
No. Why did you ask me to meet you here?

NEIGE
Casper liked it here.

ALFIE
Oh.

NEIGE
He loved cathedrals in general. But this one was special to him, I think.

ALFIE
Because of the bells?

NEIGE
The flying buttresses.

ALFIE
Oh.

NEIGE
I thought maybe we should talk.

ALFIE
There’s too much to do, Neige. You said we’d meet with your friends here in the city but it’s been almost a week, and–

NEIGE
I have spoken to Maxime and Rashid. They won’t meet with you.

ALFIE
What?! Why not?!

NEIGE
Because you have been a vampire for five minutes and you’ve already caused an hellfire. Rashid has heard a rumour that someone is studying the blood. Not you. A human, in an official, government capacity. Do you know what that means?

ALFIE
That I need to worry about Haley, too.

NEIGE
It means that any vampire with any ties to the scientific community is going to have heard something is going on. Bonham has been experimenting for years and he’s managed to keep himself quiet.

ALFIE
Hardly! There were literal bodies in the fucking streets! Some of them were fucking AMBULATORY.

NEIGE
You stumble onto the scene and chaos unfolds around you. Vampires are not a part of human society, Alfie, but we live entangled with it, do you understand? To be undetected requires care and a certain quiet influence.

ALFIE
You think… you think Bonham has bought people? Humans, in positions of authority?

NEIGE
It is more common than I’d like.

ALFIE
So all those power structures. They’re going to fight this too, aren’t they?

NEIGE
Your revolution? Oui. They will fight it. And not just because some vampires have a vested interest in remaining secret and hidden, but because systems resist change.

ALFIE
What am I doing, Neige? What am I doing?

NEIGE
Look at this place.

ALFIE
What about it?

NEIGE
They started to build less than a thousand years ago.

ALFIE
That’s a pretty long time.

NEIGE
Depends on your perspective. For most of my existence there has been no such thing as the Christian church. But now it’s monuments seem to humans to come out of antiquity.

ALFIE
So what?

NEIGE
Change happens. Slowly, at first, but it does. Time is not circular, mon râleur, history does not repeat itself, not like people say. Otherwise empires would fall and rise and fall and rise again. But they do not. Progress is not linear or straightforward, of course, and there is no guarantee new ways of thinking will be better than old ones, only that they will be different.

But, honestly? Optimists have historically been right, in the end, non? And even if we are not right, we are the ones who are trying to make things better anyway. Because we are the ones who believe things can get better.

ALFIE
Am I an optimist?

NEIGE
You think the way things are cannot continue. You think that trying to make any change is better than standing where we are. This suggests to me hope. This suggests to me optimism.

ALFIE
What if I’m just stupid?

NEIGE
Ah, well then. As I have mentioned previously: it definitely helps.

ALFIE LAUGHS SOFTLY

MOVEMENT. NEIGE GETS ONTO THE STONE FLOOR, THE SOUNDS ECHOING IN THE VAST SPACE OF THE CATHEDRAL.

NEIGE
Will you lie with me?

ALFIE
Yeah. Okay.

MORE MOVEMENT AS ALFIE JOINS NEIGE ON THE FLOOR

NEIGE
You know this is one of the strongest ceilings ever built?

ALFIE
I didn’t know that.

NEIGE
Oui. It was designed this way so that in the case of a fire, damage to the interior of the cathedral would be minimalised. The proof of this concept was not seen until six hundred years after the ceiling was finished, which, actually, is only twice as long as it took to complete.

ALFIE
Cathedrals get built over generations.

NEIGE
Cathedrals are built on vampire timescales, mon râleur. The pyramids, they took thirty years. Medieval castles, these could be built and finished in five years or less.

ALFIE
So why do cathedrals, specifically, take so long?

NEIGE
Political reasons, and money. There is a lot of stopping and starting. It is an interesting process to watch unfold. While I have no love or admiration for the institutions behind them, there is something to be said for that long, slow perseverance, don’t you think?

ALFIE
I don’t want it to be centuries before we can be safe, Neige.

NEIGE
I know.

ALFIE
Everyone I know will be dead by then.

NEIGE
Almost everyone. And only those you know now.

ALFIE
That’s– that’s not comforting, are you aware of how not comforting that is?

NEIGE
I am sorry.

ALFIE
It’s okay. I’m sorry. I just—

NEIGE
You want things to be right. You think you have found the place they are wrong. You itch to fix this.

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
Tell me where you hunted today.

ALFIE
Uh. I went down the canals. I’ve heard things about the cafes.

NEIGE
You wanted to sample some philosophers?

ALFIE
I guess.

NEIGE
Could you taste their intellect in their blood?

ALFIE
No.

NEIGE
Hmm.

ALFIE
There was a moment I thought– I thought I felt him again.

NEIGE
Casper?

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
I did not feel this.

ALFIE
Yeah, I… I was guessing it was me being hopeful. I was looking out at the water? And it made me think of this time in York and I… It was just a moment. But. Yeah.

NEIGE
We should have spoken more about him before.

ALFIE
N– no. I wasn’t ready. I. I’m still not ready.

NEIGE
Okay.

ALFIE SIGHS

NEIGE
How pretty you look in this light, little love.

ALFIE
(he scoffs)
Next to you?

NEIGE
Non, I will not have that. Those eyes, this nose, those lips, that wicked tongue.

FLESH TEARS, NEIGE GASPS

NEIGE
Oui, the teeth, too. So sharp, so bright, so beautiful. Did you not eat your fill already?

ALFIE PULLS OFF WITH A GASP

ALFIE
I could always drink from you. Always.

NEIGE
Come here.

ALFIE
Neige–

MOVEMENT AND LAUGHTER. TEARING CLOTH.

ALFIE
Fuck, Neige, wait–

NEIGE
What?

ALFIE
It’s a fucking church.

NEIGE
This god was born after I was.

SMALL KISSES

ALFIE
Oh, shit.

FABRIC MOVES

NEIGE
Shh.

ALFIE
I’m also recording this.

NEIGE
Ah.

MOVEMENT. FABRIC TEARS.

ALFIE
Neige! I liked that shirt. It cost sixty euros!

NEIGE
I like it better this way.

ALFIE
Don’t bite my– fuck.

NEIGE
But you are so delicious, little love.

ALFIE
I thought you didn’t like to think of me as dinner.

NEIGE
I don’t have an appetite for you the way you do for me, little love, but I enjoy you as an apperetif.

ALFIE
Ah!

NEIGE
You’re so tense.

ALFIE
Still— recording this!

NEIGE
Don’t you want to listen back later?

ALFIE
Ah! Shhh— this is for– science and stuff!

NEIGE
Yes, your lengthy discussions of fucking dear Casper were entirely of scientific significance.

MOVEMENT

NEIGE
What?

ALFIE
Nothing.

NEIGE
Quoi? Alfie.

ALFIE
I’m fine.

NEIGE
I shouldn’t have mentioned him.

ALFIE
It’s fine!

NEIGE
I’m sorry.

ALFIE
(harshly, almost shouting)
I said it’s fine.

THE WORD ‘FINE’ ECHOES THROUGH THE EMPTY CATHEDRAL

NEIGE
Will you look at me, please?

ALFIE
For fuck’s sake, stop.

NEIGE
Forgive me? Sil vous plait? Je suis désole.

ALFIE
Stop it!

NEIGE
Je t’aime, petit bijou.

ALFIE
Stop pouting at me, you menace.

NEIGE
What?

ALFIE
I hate how you always start en francais when want me to– I love you, alright. Just stop it.

NEIGE
I’m forgiven, then?

ALFIE
It’s not that you can’t talk about him.

NEIGE
I know.

ALFIE
Do you, because—

NEIGE
I do.

ALFIE
Okay.

NEIGE
Let me look at you. Are you shy, suddenly?

ALFIE
No.

NEIGE
Then what?

ALFIE
When we went to the lab. Bonham’s lab. When we went there. You told me about Alexander the Great’s grave and the camel?

NEIGE
It’s a just a story.

ALFIE
I know but. Why did you tell it?

NEIGE
I could not say what I needed to say so I said that instead.

ALFIE
What does it mean that I can’t feel him anymore?

NEIGE
It has happened to me before.

ALFIE
When? What happened?

NEIGE
Ugh, she was. Alfie. She was alive, I turned her, she died, and she asked. She asked to be honoured the highest way her people were honoured. And I threw her into a volcano.

ALFIE
Uh. I literally have no idea how to respond I’m sorry. But. They can’t have thrown Casper into a volcano.

NEIGE
Non. This is unlikely.

ALFIE
So it’s. Total destruction. The body has to be totally. It’s. There’s nothing.

NEIGE
I have a theory. A scientific theory, oui, you like these?

ALFIE
Neige–

NEIGE
It is because of the thing. The thing that makes the change, it is in communion with itself.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
Oui, it is like. It creates a new part of itself. You know in a forest trees, they speak to each other.

ALFIE
I– but we’re miles away, when we’re miles away I can–

NEIGE
The philosophers when you tasted them, you could not taste their intellect but you could taste something else.

ALFIE
Yeah, I could taste their blood.

NEIGE
Alfie. Stop. Think. The taste. What do you taste? When you bite them? When you go in to sink your teeth into their throats, what is it you smell?

ALFIE
Mmm, mm. Uh, uh. Excitement?

NEIGE
Excitement. Chaud.

ALFIE
Je suis.

NEIGE
Look at me. You understand what I am saying to you? My theory?

ALFIE
Yes. Yes. You think that the reason we can feel the feelings of the humans we bite is because its– there is something of us. Some trace of us is left in them.

NEIGE
On the few occasions I have actually swapped blood with mortals as you and Casper did, and it was never to the same degree, but the connection grew more powerful with each bite, and more so when I fed them from myself. Which I do not like to do. It has been. A long time.

ALIFE
Oh, yes. Minutes.

NEIGE
With the exception of you, mon cherie.

ALFIE
If it’s… hmm. Ugh my head hurts.

NEIGE
You didn’t eat enough.

ALFIE
Shut up.

NEIGE
I need to trust that you can take care of yourself.

ALFIE
Oh stop it.

NEIGE
You know I am right.

ALFIE
Have you never watched Scooby Doo?! It’s a terrible idea!

NEIGE
Did you not hear what I told you?! Nobody will speak to me whilst you are here and we need friends.

ALFIE
I don’t want to leave you.

NEIGE
It won’t be for long.

ALFIE
How do you know?! How could you possibly know?!

NEIGE
You’re afraid.

ALFIE
You didn’t see it.

NEIGE
I know.

ALFIE
I would bring them back to tear them apart again for what they did to you.

NEIGE
I am whole again, mon amour.

ALFIE
You’re. The scars. The scalpels. They’ll never go away. I should’ve—

NEIGE
I’m whole, but changed. Like this cathedral, mon bijou. They are just scars. They are healed, now. Touch and see.

ALFIE
Please don’t go. Please Neige!

NEIGE
I am not Casper. I have—

ALFIE
I know you’re not him I don’t want you to be him. I love you, I love you.

NEIGE
Mon petit!

NEIGE
I want to talk about what happened.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
When they took me. I want to talk about it.

ALFIE
Oh. Okay. Let’s go back to–

NEIGE
Non. I want to talk about it here.

ALFIE
Yeah. Just, are you sure? We don’t have to do this.

NEIGE
I said I was ready. Take me at my fucking word.

PAUSE

ALFIE
Neige?

NEIGE
I am ready, and yet, I don’t know what to say. I feel ridiculous.

ALFIE
You’re not. I promise that you’re not.

NEIGE
It’s been a long time since I have felt threatened in this way, non? Even when I was almost caught last year, it was so brief. I could escape so quickly.

ALFIE
We can just, if you’d rather not, I—

NEIGE
I want to say it all so that it has been said. Maybe then it will feel a little smaller in my chest, less like someone is pressing on my ribs. I do not know, I have known vampires who have sought out near-death experiences, claiming it keeps them sharp, makes their minds feel fresh, ferocious… non. Fear does not make me feel alive like that. If anything it makes me feel too– too fragile.

I suppose it is good to be reminded of this on occasion. When one has lives as long as I have, mon coeur, it is easy to forget it is a privilege. In fact I see far younger creatures than I fall into this trap of forgetting life is not a guarantee.

ALFIE
I think that’s what other people mean when they say that being scared makes them feel more alive. That’s what thrill seeking is all about, isn’t it? Flirting with death and then pulling away back to safety.

NEIGE
Perhaps that is what is wrong. I do not feel pulled back from the edge. It feels so close. You live so long, you begin to feel… not invincible, but. To be confronted with my mortality in such a way. Or not so much the mortal. I was afraid. Afraid in a way I have not been.

ALFIE
It’s okay, you’re safe now.

NEIGE
No! I am not. And nor are you, none of us are. We never have been. Everything Claudio was he was right about that.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
He was fucking monstrous, okay. But he was right that we are powerless in the shadows. You see what I could not. Let me help you.

ALFIE
This is still about you sending me away.

NEIGE
I am not sending you a–

ALFIE
Yes you fucking are! You’re sending me off like I don’t–

NEIGE
Do not make me fucking make you do as you are told, you little shit, you listen to me!

ALFIE
Please. Do not do this. I– I can help you.

NEIGE
Oui, you can, by staying out of the fucking way. This is more important than you and me. Do not make this more difficult than it has to be. Alfie. Bijou, mon petit, look at me, regarde moi, oui? I’m going to be okay.

ALFIE
It happened, it happened, Neige they cut out your fucking HEART, they killed Casper, they are looking for you!

NEIGE
I tell you am afraid and you seek to use this against me?

ALFIE
If it makes you stay.

NEIGE
You’re a nasty creature. I have a friend in Berlin, stay with her a while, I will meet you there.

ALFIE
No, Neige, I won’t go.

NEIGE
Just do as I ask, for once, I beg you.

ALFIE
I am not yours to command about! I don’t know who the fuck you think you are–

NEIGE LAUGHS

ALFIE
Stop laughing at me. Stop it!

NEIGE
You’re so afraid of yourself that you took less than a pint of blood from everyone you kissed tonight. I have killed more vampires than are alive today. Do you know that?

ALFIE
You don’t scare me.

NEIGE
No. And I am grateful for it. But you scare me.

ALFIE
What? Don’t be stupid.

NEIGE
You’re reckless. You’re bold. You’re very often right.

ALFIE
I’m right about us being apart.

NEIGE
Listen to me. Do not make yourself a liability, mon petit.

ALFIE
Neige, don’t start unfastening my pants, Neige– !

NEIGE
Do as I say.

ALFIE
This is coercion.

NEIGE
Do you want me to stop?

ALFIE
N– no. Don’t– don’t leave me. Even if you’re fine, what if I’m– Neige! There are still metal staples inside of you!

NEIGE MAKES A SMALL SOUND OF FRUSTRATION. BODIES ARE SHOVED.

ALFIE
Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t–

NEIGE
Ferme!

ALFIE
I’m sorry.

NEIGE
I will feel them all fucking night now, zut alors. The effort not to think of them every moment. My bones ITCH. Ugh.

ALFIE
Sorry.

NEIGE
Espèce de méchante petite merde.

ALFIE
Please stay with me.

NEIGE
Non! Assez vous! Enough! I don’t want to drain you near dead and lock you in a box but I swear I will fucking do it if it’s the only way to keep both of us safe!

ALFIE
Fuck you!

NEIGE
Oui. Yes. Please. I need it. I need you to do this for me.

ALFIE
Neige, please don’t make me go.

NEIGE
I have to! I have to.

KISSING

NEIGE
Baise-moi, s’il te plaît, je commence– je meurs de faim, j’ai besoin de toi. Déchire-moi.

ALFIE
Fuck, fuck, fine, d’accord! Fine! I hate you. I love you. I fucking hate you, you horrible little fuck.

NEIGE
Déchire-moi pour me rassembler.

ALFIE
Don’t go. Don’t go.

NEIGE
I must. I’m sorry. I must.

END