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 death, grief and loss

Mentions of blood

Descriptions of and reference to violent injury, including decapitation

Murder

Characters in extreme emotional distress

Implications of self-harm

Descriptions of prolonged, non-medical torture

Discussions of coercive control

Transcript

[A CAR ENGINE RUMBLES. MOVEMENT, RUSTLING, ALFIE RASPS UNINTELLIGIBLY, CLEARLY DISTRESSED]

NEIGE
Hush, hush.

[ALFIE RASPS MORE VOCALLY]

NEIGE
Do not try to speak. You’re not healed enough for that yet.

[THE CAR ENGINE IS RUMBLING; ALFIE STARTS TO WHIMPER]

NEIGE
We’re driving. I’m sorry I left you. I’m so sorry. Here, take my wrist.

[NEIGE HISSES THROUGH HIS TEETH]

NEIGE
Careful, careful! I’m going to pull over.

[CAR CRUNCHES TO A HALT. NEIGE GETS OUT, RUNS TO THE BACK, CLIMBS IN CLOSE TO ALFIE]

NEIGE
Don’t speak. Can you feel my hand, on your thigh? Oui? Good, this is good.

ALFIE
(Whispering)
I think—

NEIGE
Non! Breathe in? Out again? Oui. There is no air coming through the wound, now. I will allow it.

ALFIE
(Still whispering)
You saved me.

NEIGE
Of course.

MOVEMENT. ALFIE SOBS QUIETLY.

NEIGE
I am so sorry, little one. I’m so sorry.

ALFIE
I need you to— don’t get so close.

NEIGE
You are not a threat to me, souris.

ALFIE
Mouse bites still hurt.

NEIGE
Your French is so good now, mon raleur.

ALFIE
Yeah, about that— nnhgghhh.

NEIGE
Okie, okie, come on.

[SHUFFLING MOVEMENT. FOOTSTEPS.]

ALFIE
We’re in the middle of nowhere.

NEIGE
It’s safe.

ALFIE
Please don’t leave me here. I’m scared.

NEIGE
Mon coeur, I would never. Come with me.

[THE BOOT/TRUNK WHOOSHES OPEN]

ALFIE
Why is there a dead man in the boot of your car.

NEIGE
Eh, he is not quite dead. Can’t you hear his heart?

ALFIE
He’s going into irreversible shock.

NEIGE
Remarkably resilient, all things considered.

ALFIE
I— I shouldn’t. But he’s. Bleeding. Ugh. Neige! Who is he!

NEIGE
Don’t shout, they cut right through your vocal cords! You’ll hurt yourself. I was holding him for questioning.

ALFIE
About Bonham.

NEIGE
Oui.

ALFIE
He worked for him?

NEIGE
Oui.

ALFIE
Good enough.

[MOVEMENT, A SQUELCH. ALFIE GROANS. NEIGE SIGHS WITH RELIEF.[

NEIGE
Tres bien, mon petit. Tres bien. Bon sang, I thought I was going to lose you. If they had cut a little higher—

[ALFIE PULLS AWAY FROM THE MAN IN THE BACK OF NEIGE’S CAR.]

ALFIE
Good blood.

NEIGE
I’m glad.

ALFIE
No, that’s what you said. Good blood.

NEIGE
Ah, oui. Bon sang. It is an old saying. A way around taking the name of a god frivolously. I found it tres amusant.

ALFIE
Bon sang. Bonham. Bon homme. It’s an alias.

NEIGE
Perhaps, it is also a name quite commonly, however.

ALFIE
Neige, your— your hair.

NEIGE
I had to cut it. I was expecting a fight.

ALFIE
With who?! A barber?!

NEIGE
Long hair is a severe disadvantage when you are fighting close quarters. I prefer to do it that way, to feel their sinews snap under my jaw. But this means my hair must be short. So it is less easy to grab.

ALFIE
Yeah but what if I want to grab it?

NEIGE
There may be time enough for that later.

ALFIE
I don’t want to fight.

NEIGE
Of course you don’t. You’re a predator, you know how easy it is to kill, so you know how thin the line is. You don’t want to fight because you don’t want to die.

ALFIE
No. I don’t.

NEIGE
Me neither.

ALFIE
May I?

NEIGE
Oui, of course.

ALFIE
Hmm. Soft. Like a mouse.

NEIGE
I am no mouse, soft as I may be.

ALFIE
Hmm.

NEIGE
What is it?

ALFIE
I— I spoke to Casper once, just some dumb conversation. What animals we were. He said I was a weasel. I said he was a tiger but he disagreed.

NEIGE
Of course he did, that is too close to a compliment.

ALFIE
Yeah. Though he did say he was a hawk, which is pretty cool too.

NEIGE
Oui. Though, hawks do eat weasels.

ALFIE
That’s what he said too. It’s why he picked it.

NEIGE
That explains the worry on your face, then.

ALFIE
What does?

NEIGE
You’re afraid about what Casper thought of you. Again.

ALFIE
Don’t you care about what he thought of you?

NEIGE
Yes. But I presume it says anything about me, or even the nature of our relationship. It only tells me about him, not myself.

ALFIE
I guess.

PAUSE

What are you, then?

NEIGE
Quoi?

ALFIE
If you’re not a mouse, what are you?

NEIGE
Snow leopard, évidemment.

ALFIE
Of course.

NEIGE
And you? Are you a weasel?

ALFIE
I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. My neck hurts like fuck.

NEIGE
Unsurprising.

ALFIE
Fuck. Did they actually rip my fucking head off? Motherfuckers!

NEIGE
You seemed, naturally, in quite a state of confusion. 

ALFIE
No, it’s just. Moments, mostly. Pain, yeah. I couldn’t feel my body, not really, except I kind of could? Like this horrible, pulling sensation. And my throat was burning and my teeth hurt like fuck. But mostly it was just. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make myself move. That was scary but it felt almost far away, you know?

NEIGE
I am glad it was not as horrible for you as it could have been. I am sorry I left you.

ALFIE
I shouldn’t have been so stupid.

NEIGE
No, you shouldn’t have. But their response was outsized. Everyone is on fucking edge. Things have been happening, ach! It will be so much harder to convince others to support us now.

ALFIE
You’re covered in blood.

NEIGE
Yes.

ALFIE
Vampire blood.

NEIGE
Yes.

PAUSE

ALFIE
Where are we?

NEIGE
An hundred miles out of Berlin. On our way East, towards Poland.

ALFIE
Weren’t we just there?

NEIGE
(admonishing)
Mon raleur! Non! We were in Denmark, via Sweden.

ALFIE
Right. Sorry. I’m losing track.

NEIGE
You were not in a good state. neither was I but I don’t think you were sleeping. You need to sleep, mon coeur.

ALFIE
I was scared.

NEIGE
I know.

ALFIE
I won’t let them hurt you again.

NEIGE
You’re sweet.

ALFIE
I fucking mean it.

NEIGE
I know, mon amour. I love you.

ALFIE
I love you. Fucking hell I was— Neige. Please don’t leave me behind again.

NEIGE
Well I can’t very well risk it again now, after that. Inna has set a standard of response. We shall have to work hard to make sure it is not required.

ALFIE
I’m sorry I’ve fucked everything up.

NEIGE
Non, you have not. We should just have to… it was not pleasant for me to be away from you, either.

ALFIE
Well. Good. I mean. I don’t. I want you to be happy. And also to stay.

NEIGE
I am glad.

ALFIE
Um. So. I hate to dampen the vibes, but. Who did I just kill?

NEIGE
Kristoffer Gaul. He once worked at an old hospital not far from here.

ALFIE
You mean a lab, like the one you were taken to?

NEIGE
Non, Alfie, I mean un hôpital. Oui?

ALFIE
Okay. But what does l’hopital have to do with us?

NEIGE
I wish to figure this out. I was holding him for questioning. But this was more important.

ALFIE
I’m sorry. I’m sorry I—

NEIGE
Oh lala, Alfie, non. Non. I should not have left you.

ALFIE
I shouldn’t need supervising.

NEIGE
You need protecting. I let you down. And I left in an hurry because I could hardly stand to do it otherwise. It was a mistake to trust Inna. She had too many of her own cards upon the table. I should have anticipated she would be forced to act avec extravagance

ALFIE
She was talking about you. Before they ripped off my fucking head, I mean.

NEIGE
I imagine she would.

ALFIE
They said you keep me ignorant on purpose, which is funny because you’ve said you do that, too.

NEIGE
That is not why I left.

ALFIE
But you don’t tell me things. Things you should tell me about. How the fuck am I supposed— I looked like an idiot.

NEIGE
Your life was in danger and this is what you are worried about?

ALFIE
No. But like, honestly. If you would just actually talk to me, maybe I wouldn’t be so vulnerable in the first place.

NEIGE
No. Maybe not.

ALFIE
You said there are things you enjoy me not knowing.

NEIGE
There are. There was. I. There are some things I am keeping from you because of my own pride. Others because I do not yet trust you enough to share them.

ALFIE
It just. I. It left me wide open, and what could I say, I—

NEIGE
You don’t owe her a response.

ALFIE
No, but. I don’t want to be that vulnerable or look that much like a fucking idiot for—

NEIGE
And yet you frequently will because we all do! I cannot cure my, uh, what do you call them? Fuck. Hang ups! There. I cannot cure myself of hang ups for your benefit. I cannot be all smooth edges for you. I am sorry.

ALFIE
You don’t sound sorry.

NEIGE
Because I am angry! I am being as honest with you as it is possible for me to be, okie?

ALFIE
Neige, I just—

NEIGE
I saved your life! I put our entire investigation in jeopardy to come and save you. Is that not enough?!

ALFIE
WHAT investigation?! In Paris, and in Scotland, even, you were on about some revolution like I’d made some grand decree about what the future of vampires should be like, but literally all I’ve done is try to save my idiot fucking dead boyfriend who didn’t even have the decency to be normal!

NEIGE
Like you are any more normal than he was.

ALFIE
How could I have known he’d cut off his fingers like that, I— I—

NEIGE
Quoi? Fuck. I did not know that was all still in there. Inna used the apartment to hunt, sometimes, I assumed she— I assumed it was all gone. I am sorry.

ALFIE
So you knew about it, then? Didn’t think to tell me when you found my stupid toe jars?!

NEIGE
Is that what this is about?! What could I have said?

ALFIE
I don’t know. I don’t know.

NEIGE
You are not like him. Not the way you are fearing.

A LITTLE SOB BUBBLES OUT OF ALFIE

ALFIE
Why the fuck did I like him?

NEIGE
(with anger, not fondness)
Because he was beautiful and charming and he could be exquisitely kind! He spoke poetry by accident so often it felt normal, and when he was gone, for a little while, the world sounded less beautiful to me. You loved him because you are you, and he was him. A gorgeous, minute slice of forever. A fleeting bite out of the world. Do not despair that he protected you from the worst of himself. That is what you do for people you love.

ALFIE SNIFFLES

ALFIE
How are you like this?

NEIGE
A fluke of circumstances.

ALFIE SIGHS

ALFIE
Ugh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

NEIGE
Non. You are justified in your anger.

ALFIE
Why aren’t you angry?

NEIGE
Oh, I am. Just not at you. The last four days have been hell. This rage. It almost frightens me, in its intensity. I have not felt it for a long time.

ALFIE
What happened?

NEIGE
I. I knew you were hurt, I came as soon as I could. When I saw what they did. Ha.

ALFIE
It. It doesn’t feel real. It’s like a horrible dream.

NEIGE
I’m glad it does not feel real for you. It felt very real for me.

PAUSE

ALFIE
I wasn’t. It wasn’t the Casper stuff that left me wide open.

NEIGE|
What, then?

ALFIE
Claudio.

NEIGE
Non, Alfie, I do not want to do this.

ALFIE
Well, tough shit! I do! Your recounting of where you’ve been and how you saved me have been pretty fucking thin and you must actually think I’m an idiot if you’re expecting me not to mention that a good deal of the blood you are covered in is Inna’s.

NEIGE
What do you want me to say? You want an itemised list of everyone I’ve fucking killed? You want to know if I broke their necks or smashed their skulls? What?

ALFIE
I— I just—

NEIGE
You have no fucking idea what I am capable of.

ALFIE
Yeah no shit! No fucking shit. That— that is actually the problem, how are you not—

NEIGE
You have barely healed, why are you wasting your energy on this?

ALFIE
Uh, because it’s fucking important?

NEIGE
Ha! No it is not, not on the scale of—

ALFIE
On the scale of right now, and the man I am fucking in love with, it is the most important thing that has ever fucking existed so do not, do NOT. Tell me I’m fucking. Ugh.

NEIGE
Woah, sit, sit down. Mon râleur, you need to—

ALFIE
Fuck off, I don’t need your help, I’m fine.

NEIGE
I can stand to lose more blood. I can manage until we find someone else.

ALFIE
No. No. You’re already struggling, I can tell. I can smell it. Don’t be a fucking idiot.

NEIGE
But it hurts you so much more than it hurts me.

ALFIE
I won’t let you give me more than it’s sensible to give. No.

NEIGE
What the fuck am I doing.

[NEIGE SOBS.]

ALFIE
Shh, shh. Come here.

[A SOFT EMBRACE]

NEIGE
I thought I’d lost you.

ALFIE
I know, but you didn’t. What happened with Inna?

NEIGE

She was one of Claudio’s. Not a fanatic—

ALFIE
Yeah, you left her alive.

NEIGE
Indeed. She was always quite ambitious. In other circumstances I think you may have gotten along. She is concerned with rights, highly intelligent. she was in Strasbourg but I made her leave.

ALFIE
You. What?

NEIGE
She was a human rights lawyer. But she was gathering too much support. So I sent her to Berlin to help temper the mood of the vampire coalition, there. They’re all so young, it is a place vampires have been for a long time. The Cold War split the city in two and reunification meant that the populations here clashed a lot. As such a system was developed. I was not involved in this, I have no interest. But I sent Inna here in the hopes she could reason with them.

ALFIE
About what?

NEIGE
There have been times when they only fed on tourists, for example, which is a foolish idea. The problems are both complex and dull. I swear to you it is not important.

ALFIE
Casper went to Berlin a lot. You met him there.

NEIGE
Oui. He enjoyed the vampire’s young population here. Germany’s ancient vampires are more provincial.

ALFIE
And Inna?

NEIGE
They knew each other mostly before I sent her to Berlin. When she was climbing up the ladder in Strasbourg. I don’t know what the attraction was there, entirely. But she fascinated him.

ALFIE
Oh.

NEIGE

Inna has a lot of power in Berlin. The vampires are too young to know Claudio but the myth looms large and she experienced enough of it to be a living warning. That being said, she could not risk open opposition if they felt threatened.

ALFIE
Why did they feel threatened?

NEIGE

Because you are reckless. And because you are with me. Everyone is frightened and although your ideas are right, Alfie, they scare people.

ALFIE
God, what fucking ideas, I—

NEIGE
You want us to be safer. They are scared of change. That is all.

ALFIE
They ripped off my fucking head.

NEIGE
Oui. I suspect it was Inna. Because you are alive, still. She would not let them kill you. She knows not to risk that.

ALFIE

She was so scared of you. She tried to play it down, but she was. She was terrified.

NEIGE

She was right to be.

ALFIE

Neige, what—she was saying all this shit, about how you got out of it when Claudio was—  ah!

NEIGE

Hush, mon petit, hush. Be careful. You are still healing. It will take some time. They visited a great amount of violence upon you, as well as taking off your head. Your teeth are back now, and the wound in your neck is closed. But I think you have broken ribs.

ALFIE

Yeah. Yeah I think so too. I feel fucking kicked.

NEIGE

Alfie. Please, let me help. I can stand to lose the blood. I swear it.

ALFIE

No, I—  Do you even—she was scared of you but you knew her for hundreds of years. Now you’re saying she’s the reason I’m not dead. Don’t you feel even a tiny bit bad that you fucking killed her?

NEIGE

I won’t apologise for doing what had to be done.

ALFIE
Maybe you— what are you doing with your arm?

NEIGE
(desperate, bordering on deranged)
Would you just drink?

[NEIGE’S VOICE CRACKS AND WAVERS AT THE END AND HE STARTS MOVING AROUND ANXIOUSLY.]

ALFIE

What— I. No? Neige. I’m alright. We’ll find somewhere to hunt together, just—

NEIGE

I can take it, please just take it—

ALFIE

Neige, don’t, it’s– it’s alright, I–

NEIGE
(Voice trembling with anger or fear)

I would set the world on fire if you asked.

ALFIE

Neige, hey, no, I—

NEIGE

I won’t lose you.

ALFIE

Neige—

NEIGE

I won’t have it!

ALFIE

OI! It’s okay! I’m not dead, I’m not, I’m here. What is this? What the fuck?!

NEIGE

You say this, you say I am fixated on the future, mourning the present, and I– I cannot let you become the past, Alfie. I cannot.

NEIGE

I thought I had lost you.

ALFIE

I know.

NEIGE

When I thought you were gone nothing else mattered. Other things are meant to be more important– what we’re doing– what we’re building. More than– bigger than you, than me. I thought I had grown up out of this feeling. That I had learned better than to love like this, after everything. I thought I had finally learned. But I have not. I will not lose you, I will not fucking stand for it. And that terrifies me.

ALFIE

I’m so sorry.

NEIGE

And now you apologise as though this is not my own ridiculousness. I’m ashamed. Ashamed to feel this. To admit it aloud. Especially to you.

ALFIE

No, don’t be, it’s all–

NEIGE

Do you not understand what I am doing? What I am saying, when I say this to you, Alfie? Do you not know what I am?

ALFIE

You’re an idiot.

NEIGE

(laughing)

L’imbicile.
Non. Or, perhaps. C’est possible. But, darling. No. I am talking about myself. Inna was right to be afraid of me. I’m a thing so terrible that monsters cower from me. And I am sitting at your feet.

ALFIE

You’re a sword in my hand.

NEIGE

Oui.

ALFIE

I’ll put it away, somewhere soft. Use you to open letters or something. Take you out sometimes and show everyone how beautiful you are. You’re not a fucking weapon to me.

[NEIGE MAKES AN ODD SOUND.]

ALFIE
It’s alright. It’s all going to be alright.

NEIGE
I do not enjoy being this afraid.

ALFIE
Of course not. If it helps, I’m terrified too.

NEIGE
Why would that help?

ALFIE
I don’t know, honestly.

NEIGE
You do not seem angry with me anymore.

ALFIE
Oh, I am. There’s just like. An order of importance. Your wellbeing is quite high on that list.

NEIGE
Only quite?

ALFIE
Yeah, don’t get cocky.

NEIGE
Fuck, you are right.

ALFIE
I often am. Not that often but it has been known to happen.

NEIGE
(sadly)
Twice a day, at least.

ALFIE
Oh, kitten.

NEIGE
The thing with Inna… When she was young, she believed all of Claudio’s nonsense about my blood, and so about me, about what I am. She has not believed it for a long time now but she will not have forgotten. In hindsight the flaw in Claudio’s plan was obvious.

ALFIE
What’s the flaw?

NEIGE
He wrote his gospels too well. He told his followers that I am their god, and that he was my disciple. He placed me above himself. Literally, a lot of the time, strung up on chains. Bleeding, bleeding. The hissing, spitting, bleeding god of vampires, in a darkened tomb, carpeted in the bones of the damned.

The followers would come in, drink from the blood which dripped from me. As they drank, they’d whisper their prayers. I had not spoken in years when I answered one of them.

ALFIE
Oh. Neige.

NEIGE
The cracks had formed before I moved my lips. But the whole thing began to shatter after that.

She was young, not yet a decade into her new life. She had been a mother, had a daughter she wished to turn, but Claudio refused, threatened her daughter’s life. She came to me to pray for help. I do not know why, but I offered it. I told her to go against Claudio’s wishes. Turn her daughter.

Claudio was furious. The young vampire had prayed and prayed and I had answered and the other faithful who had been beside her had heard my divine words. Claudio would come to me raging, screaming. He’d hurt me, try to make me talk. He’d thought I couldn’t, after all that time. Thought I was too weak. Thought that by consuming my blood everyday he was taking my strength into him, and he was, in a way, he was. But he could not become me. And he had made me god.

She did it. The daughter was turned. God had willed it.

A sect of them was forming in secret; those who did not believe in Claudio’s leadership. He had made me god, then hung me in a dungeon for years and years. Eventually, they took me down from my chains, carried me from that wretched pit.

I had forgotten the feeling of a breeze on my skin. They fed me and fed me, but I could not eat more than a little or I was sick, and for a long time I could not stomach human blood alone. They hunted for me, fed me from their own veins. Carried me an hundred miles.

It was years more before I was well again. All that time they tended to me; I knew they were building new doctrines; I knew that they were committing awful deeds in my name, or what they said was my name. And they had so many for me. Snow blood. The King of  Night and Winter. The god of blood and ice.

And it was… useful. So I let them call me god. Because it was useful to me. Because it was convenient towards my own end. Claudio had to die, there was no other way I could see.

A MOMENT OF QUIET

ALFIE
You did that for me.

NEIGE
What do you mean?

ALFIE
When I’d turned, I couldn’t— I couldn’t bite. I couldn’t do it. You fed me. You wanted me to do it again just now.

NEIGE
Mon petit dieu.

ALFIE
Fuck off.

NEIGE
Non. You’re not a god. Nor am I. I am disgusted with myself, with them, with all of it.

ALFIE
I’m glad they did it. Because it means you’re alive and not chained in the bottom of some pit like a horrible monster.

NEIGE
Ha. The staples in my chest. The wire around my sternum. It is not like the chains, not really. But sometimes the feeling is close enough that I feel unwell.

ALFIE
Fuck, I’m so sorry. I can get it out of you. Not here, not— I’m sorry. You just didn’t have enough blood to heal and I was scared and I just. Tied you together and hoped for the best, I’m sorry.

NEIGE
You saved my life. For this I am nothing but grateful.

ALFIE
Didn’t even do it because I think you’re a god, either.

NEIGE
No.

ALFIE
The way I feel about you is downright unholy, frankly. Sacrilege. Damnable offence.

NEIGE
Some gods like that kind of thing. You just need to find the right sort of god.

ALFIE
Well then. Sign me up.

NEIGE
Ha, non. Do not joke about it. I am no god, Alfie. What I am is very old, and very lucky. That is all.

ALFIE
I love you.

NEIGE
I love you.

ALFIE
I am going to need to hunt, though. I’m sorry.

NEIGE
I know. Do not apologise. We’ll find somewhere, near to here.

ALFIE
The hospital we’re headed to. Cas used to feed from patients who’d be fine with a little less blood? It was painless, quiet, easy.

NEIGE
This hospital has been closed for twenty years.

ALFIE
Oh. Never mind then.

NEIGE
There will be somewhere on the way. You can demonstrate your ‘interesting rats’ hunting method.

ALFIE
Generous of you to call it a method.

NEIGE
I am proud of you.

ALFIE
I just nearly got myself killed because I’m an idiot. You shouldn’t be.

NEIGE
Nonetheless, I am.

ALFIE
Oh, shit! The stuff, from Cas’ car, the book in the attic, I—

NEIGE
I brought the things from the car. The attic was destroyed. I’m sorry. You do have your dictaphone, though.

ALFIE
My— oh, fuck! Yeah.I thought it’d be handy to have something that used proper battery power.

NEIGE
Clever, given where we’re headed.

ALFIE
Which is where?

NEIGE
It depends on what we find. First, though. We hunt.  

[END]