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:

Emotional distress

Mentions of murder

Implications of torture

Discussions of medical coercion

Discussions of the medical abuse of children, leading to their deaths

Discussions of cancer and other illnesses

Clinical descriptions of people suffering

Transcript

NEIGE
What is it?

ALFIE
Nothing.

NEIGE
You stopped.

ALFIE
Yeah. I just. I need a minute.

NEIGE
That is okay. We can take all the time you need.

ALFIE
Thanks.

NEIGE
You are not a bad person for what you did.

ALFIE
I know.

NEIGE
Maybe I should have gone alone.

ALFIE
I didn’t want you to.

NEIGE
I know, but—

ALFIE
No. I don’t want you to have to do things like that by yourself. It’s stupid. It’s risky. I’m glad I was there.

NEIGE
Still?

ALFIE
Yeah. Still.

NEIGE
We can come back here another day.

ALFIE
No. If that fuck-head wasn’t lying to us, they’re probably going to come get their stuff back. They took it here in a hurry. We need to hurry, too.

NEIGE
But we only spent a few days resting. I know you wanted more time.

ALFIE
Yeah. I did. But we’ll have it. We just. Look around, see if there’s anything still here. They might’ve already been back for it.

NEIGE
I don’t think they have.

ALFIE
Why?

NEIGE
Can’t you smell it?

ALFIE
What, that the whole place stinks of mildew and rot?

NEIGE
Atop that. I know it is subtle, but can you really not smell it? I am surprised.

ALFIE
I am really not appreciating the condemnation of my— oh. Is that. Vampires?

NEIGE
And humans.

ALFIE
I— yeah. Fuck. The trail we came up. The mud was too wet to hold tracks, but I could smell exhaust fumes on the leaves of the hedges. It wasn’t sure if I was making it up, but…

NEIGE
Your nose is sharper than mine.

ALFIE
You say that like I didn’t just completely miss the trail here.

NEIGE
Non, you missed it because you weren’t looking and were overwhelmed by the significant odour. Now you know what you’re following, I’m certain you’ll follow it better than I can.

ALFIE
How are you so sure my nose is sharper than yours?

NEIGE
You can describe nuances of flavour I can only taste, not smell. Like Casper.

ALFIE
Oh.

NEIGE
So, please. It will be quicker if you can find the way.

ALFIE
Uh. Okay. They came in through there, I think. Not where we came from.

[FOOTSTEPS]

ALFIE
Yeah, out here near the door, plants were crushed as they were coming in.  

NEIGE
Oui, I think so too. This stuff has been moved because they knew we were coming.

ALFIE
But they couldn’t have known we were coming here.

NEIGE
Non. They didn’t. This is not another piece of theatre. They were trying to hide it from us.

ALFIE
That nurse—

NEIGE
It’s not your fault for acting as you did. He shared your profession. He hurt people in ways which are unimaginable to you, because you are a good man. He told us what we needed before you killed him so no harm is done.

ALFIE
He had a kid.

NEIGE
The people he was responsible for torturing had people they mattered to as well. He was not remorseful.

ALFIE
These people and their fucking saviour complexes, I swear to fuck.

NEIGE
Indeed. It is a puzzle to me, but it does make sense so many people end up like this end up in your profession.

ALFIE
I swear half the people I worked with were school bullies who needed new people to feel better than.

NEIGE
Exactement.

ALFIE
The other half were the nicest people you could ever meet though. It kind of sucks that interacting with medical professionals is a coin toss between the kindest people ever and fucking megalomaniacs, but what can you do?

NEIGE
Well, for one, you can tear out people’s throats and make a mess of their nice Persian rugs.

ALFIE
I did make a mess, I was so fucking angry. I wasn’t thinking.

NEIGE
I know. It is something that you should avoid, if you can. But it is okay.

ALFIE
You think we did enough to hide the body?

NEIGE
It does not really matter. They won’t find us because of it and they already know we are coming.

ALFIE
Yeah but. Now they might know we’ve found this place.

NEIGE
Yes. It is possible.

ALFIE
It’s weird. Everywhere else we’ve looked for this stuff as been a hospital or a clinic. This is just an office building. It’s been empty a while but only a few years, I reckon. Even the place where I took the wires out of you was defunct longer than this.

NEIGE
It is intriguing to me. This is clearly a location they deem safe, I wonder why they walked away from it.

ALFIE
I guess whatever they’re doing has changed pace. That does make sense, given what we know. The people with torn out throats started showing up like, what, three years ago, now? They must’ve left this place around then.

NEIGE
Perhaps they had some kind of breakthrough.

ALFIE
That does make sense given what we know. The people with torn out throats started showing up, what, three years ago? They must have left this place around then.

NEIGE
So. How do you want to do this?

ALFIE
I don’t know. I don’t want to leave you on your own until…

NEIGE
Until what?

ALFIE
I don’t want you to have to deal with anything that might come up on your own. Not because you can’t. Because I don’t want you to have to.

NEIGE
I am so lucky.

ALFIE
Yeah. I’m great.

NEIGE
Do not say this sardonically. You are great. I like you very much, most of the time.

ALFIE
That so?

NEIGE
Oui. I have grown awfully fond of you.

ALFIE
Fond.

NEIGE
Oui. Come on, let us look around. Or do you want to set up your little recorder first?

ALFIE
Already done. Stuck it in my pocket when we got out of the car. In case.

NEIGE
Wise. How many hours of audio do you think you have amassed, now?

ALFIE
God. Who knows? Hundreds, probably.

NEIGE
A very thorough record.

ALFIE
Most of it is silence, though. Or me talking nonsense. I’ll have to go back, pare it down into something useful, some day.

NEIGE
Some day.

ALFIE
When all of this is over.

NEIGE
Yes.

ALFIE
Right, well. You look like you’ve sucked a lemon and I think that’s something we should return to later, when we’re not in a stinking office block. Where do you want to start?

NEIGE
There is no basement. Let’s start upstairs and work our way down. Unless the trail is strong enough for you to follow?

ALFIE
Hmm. It might be.

[FOOTSTEPS]

ALFIE
Yeah. We should go upstairs.

NEIGE
D’accord.

[THEY WALK]

ALFIE
So, uh. You going to enlighten me on exactly what it is you’re hoping we’ll find here?

NEIGE
I’ve told you everything I suspect already.

ALFIE
So what, we hope to stumble across some paperwork, and just. Bet that it’s going to be useful?

NEIGE
That is the gist of it, oui.

ALFIE
I am with you that working out what Bonham and Cas were up to before Casper left is the key to making all of this start to click together but this paperwork would need to be a literal goldmine to make it all make sense.

NEIGE
Well, we know that this is important to Bonham because we have not found it yet.

ALFIE
Right. Yeah.

NEIGE
It may not be exactly what we want. But I am sure it will be useful in some way.

ALFIE
Do you just have no idea at all what they were doing? You were bringing Cas all those half-mades. You knew he was studying them, that he had weird arrangements with people to kill them so he could study them too.

NEIGE
I knew where his interest in the half-mades came from. It does concern me that it seems Bonham was also in contact with Henri, because Casper never mentioned it to me.

ALFIE
Yeah well. That sort of is his whole MO, isn’t it? Not mentioning the important stuff.

NEIGE
Mm. It is also worrying to me specifically because this would have been happening after I’d already walked away from my relationship with Casper.

ALFIE
Yeah. Because he was starting to get weird.

NEIGE
Eh, he was always weird. But the flavour of it had changed. Perhaps it was his exposure to Henri that did this, I do not know. Henri was careful by then to keep his use of honorifics for me to a minimum. I had believed we were friends. But from Henri’s own work, it would suggest to me that he was harbouring some deeper feelings about the situation with Claudio than he let on.

ALFIE
Yeah, no shit.

[THEY WALK]

ALFIE
I think they went in here.

NEIGE
Yes. The door handle is clean, not like the others.

[ALFIE TRIES THE DOOR]

ALFIE
It’s locked.

[NEIGE SIGHS]

[A THUD; THE DOOR CLATTERS OPEN]

NEIGE
A solution.

ALFIE
Oh fuck me why was that so hot.

NEIGE
I am extremely competent and you find this alluring.

ALFIE
Extremely strong, too.

NEIGE
Yes, you find this alluring also.

ALFIE
Mm.

NEIGE
Your eyes are swirling red, Alfie.

ALFIE
Fuck off. God I want to tear off all your clothes.

NEIGE
In this unsanitary environment?

ALFIE
I want to tear off all of your clothes in this unsanitary environment and then take an eight year long shower after you’ve finished with me.

NEIGE
Alas, we are at least an hour from appropriate facilities. And we did not bring any lubricants.

ALFIE
I could live with that.

NEIGE
Masochist.

ALFIE
Guilty as charged.

NEIGE
You will not be happy with me for indulging you once you’re satisfied.

ALFIE
Who cares?

NEIGE
Me.

ALFIE
Fuck you being considerate.

NEIGE
Ah, oui. If you will be too distracted to be of use I will put you out of your misery but you know I hate to rush.

ALFIE SQUEAKS

ALFIE
You’re not helping things, saying things like that.

NEIGE
I like to take my time. Indulge in you. What is the point in life if I cannot appreciate deliciousness when it presents itself to me?

ALFIE
Oh my god. Oh my god. We— boxes. There are boxes.

NEIGE
Yes, there are boxes. Can you stand to look at them now or have I distracted you too much by breaking down a door?

ALFIE
UGH. No. I’m fine. Boxes.

NEIGE
So sensible. So restrained. How admirable.

ALFIE
I’ll bite you.

NEIGE
That will not help matters.

ALFIE
No, it won’t. Ugh. Boxes. They’ve not been here long. There’s no mould, hardly even any dust.

NEIGE
Exactement. You are getting good at this.

ALFIE
Thank you, kitten.

NEIGE
I speak only the truth.

ALFIE
Liar.

NEIGE
Not about this.

ALFIE
Right. Though. You know. You do seem to like. Take people at their word a lot.

NEIGE
Lacking skills in telepathy, I have to.

ALFIE
No, I just mean. Henri, Casper. Claudio. You didn’t—

NEIGE
I didn’t notice they had gone so wrong. I know. I am foolish in this way.

ALFIE
I don’t think it’s foolish. I think it’s kind of hopeful in a way that’s sort of admirable, actually.

NEIGE
They were my friends. My lovers. I cared about them. I thought— I thought this was enough. I think my judgement may be quite poor in this regard.

ALFIE
Well, that’s ominous.

NEIGE
How so?

ALFIE
Well, the person you’re currently trusting is me.

NEIGE
I am careful about how far that trust extends, Alfie. Besides, you are so earnest that I think it would kill you to hide things from me.

ALFIE
I kept my vampire boyfriend a secret for a whole year before I nearly died.

NEIGE
No you didn’t. You introduced him to your mother, and told your best friend.

ALFIE
Well. Yeah. But—

NEIGE
These things are not mistakes. They are acts of trust.  

ALFIE
So you’re saying I’m just like you?

NEIGE
Non, thank goodness you are not. I already have to live with myself I am not sure I could stand another.

ALFIE
Ha.

NEIGE
We should look in these boxes.

ALFIE
Yeah.

[A BOX IS OPENED]

ALFIE
Well. That sure is paperwork.

NEIGE
It is. Do any of these words make sense to you?

ALFIE
The words, yes. The contents, I think I’d need to spend more time with them to be sure.

[HE RIFLES THROUGH THE PAPERS FOR A MOMENT]

ALFIE
A lot of this seems to be employee records and like, purchase records, or something? I don’t know.

NEIGE
Not important?

ALFIE
I wouldn’t go that far, but I don’t think this one should be our priority.

NEIGE
D’accord.

[THEY OPEN ANOTHER BOX]

ALFIE
This one is all paperwork too. Looks to be information about how things are organised. This stuff could be very useful. Definitely more important than the first one, but…

NEIGE
But not the goldmine we are hoping to uncover.

ALFIE
No. It’s not.

[THEY OPEN ANOTHER BOX]

ALFIE
And, yep. More paperwork.

NEIGE
I think we can safely assume that will be what is in all of the boxes.

ALFIE
Yeah. This stuff all looks pretty procedural.

NEIGE
I think we ought to open them all, order them by list of what we think is going to serve us best. We have a few days, at least, before they notice they are missing their nurse. But we do not have all the time in the world.

ALFIE
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have killed him.

NEIGE
Honestly I think we’d have had to anyway. The alternative is that he’d have had to go into hiding. Bonham would have found him, and we already know he is easy to convince to talk.

ALFIE
Well. I wouldn’t say he was forthcoming.

NEIGE
Perhaps not, but Bonham is as unlikely as we are to avoid more… innovative techniques to extract information.

ALFIE
Don’t compare us to him like that. We’re doing this because we have to.

NEIGE
Oui. But I wonder if that is not what Bonham thinks, too.

ALFIE
Yeah. Yeah.

NEIGE
Alfie. There will always be casualties. It cannot be avoided.

ALFIE
I shouldn’t have killed him.

NEIGE
Next time I will act before you have to.

ALFIE
You shouldn’t have killed him either!

NEIGE
You’d have rather him tell Bonham we are coming? To let him know exactly what it is we are planning?

ALFIE
I don’t know. Don’t you think he already has some kind of an idea? You’ve been chatting up all the important vampires in Europe, haven’t you? Word will have got back to him by now anyway.

NEIGE
Only about our aims to bring him down. He doesn’t know what we are looking for.

ALFIE
Yeah well. Nor do we.

NEIGE
There is the beauty of it.

ALFIE
And they think this stuff is hidden.

NEIGE
So we are one step ahead. For now.

ALFIE
For now.

NEIGE
Bijou, it could not be avoided. You did what had to be done.

ALFIE
It. It worries me that it felt good to kill him.

NEIGE
I know. We will avoid it, if we can.

ALFIE
Yeah. Thanks.

NEIGE
Shall we open another box?

ALFIE
Yeah, I think there must be more in the next room. There’s a trail in there too, and I can smell the cardboard and the paper.

NEIGE
You see? Sharp nose. Would you be satisfied to leave me to sort through these for interesting things?

ALFIE
Yeah. Just don’t wander off.

NEIGE
I won’t. Do you need help with the door?

ALFIE
If you break down another one in front of me I might not be able to hold back.

NEIGE
You will manage it. You are not as strong as me, but you are stronger than the doors here.

ALFIE
Cool. Uh. Will you… manage? On your own, here?

NEIGE
If I find something which. Unsettles me. I trust you will cross the hall to hold my hand.

ALFIE
I will. I’m right here. Just. I’ll know, but you can call me if you want me, okay?

NEIGE
Likewise.

ALFIE
Alright.

[ALFIE WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM. THE DOOR TO THIS ONE IS NOT LOCKED]

ALFIE
Yep. More boxes of paperwork. Right. Let’s see what we’ve got.

[ALFIE OPENS ANOTHER BOX]

ALFIE
Okay, what’ve we got— oh fuck me. Patient records. Neige, this is the jackpot. I’m going to look at the others too but, I— I just want to make sure I’m right about what this is first, okay?

[ALFIE HEFTS OUT A BUNCH OF THE PAPERWORK AND SETTLES ONTO THE FLOOR]

ALFIE
Right. Right. Okay. Let’s see. These are written on a typewriter, I think. They’re pretty old, the paper is yellowing. They are definitely patient records. Names, patient IDs, little pictures… Euridia. Born 706, Athens. Jesus, she was old. Type 2. And— fuck. I think this is pretty early on in whatever Bonham was doing, I don’t see any mention of haempheresis or anything, was there a date on the— 1847. So that makes this pre-Casper. Holy fuck, okay.

Uh, this one is Brutaevious Fitzpatrick. What a name. Treated 1846 to 1849. Oh, man, I think he got out. Did Euridia? She did! Fuck yeah, get ‘em.

There are whole like. Interview transcripts here. They— they seem to. Oh my fuck. They’re volunteering for this.

[ALFIE SHIFTS THROUGH MORE PAPERWORK]

Tiffany de Brabant, Curtis Charles Jr, Echo, Alceste, Moíra mac Lír— all of them, they seem to have— they came to Bonham willingly.

Because he was trying to cure them.

Ambrose, Raven, Casper— Casper Novotny.

Oh Casper. Casper darling.

[ALFIE TURNS THE PAGE]

He— he gave a whole interview, he—

Yeah.

Yeah you’re right. I’ll look into this later. With you. Sorry. Sorry. No, it’s alright. I don’t need you to come. It’s fine, I’ll just. We’ll take this box with us. All of them. And. And Casper. We’ll look at him together.

[A MOMENT OF QUIET]

ALFIE
Yeah, I’m going to go through the others. There’s only a couple more in here. I think they just ran out of space in the other room.

[ALFIE MOVES ONTO THE NEXT BOX]

ALFIE
Alright. More patient records. These ones are different; these are humans. They’re more recent, too, given the quality of the print job. A surprising amount of these people seem really young.

Wait.

They are all really young.

Fuck. Bonham’s experiments on kids, in the 90s. Yeah, the dates are lining up. Ach. I don’t know how this is going to fit into whatever else he was doing but it’s useful, we can use this to understand his priorities, if nothing else. And I don’t know. These things fit together, I just don’t know how yet. All this haemoprosthesis stuff… yeah. There it is, haemoprosthesis, right on the page.

I’m just gonna— yeah if I don’t at least read the overviews I’m going to lose my mind, I know we’re tight on time— thank you.

Hilde Schwartz. Acute Promylecytic Leukaemia. These are all records of the treatments she’d had before. Goddamn. This poor kid. That’s the thing with APL, though. Once you use a treatment, the cancer adapts, and if you try it again, it’s less effective, or doesn’t work at all. She came here when she was fifteen after a relapse three months after a bone marrow transplant. Oh my god. How fucking horrible. Fifteen.

They treat her with really aggressive chemotherapy, pretty standard concoction for completely destroying the immune system, like they’re going to give her another bone marrow transplant. They stick her in isolation and then. Haemaprosthesis using haemaphersised blood. Shit. Shit. They’re giving her vampire blood they’ve— oh my god! They treat the vampire blood and THEN they give it to the kids.

Once they’ve been treating her with that for three months in an induced coma, they give her a stem cell transplant. They don’t say where the stem cells came from.

Then she wakes up. She’s better than fine. Her blood counts are incredible, they look like she’d never been sick, let alone just had a stem cell transplant. Hmm. Oh. But then she started having symptoms of neurological degeneration, so they brought her back in.

Holes in her brain, just like they said happened to those vampires who were starved to death, like what happens in half-mades right away.

[MORE PAPERS SHIFT, ALFIE TAKES A DEEP BREATH]

ALFIE
Okay, this one is really similar but they send this kid away on immunosuppressant drugs, presumably so his immune system doesn’t attack whatever latent vampire nonsense is going on inside of him? And then he’s fine until he gets into adulthood and then he gets a massive infection. The hospital that’s treating him obviously didn’t know he’s been dosed with weird vampire blood, so there’s no clear reason for him to be on the immunosuppressants, so they stop giving them to him, and the infection starts to get better, but then he gets a massive fever and dies. Autopsy reveals lesions all over his organs and his brain, causes unknown. The whole hospital got locked down in case it was an infectious disease but it wasn’t. They declare it’s a genetic condition which they don’t understand, and, ha. They call Bonham’s treatment centre to investigate as they’d treated him before. They get to perform their own autopsy, and…

[PAGES FLICK]

ALFIE
Yeah, they describe him as a malformed Type 3. Type 3?

[MORE PAGES FLICKER]

NEIGE
(Distantly)
Alfie. Regarde.

[ALFIE GETS UP AND CARRIES THE RECORDER TO THE ROOM WHERE NEIGE IS]

ALFIE
What have you found?

NEIGE

Just look.

ALFIE
I— I can’t read German.

NEIGE
It’s not German.

ALFIE
I still can’t read it.

NEIGE
Alfie, it is Czech.

PAUSE

ALFIE
Casper? Majetek?

[PAGES TURN]

NEIGE
Majetek Casper Novotny. It means belonging to, property of.

ALFIE
Oh.

NEIGE
Oui.

ALFIE
What is it?

NEIGE
Notes on a study I have not seen before. Which explains to me why Bonham refused to meet with me or anyone else.

ALFIE
How?

NEIGE
Uh, let me just… Ah, oui, he says here, ‘primární otázka…’. The primary issue of curative vampire treatment is not removing the vampirism from the body, it’s that this causes death. The reason for this death appears to be two-fold; the altered heart-rhythm which occurs in response to the growth of the. Uh. Krevni organ, he writes. Blood organ.

ALFIE
The thing in our throats, connecting our brainstem to where we feed.

NEIGE
I presume it.

ALFIE
Right. Sorry, please carry on.

NEIGE
Oui. The altered heart-rhythm and then, the other thing he says is the problem is the way that we do not produce our own blood. But this is only a problem for this particular subtype. In his fanaticism for the erasement of aging ability to heal more effectively, ah, Claudio—

ALFIE
Claudio?!

NEIGE
Did I not tell you these things almost always lead back to here?

ALFIE
Yeah. You did. Sorry.

NEIGE
Claudio overlooked advantages which might have made our condition reversible or even manageable with treatment.

ALFIE
But we die! When we get dosed with the chemo concoction that can cure our condition, it kills us because we’re part of— it’s a system we’re in. You kill the vampire, the whole vampire dies. The human bit has become a part of that.

NEIGE
He is suggesting here that for some types of vampire this was not the case.

ALFIE
But Claudio killed all the other types of vampire, you said that.

NEIGE
I thought so. But I was wrong.

ALFIE
What?

NEIGE
Uh, let me. Uh. He describes the issues in more detail here, I am sure you would find it tres fascinant but I do not know many of these words and I think trying to describe my way around them would drive us both insane, so I will skip to the part which made me call you. Which is here. ‘So far we have been unable to infect new patients into Type-2 variants of Group C vampires. In combination with blood from Group B Mark 2, only vampires with Class X traits are created, suggesting that Group C is less virulent.’

ALFIE
Group B. There was stuff about groups in Bonham’s notes too. Group B, definitely. But I don’t remember about a Group C. And where’s Group A? Surely that’s where you start?

NEIGE
Ah. For this he also has an explanation.

[PAGES TURN]

NEIGE
In conversation with… me. He says I have insisted I am not the first vampire. But he also assumes that I am an originator of this kind of vampirism. Even if I’m not, it is helpful to measure by points of extraction, that is what he says.

ALFIE
So the marks. That’s how many vampires away from you they are, in terms of how they were turned. How can they possibly know for sure? How can they possibly figure that out?

NEIGE
For certain? They can’t. But many vampires now were made by Claudio using my blood, so they are easy to trace back to me, either directly through Claudio or through their makers. Like Antoinette.

ALFIE
So. The Group B Mark 2. That blood, it’s Casper’s? Antoinette was made with your blood. Casper was made with hers. Mark 2. Which means the Group C.

NEIGE
Bonham, I am presuming. But it is clear in Casper’s notes this is not a document of original experimentation but a summary of someone else’s. It seems to have come from Henri.

ALFIE
Which means—

NEIGE
Which means Casper knew exactly what Henri had been doing before I took him there that day. They had been colluding together. He had been sending Henri Bonham’s blood.

ALFIE
So even though you gave Henri’s notes to Ros for safe-keeping. It didn’t matter. Casper already knew everything Henri had been doing. The blood they’re talking about, it’s Bonham’s, right? So he’s the Group C. He’s a different kind of vampire?

NEIGE
Oui, one which can produce blood and seems to have a pulse, from what Casper writes. But it seems he cannot heal.

ALFIE
Fuck. That. That explains why he’s such a fucking monster.

NEIGE
Comment?

ALFIE
He resents us. I’m guessing that vampires they can’t trace to Claudio or you are Group A, based on what you were saying.

NEIGE
Oui, I assume this. I am almost touched to see he remembered that I told him I was not the first. That he was careful to include this in his system of categorisation.

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
He had been sending Henri Bonham’s blood. Maybe every time he came to Paris to visit, he was facilitating Henri’s madness.

ALFIE
Neige.

NEIGE
Oui?

ALFIE
Did you read them?

NEIGE
Quoi?

ALFIE
Henri’s notes.

NEIGE
I did not.

ALFIE
Why?

NEIGE
Disgust, mostly. I looked enough to determine he thought us, vampires which think t—  to be inferior to rabid creatures intent only on sating an hunger which will never be sated. That is the pure vampire, according to him.

ALFIE
That’s why they’re Type 1, and we’re Type 2… hmm.

NEIGE
What is it?

ALFIE
Just, the notes in the other room. They mentioned someone being a Type 3.

NEIGE
I have hardly had chance to read this cover to cover, perhaps dear Casper mentions it here?

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
I would guess from the tone in which he discusses Bonham that Casper was writing this before their falling out. Bonham took this with him, against Casper’s will or not I do not know.

You’re distracted.

ALFIE
Sorry, just. The kids they were dosing. I wonder what blood… oh my god. If he’s producing his own blood, does he have stem cells?!

[ALFIE DARTS OUT OF THE ROOM]

NEIGE
Alfie! What are you—

ALFIE
It has to be somewhere, it’d make sense to file it in here. Let’s—

[YANKING OPEN BOXES, RIFLING THROUGH THE CONTENTS]

ALFIE
These are all files on the kids they treated in the 90s, all with the haemaprosthesis thing, where… one of these has to mention something where it—

[ALFIE GOES COMPLETELY STILL AND SILENT.

NEIGE
Alfie?

ALFIE
What.

NEIGE
What is it?

[NEIGE MOVES]

NEIGE
Alfric Dellon? Is that not—

ALFIE
FUCK. Who else in the world has a name like…?

NEIGE
Alfie, what are you—

ALFIE
I was sick. When I was a kid I was sick.

NEIGE
I know this.

ALFIE
And then I just. Wasn’t sick anymore! I. I.

NEIGE
Sit down, it’s alright, sit down.

ALFIE
I DO NOT WANT TO SIT DOWN.

NEIGE
Okie, that is alright. Do you want to look at it.

ALFIE
No.

NEIGE
That is alright.

ALFIE
Fuck.

NEIGE
Talk to me, mon coeur. Please.

ALFIE
I— they didn’t— it. I got— I didn’t want to!

NEIGE
It’s alright.

ALFIE
No it fucking IS NOT. IT IS NOT ALRIGHT.

NEIGE
Breathe with me.

ALFIE
FUCK OFF.

NEIGE
What is scaring you?

ALFIE
HE KNEW.

NEIGE
What?

ALFIE
CASPER FUCKING KNEW. He—

NEIGE
What are you talking about, bijou?

ALFIE
When we met and he— he knew. He looked right at me— I— it was like. It. Magic. But it was just—

NEIGE
You need to breathe, mon coeur. Sit with me. Sil vous plait?

ALFIE
Okay, okay, okay.

NEIGE
Feel my hand upon your neck, oui?

ALFIE
Yeah. Yeah, I feel it. Fuck. FUCK.

NEIGE
Look at me. Please.

ALFIE
Neige. He knew. He knew, he’d have smelled— he’d have known!

NEIGE
It is possible that he knew.

ALFIE
He didn’t tell me.

NEIGE
As far as he knew, Alfie, you were a success of Bonham’s. That is all.

ALFIE
But. But he. But. Nn, he—

NEIGE

Breathe, okie? In with me, and out again. Oui? Calme.

ALFIE
He— he gave— he gave me h—his blood. He. He gave me his blood.

NEIGE
Yes, he did, my love.

ALFIE
Hh-he told you t-to save me. T-told me to r-run.

NEIGE
Oui. I recall.

ALFIE
I wasn’t just. I wasn’t just an experiment. I wasn’t.

NEIGE
Non, mon amour, non. Oh, cheri, désolé, désolé pour lui. To put this in your head. Oh my love.

[ALFIE GASPS, THEN GETS TO HIS FEET]

NEIGE
Where are you going, bijou?

ALFIE
I just, I— let me.

[RIFLING THROUGH PAPER WORK]

ALFIE
I think I’m the only one who lived. Neige. All the others are dead. I’m the only one who fucking lived, and they started dumping half-mades half a mile from my fucking work. Jesus. JESUS. When I worked out he was a vampire, Casper drove me out of the city that fucking forest and I— the lab was fucking metres away from us. There’s no way he didn’t know. He— he was taking me there.

NEIGE
What happened, in the woods?

ALFIE
He fucked me.

NEIGE
If he took you there to give you to Bonham, but he didn’t, something changed.

ALFIE
So what?

NEIGE
Something changed!

ALFIE
Maybe I’m just that good at giving head. God knows I’ve had the fucking practice.

NEIGE
Ah, I suppose maybe that is it

ALFIE
Maybe I’m just that good.

NEIGE
But many of us have sucked Casper’s dick and it did not change how he thought of us.

ALFIE
Whatever.

NEIGE
Alfie. You are being funny but I am not. You went into the woods and he told you he was a vampire, if I recall?

ALFIE
Yeah.

NEIGE
And then he said he had claimed you, irretrievably, by letting you drink his blood.

ALFIE
Then I told him to kill me so he didn’t have to worry about it.

NEIGE
Ha. This is very like you. And very like him. Knowing him he’d have wanted you to be scared of what he was. That would have been what he was banking on. Fear. He had likely been avoiding you, knowing you were something to do with Bonham. But you have a way of getting into trouble.

ALFIE
He’d have agreed with that.

NEIGE
It is objective truth. But I imagine he had expected you would be afraid. And you weren’t.

ALFIE
I think I laughed in his face, actually.

NEIGE
Good for you. For him, too.

ALFIE
He didn’t take me to Bonham. He fucked me against a tree. I got grazes on my back. Why didn’t he— why didn’t he take me to Bonham? Why didn’t he?

NEIGE
I don’t know. We will never know.

ALFIE
But. But I need to.

NEIGE
I know, and you can’t.

ALFIE
He was a liar.

NEIGE
Oui.

ALFIE
He— he KNEW.

NEIGE
Je sais.

ALFIE
He lied to me about EVERYTHING.

NEIGE
I’m sorry.

ALFIE
Why is he so FUCKING DEAD. Useless, lying, dead piece of SHIT. Why didn’t you TELL ME ANYTHING. ARGH.

NEIGE
Oui, I know.

ALFIE
I— I need to get the fuck out of here, I need to get out.

NEIGE
Okie, it’s alright. Go. Go on.

ALFIE
FUCK.

NEIGE
Wait for me outside.

[ALFIE WALKS, SOBBING, THEN REMEMBERS THE RECORDER IN HIS POCKET, FUMBLES WITH IT]

ALFIE
Fuck. AGH—

[END]