An Episode of Not Quite Dead.

Content Warnings

• Mentions of death
• Descriptions of scenes of mass killings
• Descriptions of flesh melting from bones
• Descriptions of bones
• Mentions of mass compelled suicide
• Implications of sexual abuse
• Descriptions of extreme violence and torture
• Mentions of blood
• Discussions of dismemberment

Transcript

[SOUNDS OF WIND, ECHOING. ALFIE’S VOICE ECHOES, TOO]

ALFIE
So uh. 

We’re in the Alps. I know it sounds like I’m in a cathedral and. Honestly. That’s probably a pretty good way to describe this place. This part of it anyway. The complex is pretty big. It’s not all like this. Actually, this room is the only one like this in the whole place, Neige says. 

Neige calls it the killing room. 

I… 

We passed it in the day, when we were exploring. It’s not quite at the heart of the place, but it’s close. The ceiling is part natural cave, and part carved vault. There are stalactites wrapped in gold filigree. Strings of cyrstals like chandeliers under the grates in the ceiling. The floor is covered in this polished stone that catches the light. 

It was daytime when I saw it first. I couldn’t even really look down the hall that led to it, the light was so bright it hurt my eyes. Sitting here now, I. There are mirrors everywhere. Old ones, made of polished metal. My reflection looks like a ghost in them. Newer ones too, small, set in gold frames. Even in the moonlight, even with the grates covered in snow, this whole place, it glows. It’s beautiful. Except for the bones. 

I. 

There’s a sort of. Font? I guess. In the middle of the room. I think there was blood in it once but it’s hard to tell now. It’s just some dirt. Most of the bones are kind of around it, in sort of awkward piles? Or scattered around the edges of the room. I suppose it’s they’re the only parts of the room that might have any shade.

There are grooves cut in the floor. They’d drain the run off from water. But also of what happens to a vampire when we’re left to cook in sunlight. The run off of us. 

The killing room. 

[ALFIE SIGHS]

I— I wanted to come back to see it, you know. Now we’re sure this place is empty. Neige didn’t want to come with me. He’s still going through all the rooms. We’re not going to find anything, I’m—  I’m pretty certain. I doubt Claudio would have hidden his hand in a chest of drawers in one of his follower’s modest bedrooms, you know? He thought he could be the most vampire in the world, and he thought vampires were basically gods already, so. He wouldn’t do that. But Neige wants to be sure. So. I’m letting him be sure. 

We’ve been searching the place for a few hours. Most of it is dark. If we weren’t vampires it would be nearly impossible to see in most of it and it’s… I don’t know. Fascinating that it’s like that. A few slivers of light come in through holes bored in the roofs ceilings of the corridors, but they’re all covered with these caps which catch the light and redirect it upwards, so the sunlight never actually touches you, just the ceiling. It’s a place designed for us. 

I… I really don’t know what I was expecting before I came here. 

I think I’ve spent so much time braced for horror. Bonham’s labs. The cabin, the tunnels. The lab back in York. But this place. Mostly it’s just. Kind of nice? Spartan, yeah. Beds cut from stone, which would have had straw mattresses apparently, but they’re long rotted to dirt now.

Everyone was already gone by the time Neige came to kill Claudio. 

When he first said that I thought he’d meant they’d left but. They’re here. Neige is pretty sure it’s all of them. All the ones that lived here. He’s not certain but there are quite a lot of bones. I tried counting skulls and spines but…

I keep thinking about that one cult, Jonestown? Where that guy told his followers to drink that poisoned koolaid.when Claudio saw his own doomsday on the horizon, and yeah. He asked them all to stand in the sun until their flesh melted off their bones. 

You know, I could have lived without knowing that’s what happened, if we stayed in the sun. I was imagining we’d burst into flames or like, neatly crumble into dust. But. No. We just sort of cook. Blisters on our skin, then our muscle, and then. Then there’s only bones, and ooze. 

I can’t smell it. 

I don’t know why that’s upsetting but it is. 

I mean, It’s been centuries. Enough time for rain to trickle in and bit by bit wash away the residue of, what. Hundreds of us? Who died here? Who melted at the behest of their own fucking king? 

[ALFIE SIGHS AGAIN]

The compound is well hidden. Which is kind of mad considering we are three days hike from a ski-resort. This whole bit of the mountain is inaccessible though. It’s hard for humans to get to and it’s fenced off because of all the holes. The snow covers them up but I guess people could just fall in and die, you know?

Neige said it took Claudio a hundred years to build this place. One of the designers, Neige says, he helped work on Al-Khazneh in Petra. You know, the monument with the columns carved into the cliff-face in Egypt? I wonder if any of the bones here are his. 

This whole place, it’s mental. I… yeah. It was a cave system before. You can feel it, when you walk through. It meanders. But most of the rough edges have been sanded smooth. Arched doorways with wooden doors. All of them are beautiful. The wood is carved, intricate. Designs of suns and moons and snow. 

There are also reliefs cut into some of the walls. I guess one thing I hadn’t really thought about that much was that Claudio was a roman who’d grown up in Egypt. There are figures in the frescoes look like gods from those religions here, and others which I guess his followers must have brought with them. And then in the middle of these frescos, there’s Neige. His hair in gold leaf. His eyes set with rubies. And there, at his feet, on his knees. Claudio. 

I—I was expecting it, when he told me he needed to go back to where Claudio died. From the moment we finished searching the cabin I kind of expected him to demand it right away but he didn’t. I’m glad. I needed to stop, for a bit, and he… I don’t know. 

I’ve seen him scared before, like after Scotland he was a wreck but there was something. Determined? Especially at first. Even when we slowed down and he let himself break a little. He was just so exhausted and he needed to do so much healing that… yeah. He was scared. It fucked him up. But it wasn’t, I don’t know. It wasn’t terror, you know? And when he thought there might be a way that Claudio could be alive. I think I… I’ve been conceptualising the whole thing so completely wrong. Like objectively it sounds so horrible, and know that time’s not necessarily… but it’s just. He’s okay, you know? He’s so competent and there and. 

But. I thi— I think he’s been having nightmares. I wake up to find him curled in around himself. He doesn’t scream or anything but he’s breathing shallow, fast. Sometimes his heart is beating, like he’s about go in for the kill, and when I wake him up his eyes are red and it’s like he’s going to jump me and it’s— 

Yeah. 

It’s. Yeah. 

We spent a few days in that hotel in Tromsø, then we drove to Bergen, which took a bit. He’s got a place there. Another safe house. It was clear nobody had been there a long time, though, not like the one in Berlin. Ee got the key out of a safe deposit box. All the furniture had dusty sheets over it. But the bed was nice. 

We spent a few days basically just in that bed. We’d go out in the evenings a bit. Nice little clubs scene in Bergen, it turns out. Though, honestly. Neige could get anyone to let him bite them. Sometimes he acts like he’s got this slick method anyone could work if they just tried, but. But he’s completely missing the fact that— h—his face? He’s a fucking angel, you know? 

We were never out in the clubs long. Just long enough to eat our fill, then we’d go back, curl back up into bed. We watched trash movies. Talked about stuff. About what I remembered about being a kid. About places he’s been, people he’s loved. He. He also kind of talked a bit about after. About what he wants to do. And he wants to open a bar? Like. Absurd. He’s got, you know. Money money. He could live in Barbados or— or wherever and he. Wants to open a bar somewhere. He didn’t say where, but you know, probably in Paris. i wonder how many fucking centuries of speaking French it would take for a Parisian not to answer me in English when I try to order something. 

But at the end of the second week, we got in from hunting and— and Neige didn’t start taking off my clothes. He sat in one of the old armchairs, still with the sheet over the top, and he said where we needed to go next. back here. To the place he killed Claudio. So he could check every inch of it for his hand. 

And I was expecting it, like I said. So I just said okay.

I was expecting this to be another epic expedition but. No. We just flew from Bergen to Switzerland, rented a car, drove to the ski-resort, then started to hike. We brought a tent with us, slept curled up under those foil blankets in the day, set off again as soon as the sun went down. It’s a good job it’s winter. It’d have taken so long to get here if the nights were any shorter. 

Neige knew the way absolutely. It wasn’t like in Russia, where we were following a trail, working on guesses until the cabin was right under our noses. This was. Scary efficient. He said everyone else who knows the way here is dead, now. It’s just him. And now me. 

It made me think about when we went to the lab to get Casper, after that night in York. When he told me about the baby camel in Genghis Khan’s grave. 

NEIGE
Alfie. 

ALFIE
Oh, shit. You made me jump. 

NEIGE
You should be paying more attention. 

ALFIE
There’s nobody here. Nobody alive, anyway. 

NEIGE
I’m here. 

I have checked the rest of the rooms of the disciples. It is not there. 

ALFIE
So. Uh. What do we do now? 

NEIGE
There is one more place I want to check. 

ALFIE
Oh. Right. Are you sure you want to go there?

NEIGE
Yes. I want to be certain. 

And I… 

ALFIE
What? What is it? 

NEIGE
I want you to see. 

ALFIE
Okay. 

NEIGE
This way. 

ALFIE
Through the big double doors? 

NEIGE
Yes. 

[ALFIE GETS UP OFF THE FLOOR. HIS FOOTSTEPS ECHO AS NEIGE PUSHES THE MASSIVE DOOR OPEN. ALFIE GASPS.]

NEIGE
It’s okay. It’s from a long time ago. 

ALFIE
Oh fuck. I can only just— just barely smell it— I— 

NEIGE
Come on. 

[THEIR FOOTSTEPS AND VOICES HAVE STOPPED ECHOING]

NEIGE
This is Claudio’s room. 

ALFIE
The uh. The big gold throne?

NEIGE
That is where he sat. You see how it is set back from the doors? 

ALFIE
Are those… that looks like one of those gate things they have in castles. But it’s made of gold. 

NEIGE
It lowers. You see the scraps of cloth? They used to have down, over the gold. Silk curtains, translucent. To shield his eyes from the sun. 

ALFIE
Are you saying— are you saying he watched them die? He’d sit here in his throne and watch people fucking melt on the other side of that gate? 

NEIGE
Oui. 

ALFIE
Jesus fucking christ. 

NEIGE
Or some nature of messiah, anyway. 

ALFIE
I… yeah. 

NEIGE
He had a fondness for gold. Everything, red and gold. 

ALFIE
I am for sure getting that impression. 

NEIGE
Oui. 

ALFIE
Don’t you want to like. Search all these boxes and stuff? Surely he’d more likely to put his hand in a, what even is this? A tiny gold coffin? Whatever. Surely that’s more likely than a bedside table. 

NEIGE
I looked. Last I was here. I looked. 

ALFIE
Right. 

NEIGE
We can check again. 

ALFIE
I… no. 

NEIGE
Come on then. 

ALFIE
That’s his bed. 

NEIGE
What’s left of it. 

ALFIE
There are. Chains. There. 

NEIGE
And collars. 

ALFIE
Mmm. Do not like that. 

NEIGE
They volunteered to be his pets. They relished it. It meant they were allowed to taste his blood. 

ALFIE
Uhuh. Uhuh. 

NEIGE
Through here. 

ALFIE
Okay. 

[ANOTHER DOOR OPENS. THROUGH HERE, THEIR FOOTSTEPS AND VOICES ECHO AGAIN AS THEY DESCEND STONE STEPS, BUT THE QUALITY IS DIFFERENT THAN IN THE KILLING ROOM. CLOSER.]

ALFIE
The walls are panelled in gold? 

NEIGE
This is… the holiest of spaces. 

ALFIE
I. Yeah. 

NEIGE
You’ve stopped. 

ALFIE
It’s the smell. 

NEIGE
It has been a long time since that blood was spilled. 

ALFIE
I know. But it’s soaked into the rock, the smell is in the rock. The smell is in the rock. It’s. So
much of it you. Fucking hell. How long were you in here? 

NEIGE
I don’t know. Less than a hundred years. 

ALFIE
Fuck. 

NEIGE
Time meant very little then. 

ALFIE
Neige. 

NEIGE
I’m alright. Come on. 

ALFIE
Okay. 

[THEY KEEP WALKING. THE ROOM THEY STEP INTO IS QUIET. VERY LITTLE ECHO. THERE IS A DRIPPING SOUND.]

NEIGE
A natural spring. It runs down the back wall, from a crack, there, you see? Flows through those channels. I always relished its presence. It would have been much worse to have been kept somewhere with no life in it at all. The water always smelled so clean. So fresh. 

Alfie.
Bijou, it’s alright. 

ALFIE
No it fucking isn’t. 

NEIGE
It has been a long time. 

ALFIE
Ugh— the words. On the. On the wall behind where they hung you. What do they say?

NEIGE
Ah. Filii sanguinis mei, potus sanguinis mei, vive de sanguine meo. Children of my blood, drink of my blood, live of my blood, be of my blood. That is what they would say, before they drank from the chalice. The blood would run from me, here. Drip into this basin. And, ah. Here. The chalice. From which they drank.

ALFIE
Fucking hell. 

NEIGE
Come, help me. 

ALFIE
Okay. 

NEIGE
This chest, he— he kept things here, if it would be anywhere it. 

[SOUNDS OF EFFORT. A GRINDING SOUND. ALFIE CRIES OUT]

ALFIE
No. NO. No. No. 

NEIGE
It has been there a long time. 

ALFIE
No, no, no. 

NEIGE
I’m alright. 

ALFIE
Neige. NEIGE. 

NEIGE
This blood is old.

ALFIE
That’s more blood than you fucking HAVE INSIDE YOU. 

NEIGE
It was not all spilled at once. 

[SPLASHING, MOVING IN LIQUID]

ALFIE
Neige, what are you— what—

NEIGE
Ah, non. It is just the parts of me. Claudio’s hand. It is not here. 

ALFIE
THE PARTS OF YOU. 

NEIGE
It’s alright, Alfie. It has been a long time. 

ALFIE
ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE. 

NEIGE
I do not think so. 

ALFIE
What— what. 

NEIGE
Come. Come here. 

ALFIE
NO. I don’t want to. 

NEIGE
Please, bijou, come. Please. 

ALFIE
What? No— Neige, I no. 

[NEIGE GROWL-SIGHS. FOOTSTEPS.]

NEIGE
Your hand. Give it to me. 

ALFIE
Okay. 

NEIGE
Merci. May I bite you? 

ALFIE
Y-yes. 

[BITE. ALFIE GASPS.]

NEIGE
Now, you feel this? My heart in my chest? 

ALFIE
Yes. Yes, I— I feel it, I—

NEIGE
I am alive. I am here. Those he ripped of me may be preserved in my blood but they do not hurt me. The pain was felt years ago. It is over now. I am safe. And I am safe because I am with you. Comprend?

ALFIE
If Claudio wasn’t dead, I’d fucking kill him. I’d rip out his fucking SPINE. 

NEIGE
Shh, shh, shh, shh, mon petit. 

ALFIE
And in— they took your. NO wonder you— Neige.

NEIGE
We’re safe. I’m safe. Claudio’s hand is not here. Wherever it is, it is not here.

We should go. 

ALFIE
Oh, okay. 

Wait. 

NEIGE
What? 

ALFIE
If Bonham— he wanted your insides, so. Why didn’t he come here? Whoever he was working with, the person Casper killed, she was one of Claudio’s devotees, even if Bonham wasn’t. He must have known about this place. 

NEIGE
Ah. Non. Claudio would never have let a vampire like Bonham come into this compound. It is a sacred place. Perhaps the captain of Claudio’s he was working under would have come in, but I doubt she would have come into this room. Maybe she drank my blood. But he would not have shown her the chest. This was only for his most loyal. Those who lived here with him. Who served him and never left. The captains were important and devout, they were all blessed with my blood, but. Precious few were allowed to touch the heart of god. Comprend? 

[ALFIE SIGHS, DISGUSTED]

ALFIE
In that fucked up little lab, with the bones. You said you wanted to be burned. 

NEIGE
Oui. I did. 

ALFIE
We should. We should burn these. We can’t— we. We can’t. I can’t leave part of you here. You didn’t want— Neige. 

NEIGE
You would do this? For me? 

ALFIE
Of course I— fucking— Of course I fucking would you— I. Yes. I don’t care how long they’ve been here, it— they’re. You. Part of you. And you. No. He does not get to have you. No. 

NEIGE
There is nobody here, bijou. 

ALFIE
HE TOOK YOUR HEART OUT OF YOUR CHEST. HE DOES NOT GET TO KEEP IT. 

NEIGE
Okie, okie. It’s alright, mon raleur. I swear it is alright. 

ALFIE
It’s so— it’s so extraordinarily far from… 

You’re so calm, why are you so fucking calm?!

NEIGE
If they had brought him back. there would be a sign. He would have come back here. He would have left me a message. I am certain. He would know this is where I would come, eventually, and if he was alive, he… he would want me to know. 

ALFIE
You— you think they can’t do it? They can’t— we’re not the kind of thing you can grow from a cutting? 

NEIGE
I don’t know it for sure. But I am… Claudio would not be able to resist leaving some kind if message for me. I am certain of that. But he hasn’t. So wherever the hand is, we will find it. I suspect it is in Bonham’s possession. maybe that breakthrough was to do with this, which stopped him in his tracks, made him change the course of his research. But whatever it is, we will stop it. We’ll find Bonham. We’ll put an end to this. And we will find a way to make sure this never happens again. 

ALFIE
Let’s. Go away. Let’s just fucking go away and— 

NEIGE
What are you talking about? 

ALFIE
We burn what they took from you and we find Bonham and shut the whole thing down and then I don’t care, I don’t CARE. I don’t want to do this. We. This,  it’s too much, you— you’ve been through, I can’t. No! It’s not your fucking job to— no. we go. We find somewhere quiet and you can open a stupid bar and we just. We just live. Okay? 

NEIGE
Oh my love. 

ALFIE
I can’t do this. I can’t put— I can’t. This is not your fucking problem to put right and it’s— it’s not fucking fair, and I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want it. I just want. UGH. I want to be quiet. I want to curl up somewhere safe and know you— you’re okay and I’m not. That nobody’s going to ask you to. FUCK. I can see the way the chains, they’re— they were MADE to fit around your fucking RIBS. I WANT TO— I can’t. 

NEIGE
What can’t you do?

ALFIE
Any of this! Any of it. I’m just some fucking guy. I didn’t ask for Bonham to save my life, my parents did, and now I’m stuck with this— and you were just. You just. You. No! No. It’s not OUR JOB. 

NEIGE
You are right. It isn’t. 

ALFIE
I— yeah. YEAH. 

NEIGE
There is something I need to explain to you which may make you very angry.I was worried, before. I did not want to burden you with— but you are already burdened and if, perhaps, I explain this it will help. It will not lessen things but maybe it will help. 

ALFIE
What? What do you need to fucking explain? 

NEIGE
Before Berlin. You remember why I asked you to go without me? 

ALFIE
You said nobody would meet with you because I’d fucked everything up so bad. 

NEIGE
That is not exactly what I said. But it is a variation of what I told you, I suppose. And it was a part of the truth. But not the whole of it. 

ALFIE
Please don’t say something that’s going to make me hate you. 

NEIGE
You are allowed to feel whatever you feel. But I want to explain this now so I will, regardless of your response. It wasn’t just that the vampires were angry about the risks you had taken by giving Haley your blood, or by tearing up Bonham’s operation. This was not the only reason they were reluctant to have you involved. What I was proposing frightened them. The fact it came from you, a fledgling known so far only for getting Casper Novotny killed and for putting vampires at more risk of exposure than we have been in since the Dark Ages, it was not just the ideas themselves. 

ALFIE
So, what? It’s better coming from you, the guy they’re all fucking terrified of? 

NEIGE
Non. It isn’t. For this exact reason. I am no god, nor king, Alfie. I have told you this. And the changes you are right to say we need, if they are to come from me, I will make myself into another form of what Claudio made me here, in this room. Maybe I should— 

ALFIE
You absolutely fucking shouldn’t. 

NEIGE
Whether that is true or not, I cannot do it. I will not. 

And if this revolution comes about by force, it… no. 

These are things vampires have been too afraid to want. But they are things we should desire. To walk freely. To be known. To live, not in the shadow, but in the open. It will come with its own risks and challenges yes but, I think you’re right and if we do not find allies outside of our own kind, who are willing to do deals with us in the open and protect us as people deserving of care and dignity? This will happen again. What happened in this room. What happened in that cabin. What happens in Bonham’s lab. And it should not. 

Change always starts small. To make people understand, you need to explain to them what it is that is happening. To show them what— what they DESERVE to want. 

You have a story worth listening to, Alfie. When people hear it, it will change them. And it is. 

ALFIE
What do you mean, ‘it is’. 

NEIGE
Some of the old recordings, explaining what happened to Casper, how you tried to save him, after we found him. I sent them to— to Inna. And others. It was regrettable that Inna died, but. I should have been able to hold back but I could not. What those other vampires in Berlin heard, what vampires all over the world are already hearing…

Alfie. You are already changing things. 

[PAUSE]

ALFIE
I need to think. 

NEIGE
Desole. 

ALFIE
Shut up, I said I need to think!

[ALFIE SIGHS]

ALFIE
You make it so hard to fucking trust you. 

NEIGE
I’m sorry. I told you that I am a liar. I will continue to be one, as long as it is the right thing to do. 

ALFIE
Why didn’t you just fucking tell me? 

Oh.  

You already told me why. In Tromsø. This room. This is why. Claudio. Henri. Casper. But mostly fucking Claudio. You didn’t tell me because you were scared I want to be king. 

NEIGE
I have said this to you before. I am fucking terrified of you. 

ALFIE
Do you seriously… ? What have I done that would indicate I— that I’m even capable of — I don’t understand. 

NEIGE
You made me love you. I loved the man who hung me from those chains. I loved the last Emperor to hold Rome.

ALFIE
I’m just some guy. 

NEIGE
Non. You believe in something. 

ALFIE
What do I believe in?

NEIGE
That the world can be better. That we have the power to make it so. 

ALFIE
Yeah, we do. But not like, me. Jesus fucking christ! I’m a nurse not a fucking politician or a revolutionary or whatever!

NEIGE
You’ve not been a nurse for some time. I regret to inform you that you are very much a revolutionary. 

ALFIE
Yeah but like, I couldn’t be in charge of shit! Who the fuck would listen to me, anyway, of all people?!

NEIGE
Me. Many others too, I am sure. 

ALFIE
Why?!

NEIGE
You are honest. You are not afraid to be vulnerable. You know how to tell a story. You know how to make people listen. 

ALFIE
Well I don’t want to. I don’t want to!

NEIGE
Then why is the dictaphone on? 

ALFIE
I— so we have a record of what we’re doing!

NEIGE
For who?

ALFIE
I don’t know! Me! So I can listen back to it later and try to make some sense of all of this. 

NEIGE
Okie. 

ALFIE
You’re being fucking annoying. 

NEIGE
I am told this is one of my many skills. 

ALFIE
Shut up. 

NEIGE
There is something. 

ALFIE
Jesus fuck. Can it not wait? 

NEIGE
Non. It cannot. 

ALFIE
Alright fine. What? Spit it out. 

NEIGE
I think I know where Bonham is. 

ALFIE
What? How?!

NEIGE
My. Uh. Insides. 

ALFIE
Oh fuck. 

NEIGE
I might be wrong. But. I think they have been moved. And I think. Well. Bonham has them. 

ALFIE
Right…You’re. Being weird about that. 

NEIGE
I… ach. You know how I said I think I would know had they attempted to uh, how was it you described this? Grow a second version of me from a cutting? Oui? 

ALFIE
Yeah?

NEIGE
Well. They have not done this. But. And it is hard to really say, but I know how it feels for organs to simply sit preserved, you see? 

ALFIE
Wish I didn’t. But yeah. 

NEIGE
It is hard to be precise about it. I think my, ah. Parts. I think they are already in use. 

ALFIE
What. 

NEIGE
I don’t— there is not a more comprehensive way for me to explain it I am sorry. 

ALFIE
You don’t— you don’t need to. It’s okay. Well. No. It’s not. It’s not okay. But. Fuck.

NEIGE
I think they are in York. 

ALFIE
York? But. Everything in York, it’s. It’s gone. We blew up the lab! 

NEIGE
Oui, je sais. 

ALFIE
Why would they go back there, then? 

NEIGE
So you will come. 

ALFIE
Right. Right. Okay. We finish here. Then we go. Alright? And then. THEN. I will figure out what to do with the fact that you’ve been. Sharing my recordings with people! Without even fucking asking! I— !

Later. We sort things out here. We find Bonham. Then we talk about this. Alright?

NEIGE
Bonham knows how to kill a vampire as well as I do. I will not go into this unprepared. We do this properly, Alfie. Or we die. We are going to take our time. 

ALFIE
I— yeah. Okay. Okay. Fine.

[END]