""The moonlight shone down on the place, unhindered." ""The gnarled parapets jagged upwards like a bony hand of icy indifference." ""In the background, there was a pigeon." ""Who knew how long the place had stood there?" ""40 years?" "50 years?" ""Tempus immemoria - ie always?" ""But it was a bad place." "That much was certain." ""A very bad place indeed. "" "Greetings, traveller." "Who am I?" "Perhap you have met me twixt sleep and wake - in the penumbra of uncertainty you call unconsciousness." "Or perhaps you've met me at a book signing." "I'm Garth Marenghi, horror author." "My business is chill, impure and simple." "You know, my books are all essentially about "what ifs"." "In Black Fang I asked - what if a rat could drive a bus?" "And what if it and its rat brethren took over and ate Parliament?" "When I wrote, directed and starred in tonight's Garth Marenghi's Darkplace," "I was asking another "what if"." "I won't tell you which "what if" it is but it's along the same lines but with a different animal." "Without giving too much away, think Planet Of The Apes." "This eve's tale o' blood is an allegory." "I've included interviews with myself, my publisher Dean Learner and the actor Todd Rivers, so we can tell you what it means." "Here it be - a future shock that'll shit you up." "I dedicate tonight's episode to my wife Pam who deals with the bulk of my admin." "'I'm Garth Marenghi - author, dream weaver, visionary, plus actor." "'You are about to enter the world of my imagination." "'You are entering my Darkplace." "Sanch!" "Copping zees?" "I need you on the ward!" "There are kids dying out here!" "Hey, bud." "Just give me two ticks." "My mouth feels like somebody parked a car in it." "That's peculiar." "Sanch!" "Sanch?" "What?" "It's only with hindsight I realise how radical Darkplace was, and is." "We knew at the time it was raw but didn't realise it could get rawer with time." "Balls-to-the-wall, flat-out horror." "They would not make this show today." "It was way the hell out there." "We were young, physically fit and we were challenging logic." "'My name is Dr Rick Dagless MD." "'A new terror in Darkplace " "'Sanchez, my friend, my buddy, is now an ape." "'Although still a competent surgeon, he does now smell like an ape." "'But was he the only one?" "'The word on the ward was - no, he weren't." "'This place was dark, damn dark." "'Hence "Darkplace"." "'We parked the wheels and hauled ass to Reed's office, 'but on the way I made a special detour. '" "Hey there, little guy!" "Good news." "You're gonna be all right." "Thanks to you." "Here's the drugs you couldn't afford." "I bought them." "Don't thank me." "I gotta save another life." "Take care, little guy." "Dr Dagless..." "Yes, buddy?" "I owe you everything." "If you need any help, you can always rely on me." "That means a lot." "I punched a child actor because they were rude about Garth's writing." "More of a back of the hand than a punch." "But they came up in a big red bruise, someone took a photo of it - blah, blah, blah..." "Cry, cry, cry..." "I don't see it as a problem." "Jim?" "Could you run these ECG results past the boys in Radiology?" "Right away." "Dag?" "In here." "I don't have time to drink this water, I'm that busy!" "Could you ever love a monkey, Liz?" "It's certainly an improvement on the old look." "Hey!" "Morning, Dag." "Morning, Thornton Reed." "Good morning." "Would you two like some water?" "No, thanks." "I'll have a coffee." "Thanks, Sanch." "I'd love a glass." "Drat!" "It's run out." "Have mine." "No, Sanch." "You have it." "I'll grab a coffee instead of water." "One coffee coming up!" "Here you go." "Cheers!" "We've got a situation." "People are regressing to a primal stage." "It's spreading - fast!" "Dagless, we need your loaf - what's going on?" "I figure Sanchez is regressing to Homo neanderthalenus." "You're Homo erectus but for how long?" "Thanks for being straight with me." " You and I are Homo sapiens?" " Correct." "Shouldn't homos get along?" "Yes, but Homo erectus is famed for meanness." " How are you feeling in here, Sanch?" " I'm bearing up." "You know me, Dag." "Yeah." "Yeah, I do, big guy." "We must lick this problem before it slaps us in the nuts." "We need data." "Liz, fill us boys in, if you'll pardon the expression." "Liz?" "Liz!" " It's got Liz, too." " Whatever "it" is." "'Dr Sanchez, if you don't come to surgery, we'll start without you. '" "Wish me luck." "Good luck." "Crack this, or Won Ton will be over me like knockers in a wind tunnel." "I'll talk to the padre." "He knows about monkeys." "Right." "I'll stay here." "Come on, Liz." "'I led Liz, by now a sick parody of womanhood, down the corridor." "'Could the padre elucidate matters?" "'At this stage in the narrative it would be odd if he did. '" "No!" "This make-up was done years ago for the monkeys." "I was worried when I saw the..." "VHS again that it would look ridiculous and old-fashioned and quite naff." "Not true." "It looks great, still." "Would you like a drink of something?" "Tea, coffee... juice?" " I'd love a glass of water." " NO!" "That's mine." "Don't sweat it." "I'll suck a mint." "I'll come to the point - where does the Church stand on evolution?" "Monkeys were created by God to entertain us." "That's all we know." " But surely..." " That's all we know, Rick!" "Yeah." "Sure, Padre." "I think I understand." "Come on, Liz." "Mind how you go, Rick." "(Mind how you go!" ")" "'It worsens." "The padre, my friend and colleague, is now an ape." "'Who was next?" "Would it get me?" "'I really hoped it wouldn't." "'And what was "it" anyway?" "'So many questions." "Why Liz?" "Why the padre?" "Why Sanchez?" "'Why not Reed?" "Why not me?" "'This hospital was turning into a jungle - 'everyone was acting like monkeys. '" "Terry, run a J over the seat." "I think Liz has left a souvenir." "'Emergency in surgery." "Emergency in surgery. '" "Not my fault!" "Monkey bastard hands!" "It was easy to get into character." "I know the beast in me." "I've been drunk with him for 15 years!" "So... it was home from home." "Both Todd and I were wild then - behaving like flipping Romans!" "We were like animals." "I looked in the mirror one day..." "Excuse me..." "And I said "You're not a man, Dean, you're an ape. "" "I have stood in Dean's front room and watched him make a lot of love." "I'm afraid, Rick." "I'm afraid of what I'm becoming." "Yep." "That's me." "This is unmanageable." "I used to have the best hair in the hospital!" "And I'm starting to get some pretty primal urges." "I didn't want to say, but in surgery today you were waving your bits out the window." "I don't even know what I'm doing" "I went to the padre to confess..." "but washed my arse in the font!" "Liz is throwing her own poo to get attention." "If I get too far gone, Rick,..." "you know what to do." "Yeah." "You hang on in there, bud." "Hang on in there for Rick." "'My bonce having been knocked, I fell into a strange fantastical dream, 'rich in imaginative imagery." "'I found myself alone in a primitive land 'where phantasm, spelt with PH not F, abounded." "'I turned one way..." "'Then the other." "'Then back." "'Then forward." "'Then I saw myself as a monkey. '" "'My head felt like a plum without the pip." "'I'd been asleep for a month, which is ages." "Reed told me everything - 'how the monkeys ruled Darkplace, how they'd taken over. '" "They've taken over." "Oh, no!" "Oh, Jesus!" "'They've taken over!" "They've taken over!" "'" "I know!" "Why's Liz here?" "The clan rejected her." "She'd been mauled when I found her, the brutes!" "What shall we do, Reed?" "Blow me if I know!" "God, I'm parched." "I need water." "Look, Dag, maybe we shouldn't do anything." " What do you mean?" " This hospital's running well despite all this." "What do you mean?" "No-one takes days off, everyone grooms each other." "The doctors are literally working for peanuts." "Within a year, financial problems will be history!" "We can build that children's wing." "Think about it, Rick." "The Darkplace Dagless Kiddy Wing." " What we've always dreamed about." " Not this way, Reed." "It's barbaric." "I want it too, but now most of those kids are chimps." "That's my priority." "You're a fool!" "You're a fool to walk away from this!" "A fool!" "You're a fool!" "You're a fool!" "You're a flippin' fool!" " Would you like some water?" " I don't have time to drink... .. I'll grab a coffee instead..." "Would you like a drink..." "I don't have time to drink this water... water... water... water..." "'I still haven't had a glass of water." "'Wait!" "It is the water!" "'" "Don't drink it!" "It's green!" "Thank God I only took a tiny sip." "Someone or something has tampered with our water supply." "I'll go to the water storeroom." "I've a hunch whoever or whatever he or she or it is will be there." "I'll stay and recuperate as fast as I can." "Two, three, four... five?" "Oh, yeah, I shot Duncan." "Hang tight." "The reason..." "Reed survives is I only take a tiny sip." "There's that line "Thank God I only took a tiny sip. "" "If you take a tiny sip of this, you're all right." "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards." "OK?" "What I was asking in that scene is:" "if politicians pay doctors peanuts, could they literally turn into monkeys?" "No-one's asked that before." "..." "Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink." "Coleridge, Samuel T." "'Here I found the fiendish fount of this fear." "'An apeloid micturating - which means urinating - 'on my erstwhile - former - buddy. '" "'I had a hunch this guy was the head honcho. '" "Quillababno!" "Yaven!" "Yaven!" "On di bika." "Ha ha ha!" "I thought I'd lost you back there!" "You know me, Dag." "I'm too busy just stayin' alive!" " Pull over!" " Um gettawa!" "Pull over!" "Gettawa!" "Shit!" "Monkey drivers!" "Yaven!" "Yaven!" "Quillababno!" "Take this!" "I'm sweating now." "If you... use antiperspirant it clogs up your pores." "If you clog up your pores you sweat elsewhere, on your tongue, under your ears, on the forehead." "Block all those with antiperspirant, you get a breath problem." "That's just... fact, scientific fact." "If you block up everything you'll sweat inside and get cancer." "That which died in my arms should never have walked on God's earth." "Agreed." "So, what was it, Dag?" "A blasphemy, a demented monkey man, hellbent on dragging us back into the Stone Age." "'Give us a detailed explanation. '" "'He was once a scientist who specialised in human evolution." "'He discovered he could access mankind's 'atavistic tendencies, use them for malevolent schemes." "'He developed a serum extracted from gibbons' gonads - 'passed through chimps' balls at light speed, it turned men into monkeys." "'He contaminated our water." "'I developed an antidote, so everyone's normal. '" "Thankfully, he didn't succeed." "We saw the beast in us." "True but if you mention my shit in Dag's car, you get the thick end of the wedge." " OK, Liz." "No need to go ape." " Hey!" "I thought I told you!" "She's going bananas!" "Yeah, it is funny." "'We laughed to protect ourselves, to mask the awful horror, 'although I thought what Reed said about Liz going bananas was witty." "'Each man must acknowledge his beast, 'whether through sport or violent films." "'But a man must not let his beast be his master, 'otherwise you're no better than Bill Wyman. '" "I called..." "Madeleine Wool "Menagerie Wool"!" "I've always been good with words." "She was like a zoo in a woman." "You won't get an animal impersonator like her again." "It's so hard to watch this episode knowing she's missing, presumed dead." "With the presumption heavily on dead." "I don't think they'll find anything." "But, then again, she was like a candle in the wind." "Unreliable." "I was typing and I had this block and suddenly I heard a voice - "Come here. "" "And it was Madeleine." "And she spoke to me, and she said " ""Garth..." ""that sentence needs a verb. "" "And she was right." "And she said, "That's inelegant. "" "And then very quietly she went." "And I..." "lit a joss stick... .. and prayed." "Through the years" "You never let me down" "You've turned my life around" "The sweetest days I've found" "I've found with you" "Through the years" "I've never been afraid" "I love the life we've made" "And I am so glad I stayed" "Right here with you..." "I reckon she's in the Eastern Bloc." "That's my hunch." "You think she's still alive, then?" "No, I think she's just buried in the Eastern Bloc." "If she got a burial." "'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a Garth Marenghi production 'in association with Dean Learner. '"