Night draped itself over the area, enshrouding it in a veil, the moon above behind it, not a sound of wolves howling echoed throughout, however, not even a chorus of frogs. Only silence lingered in the area. The only light came from the mental hospital's windows, looking like floating lanterns in the distance.
Draped in the darkness, Theodore and Lila took a gamble, hurrying over the grassy knoll, towards the blocked off window on the other side of the building.
Checking their surroundings, they don't see any security cameras, not even a guard, though they won't step foot outside at night.
A twist of his wrist, Theodore undid the bars on Lovett's window, gently resting them on the side as Lila helped opened the window.
She's about to jump inside with Theodore when she felt that same feeling she did before with the Plague Doctor.
Phantom eyes leering at her from the darkness.
More.
Multiple phantom eyes.
As quickly as the feeling came, it suddenly disappeared, and Theodore yanked her inside, but to their surprise, Lovett's not in his room.
He's gone.
Al showed up on time, ready to take his place, but baffled as they are until Theodore had him check.
He said that Lovett's in solitary.
"Why?" Lila asked him.
Shrugging his polka dotted puffy shoulders, Al says that it wasn't on record. Not even a shorthand reference to an incident.
"They don't want to make this easy, do they?" Theodore sighed as he realized it wasn't going to be as easy as he hoped, but it's the life, and he asked Al if he can at least help Lila with her trickery.
"Kid, I'm an expert at trickery!" Al chortles as he pointed at himself that he's the master at the art, hell, he tricked them two plenty enough without them realizing.
Glaring looks aside, Theodore told him that he didn't wanted the security guards getting close to the solitary confinement cell. He'll reach out once he finds Lovett.
"Got it, stay safe kid, my radar is going haywire," Al warned that he picked up multiple life forms outside the building, but he's having a hard time tracking them. They're moving erratically and at a speed improbable to an animal.
Nodding, Theodore tells him and Lila the same, before they broke off into their respected missions.
With Al's help, if there's any security cameras, they won't pick up on Theodore, and any security guard won't go his way, they'll move on to another area because of a radio call.
Cautiously moving around, Theodore followed the signs towards the solitary confinement cell, mindful of any sudden movements, his hearts beating at a higher rate than normal.
The things he does for the good.
He ended up stopping at one of the rooms, peeking in through the slots in the door, looking in, seeing a patient laying on their bed, asleep.
They're not in REM sleep, Theodore's certain, knocked out by the sedative.
Moving on, Theodore continued until he gotten close to the solitary confinement cells, checking each one.
Tommy's in the first one he found, sedated, sprawled out on the bed.
Frowning, Theodore forced himself to move on to the next one, empty, and moved on to the one over until he found Lovett.
He's still awake and Theodore reached out to him.
Turning his head, Lovett responded that Dr. Hans isn't a nice man, didn't bother to offer tea with the sedative.
"He sedated you?" Theodore raised his brow at Lovett telling him this and he nodded before he said that the sedatives Dr. Hans used didn't work on him.
With a twist, Theodore opened the cell door and Lovett stepped out, wobbling a little before he righted himself.
"I do believe he wanted to kill me," Lovett noted that Dr. Hans desperately wanted Lovett out of the picture, but alas for him, the sedatives and maybe a few shots of poison didn't kill Lovett as expected.
Peculiar, indeed, for Theodore!
Theodore inquired where Dr. Hans went and Lovett replied that last he isn't sure, but if he knew the man well, he would've left with the others.
He knows what's about to happen.
"Can they be stopped?" Theodore asks him as they began their foray, moving around attempting to retrieve Lovett's things.
As he moved with Theodore, his dark eyes moving around while they're traveling through the hallways, Lovett replied that he encountered a trio living in the mountains. Came down every spring, replenishing their need for nightshade by feasting on wild deadly nightshade plants growing at the foot of the mountains, cultivated by their mother figure for their uses.
They're highly adaptive to the change in oxygen levels, but it could've just been the delirium compounded from the nightshade impeding their ability registering the changes, Lovett noted.
"I know that when we dealt with them, she suggested we used a combination of Physostigmine and Pilocarpine, we couldn't inject them, their skins' tough, so we turned them into powder bombs, made them flee," Lovett noted an instance he encountered the female variants.
Catching on, Theodore asks more about Lovett, how he knew so much, him insisting that he needed his things the other night, and the mystery woman he briefly mentioned.
Lovett didn't tell him anything and pushed him onward, until they found the room leading into the area where the patients' things and contraband turned up.
No one inside, there's a security camera, but it didn't pick up on them as they moved around looking for Lovett's things.
Sorting through the boxes, looked through the lockers, the two broke off as they scoured, until Lovett recovered his ring, immediately putting on his ring finger. A simple brass band that's marred by faint scratches.
Seeing this, Theodore asked, "You're married?"
Nodding, there's a small smile on Lovett's face as he responded that he's been married for about fifteen years, now, his beloved's waiting for his return.
Theodore congratulated him and Lovett thanked him before Theodore asked about his wife, but he wouldn't tell him anything short of a name.
"Not yet," Lovett tells him.
He scoured for his clothes, finding them, and Theodore gave him privacy as he switched out into his proper attire.
A dark green sleeveless vest over a white dress shirt, dark brown stitched trousers, a long loose dusty leather coat, and a leather messenger bag slung over his side.
Running his hand through his hair, Lovett sighed that he wished they'd let him cut his hair, at least, he hadn't been able to do anything with it for weeks since they've got him locked up.
Now, with everything back in his possession, Lovett dug through his messenger bag, grabbing his journal, something he picked up doing recently as a hobby, and as promised, went through it, thumbing pages, until he gotten to a chapter he wrote.
"When we encountered them, we came to realize, they're intelligent, capable of their own language, but the regression in their vocal chords made it difficult for them speaking like you and me. Only their mother's capable of full speech. Their father only guttural his words in spurts. It took time, but we discovered the phonetics and went from there. The males referred to themselves as the… Drekker… Dre-keh-ker… and the females referred to themselves as the… Sabbek… Sah-bah-beck…" Lovett gave Theodore the names of the species.
Sabbek and Drekker, Lovett says he doesn't know much about their spoken language, he never learnt it, never will, they'll sooner tear him apart than try. Body language, he found difficult reading, but the little cues he sees in the Patriarch helped him eke out a guide for those who ended up amid their like.
"Where did they come from, how did humans turn into them?" Theodore wanted to know where they came from and how they came into existence in the first place, but Lovett frowned as he said that he doesn't know.
He's been trying, purely because of the present dangers they garner wherever they go, only appearing on variations of habitable Earth, that much he knows.
"I've been studying them for quite some time, trying to understand. In my years, I've never encountered anything like them before, and I've encountered many things," Lovett summed why he became interested in the Drekker and Sabbek.
It's bizarre, considering what he witnessed over the years of his life, but something about them drew his attention, and his desire helping others deal with their kind.
There's no chance he can broker peace, that much's certain, due to the copious amounts of nightshade ingested, the instinct to hunt, they'll never consider peace as an option.
People throwing their ill and lame at the Drekker's the only thing they understand and doubly allowing them to take who they want for their own.
Waging wars against them's impossible, despite their nomadic life, kill one, thousands follow.
Lovett wanted to find the source of their kind and hopefully by then, he'd learn enough that he's able to change the course of history, preventing their existence tenfold.
"Trust me, I've been doing my all since I started my journal," Lovett wearily sighed as he rubbed his eyes, remembering the toiling he did writing countless chapters in his journal.
That said, they have much to do, and with the knowledge of the powdery mix Lovett and his wife created, they went on in search for the two components needed.
In theory, once the powdery bombs went off, the Sabbek retreats to safety, they'll reel for hours, and Theodore asks if they'll go away after exposure, but Lovett didn't want to count too early, as he says.
"They're determined going after whoever they picked. Those picked will just get taken later if they can't get them, then. However, they'll sooner give up going after someone like you if they're given a choice," Lovett warns that the Sabbek aren't easily swayed if they're on the hunt for their chosen quarry.
Even if they have to retreat, now, they'll come around again, trying their hands once more.
If someone like Theodore, who they'll never consider as theirs, uses the bombs against them during a confrontation, they'll flee.
Strong as they are, they don't want the risk of expending their energy for quarry they can't take.
Thus, came to the unsound conclusion.
Let the Sabbek come and take the ones they want.
Use the powdery substances Lovett's capable of making to keep them away afterwards, at least until morning.
It'll be blue skies tomorrow, they won't come out, and with their quarry, they won't come around the hospital for a while.
It's not something Theodore wanted to hear, but Lovett responded that it's the lesser of two evils.
Rather risking the lives of the other patients, letting the Sabbek take their picks and drive them away's their only true option.
Lovett wished it were different, but he encountered them enough he's certain there's no other options to them.
They risked the Sabbek becoming enraged and start killing everything around them and they're effective with their metallic talons that there's no chance they'll save a soul, then.
"I found that when the towns that let them roam, picking off what they considered dregs of their societies, they become complacent and only react when it's their own that become prey. When they attempt at taking up arms in efforts of protecting themselves, they feel the same terror as the victims did. By then, it's too late. They've been wiped out by the enraged species and their towns turn to relics of the past," Lovett gave insight on what they expect if they attempted violently removing the Sabbek from the mental hospital.
Many ghost towns have their stories, but Lovett found hidden ghost towns, covered up by those who knew, destroyed after the remaining townspeople realized the creatures' they've let roam so long turn their sights on them, now.
Panicked, afraid, they did what any would, trying to fight them off, but the flocks descended on them in minutes, tearing them into nothing. The ground soaked with blood.
Hearing how they'll have to let the chosen patients go with the Sabbek to prevent them from killing the others, made Theodore question Lovett's plan, inquiring if he's certain the Sabbek would leave willingly once they collect their quarry.
"They've done this many times, they don't expect resistance," Lovett explained to Theodore that they've grown complacent themselves.
They won't expect someone like Theodore putting up a fight, but they'll turn violent swiftly when there's quarry they want.
Chewing on his inner lip, Theodore couldn't believe what he's hearing, but Lovett insisted that it's the only way for everyone to come out alive.
"But I promise, the recipe we created's capable of sending them running, it won't hurt them. It'll disorient them long enough for you to flee. I'd be careful of using it if their mother's around, she won't be affected by it, and she's much stronger than they are," Lovett warned that the recipe he and his wife created against the Sabbek won't affect the Matriarch.
Since it doesn't hurt them, they won't turn violent against Theodore, but it'll disorient them for at least half an hour to a few hours depending how Theodore configures the recipe to suit his needs.
His mind racing, Theodore conceded that Lovett knew more than he let on, and that he wouldn't pull one over him.
Doesn't make it any easier, though.
"Fine, say we let them take what they want, what then?" Theodore looked at him as they turned a corner.
Lovett replied, "We'll just have to pick up the pieces."