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[b]March 20th, 2005
00:00[/b]

Wisps of smoke bellowed off the cigar that hung from the red beast's lip as he bounced around in the back of an enclosed truck towards his destination. He had always hated this part. The truck that is, of course. The transport truck has always been too cramped for him. He was big. Whoever designed this thing must have had something against him. His tail was at the most awkward angle, and with every bump his filed down horns banged against the roof of the container. At least they let him smoke in here. There weren't many places he could say that anymore. Humans had seen to that. He liked humans. He even claimed to love one or two in his life. But their war against a good stogie was something he considered a personal slight.

"Red," Liz Sherman said from the cab up front, "we're pulling up to the house now. We're going to pull into the garage to keep you out of sight."

"Copy," Hellboy responded into the commlink. One of the...benefits of being a secret government asset was that he had to stay, well, secret. That meant no unauthorized contact with the outside world, no witnesses at the scene, and no trips to Disneyland. He was still incredibly bitter about that one. He was lucky he had people like Liz in SHADE with him or he might have gone crazy by this point. She was like the little sister he never knew he wanted. But now he couldn't live without her.

He felt the truck lurch to a stop an heard the garage door close behind them. He opened the hatch of the truck and stepped into the cramped, suburban garage, his trenchcoat flowing behind him. Hellboy sighed at the site of the home he was in. He didn't understand why humans wanted to live separated from one another like this. If he was human, he'd live in the city, where there was so much life, not in his own little castle that looked like all the others on the block.

"Thinkin' about how much you dislike the suburbs again?" Liz gave him a sideways look as she got out of the truck. Her brown hair fell down to her chin, and around her neck was the crusafix she always wore, given to her by her parents years ago.

"It's creepy," he shrugged. "Let's go, we have work to do."

They passed into the main part of the house, which was crawling with SHADE agents. One thing Red had to admit about the change from the BPRD to SHADE was that they had way more manpower. The bureaucracy was hell, but they had the men to make a difference now.

The ceiling in the main room dripped of blood. The entire thing had been soaked in it from above. The thick, sweet smelling liquid dripped into buckets below. The entire family was dead, along with three others in this sleepy little town. All in suspect ways. The first victim, Tina Grey, was apparently dragged to her ceiling by an unseen force before being ripped to shreds. Of course no one believed her juvy boyfriend when he told anyone. Not until tonight at least. Once these poor souls lost their life, SHADE was given the assignment.

"You ever see anything like this?" one of the agents asked as he wiped his mouth. He had been adding some of his own fluids to a spare bucket.

"I've seen worse, surprisingly," Hellboy grunted as he smelled some of the blood. It was normal, mostly. Mix of three people. But more of it than there should be. It was tinged slightly with something foul, however. Red couldn't put his finger on it, but he would, in time.

"No witnesses, right?" Liz asked hopefully.

"Nothing," the queasy agent shook his head. "Security footage shows everyone was asleep. Then this."

He motioned to the blood. Red took a drag of his cigar before opening a comm to SHADE headquarters, "Abe, you up?"

"Of course," the voice of Hellboy's best friend Abe Sapien replied. "You didn't think I'd want to miss out hearing about all the fun, did you?"

"Yea, it's a regular carnival down here," Hellboy mumbled as he crossed over into the boy's room where everything went down. The everything was red with caked on blood. It rand down the walls, revealing some of the white paint below, like a bone fractured through the skin. He could smell the foul taint in the blood even better here. It was hatred. Pure, unfiltered hatred filled the room. It was overpowering. Whatever the thing was that was killing people in this town, it had a grudge for doing so. "I need some info. Demon or a spirit. Killing people in their sleep. From the looks of things, it enjoys it. Real flair for the dramatic. Has the feel of a grudge."

"Hm, sounds like it could be a Dream Demon." Hellboy could hear Abe begin ruffling through the multitude of books he kept in his library. While Hellboy had a natural affinity for paranormal knowledge, Abe was far more interested in it. All Red wanted to know was where to stick the pointy end of his weapons. Abe wanted to know everything he could about their world. Hellboy had to consider that noble, or something. "Though I've never heard of them taking an interest in some place so mundane. What did you say the town's name was?"

"Springwood. Ohio," Hellboy replied, walking back out of the room and sitting down on the top step. Outside he saw the people of the community crowded behind the police line. Some were crying. Some were angry. All of them were scared. As Hellboy's father used to say, "There are things that go bump in the night. We're the ones that bump back." It was a creative way to say the BPRD, and now SHADE, was here to make sure people didn't have to fear these kinds of creeps. The superheroes could take care of HYDRA and the new Red Skull, even if Hellboy himself wanted a piece of them. He hated Nazis.

"Red," Liz emerged from the room and handed him a blood-soaked book. She had smeared the front away, revealing the words "Dream Journal". She nodded towards it as she handed it over, "Read the last few pages. They all say the same thing."

Hellboy flipped through the sticky, saturated pages until he came to the end. There, he read the boy's scribbled, frantic handwriting.

[i]One, two
Freddy's comin' for you.
Three, four
Better lock your door.
Five, six
Grab a crucifix.
Seven, eight
Gonna stay up late.
Nine, ten
Never sleep again.[/i]

[center][b][color=red]Hellboy and the BPRD
in
The Dream Warriors[/color][/b][/center]