Author note: Hopefully this story will live up to my last Hellboy fanfiction. Been toying with it for months, building it upon a strange series of nightmares. Reviews, both good and bad, are more than welcome. If anything is not true to comic, please inform me. I do not own Hellboy, Liz, Kate or anything else BPRD. Everything else, however, is out of my own twisted head.

Chapter 1: A screaming head

Abe sat in the old library at the BPRD reading a classic piece of literature. Not much had been happening lately, him and Red had spent the last few days more or less hanging out. Abe read his books, swam about in his tank and took some time to slow down and enjoy life.Red, on the other hand, was restless.

Abe peered over the top of the pages with his amphibian eyes. He watched as a red tail thrashed under a large brown coat.

"Everyone but the stupid poet and the stupid goat die."

"Damn it, Red." Abe tossed his book ontothe antique table. "Accept the fact that you're getting a break. Only two months ago you were complaining about being too busy."

Hellboy glared at Abe, the book, then Abe once more. The book sat with the cover facing down revealing a multitude of dog-eared pages. A disconcerted breath escaped him and he left the library. Abe resumed the novel at a random page. Hellboy left Abe to destroy his book; to dog-ear a book bothered him, even if it was merely a cheap paperback.

Abe struggled to find his place among the dog-ears, rapidly flipping through the pages for a chapter about a coin turned into a dry leaf. Many more disruptions and he would never find his place again.

Hellboy stood in silence, facing into a large glass cabinet full of old relics he had gathered throughout his travels. A clock hand (1), crumbled bowls, old bones, relics and statues of elder Gods to name a few. Each and every one of these objects had some sort of special meaning to him, a good storyand at least one corresponding injury. Over sixty years lay before him in neatly placed rows, a gruesome collection that would have many museum curators begging for a peek.

The screaming skull had been his last acquisition, the voice of which drove two agents insane and drove a third to suicide. The skull had washed up from a shipwreck and caused the death of several shepherds and their flocks on a small Greek island. Had it really only been two weeks ago he'd retrieved it?

The skull began to shake in it's iron bonds, the bars were too tight, the horseshoes welded too firm to allow its' escape. The researchers at the BPRD had better figure out how to destroy it. It had proven impervious to his stone right hand. His yellow eyes focused on the empty sockets of the skull, the emptiness seemed to focus back at him. Someone had to destroy its power before it escaped.

As Hellboy stared at the vibrating skull, another member of the BPRD approached him from behind. Her delicate hand rested on Hellboys' left arm.

"Skeleton in your closet?"

"The ocean is my best guess."

"Kate and I will go with you." Hellboy opened his mouth to speak. "I know you're thinking it, HB. You always have all the fun on missions, I want to get in on the good times."

"You think that falling from high places and getting wounded or eaten by monsters on nearly every mission is a FUN thing?" Hellboy paused to catch his thoughts. "There are no missions."

"Ten minutes ago you would have been right. A couple of 'important' hikers went missing while touring some old ruins." Liz pulled a manila envelope from behind her. "Poland, Red. When was the last time you were in Poland?"

Hellboy nodded toward a mummified human leg with a hideous face grafted onto it. Liz read out the untidy writing on a piece of aged duct tape beneath it.: "Fachan. Poland, March, 1968."

Hellboy sat in the plane reading. His eyes darted from an ancient leather-bound and moth-eaten manuscript to a laser-printed email message from the British Society for Research of Paranormal Activity (BSRPA). Professor Corrigan scanned a large map, laid out under Hellboys' own stack of papers.

Liz lay sprawled out on a makeshift chair, idly twirling an unlit cigarette between her slim fingers. A stack of papers on Eastern European hiking trails with annotations courtesy of the late Professor Bruttonholm lay scattered, largely unread, on her lap. The roar of the planes' engine was only met by the occasional turning of pages from the other two agents. Kate wasn't saying much, yet mentioned nearly becoming fuel for a giant human-fat monster.(2) Liz dropped the cigarette, now soggy from the sweat on her palms.

"Rest a bit. You'll need it." Stated Kate, her compass expertly tracing lines on the map while she spoke. "Now if we travel by van from this small town here, to Owsgmina, we should remain largely undetected and arrive close enough that were only in the van for four hours."

Liz rolled her eyes.

"Readying to land. Prepare for decent" pierced the relative silence.

During some minor turbulence, Hellboy scanned the interior of the plane for first aid equipment and was unremarkably disappointed at the sight of a kit the size of a child's lunchbox next to several large trunks of weapons, explosives and defenses against the occult. The BPRD must think him indestructible.

Moments later, the plane touched down on a remote airstrip.

1 Esthers' Home, Hellboy fanfic by me

2 Hellboy, Almost Colossus. Mignola.