"And then out of the corner of my eye, I see golden orbs staring…"

All of Charlotte 's friends 'Ooo' as she continued to tell her story of the floating gold eyes. She brought them over later on in the evening so her mother wouldn't find out why her and her brother came home so early and so out of breath.

"For a split second, I thought I saw…"

"What? Saw what?!"

"Red."

Her friends had looks of non-belief as she answered, but one still asked, "So…you think it was him?"

She looked at her questioning friend's face curiously. "Who?"

"Hellboy."

"What's a Hellboy?"

Her friends had to stifle their laughs so they wouldn't wake her mother. "You don't know about Hellboy?" She shook her head slowly from side to side. "No. Tell me about him."

Her friend explained that Hellboy was a creature from (obviously) hell. He was the only son of the devil himself, who escaped his home and was taken in by a male human. He grew up and sixty years later…

"…He now protects our city as Hellboy."

Charlotte stared. "You not being serious, are you?" They all nodded in response. She shook her head and cleared her throat. "Listen, Hellboy is not real. He just isn't. I mean, how could you NOT notice a 6 foot 5 red guy running around New Jersey---"

A loud bang made all the girls scream and grab for each other. Charlotte heard her mother's snoring stop and the bed creak. That was bad. "Guys, my mom's getting up! HIDE!" She whispered furiously as the girls scrambled in the closet and under her bed. Her mother just walked in as her other friend hid behind the door. She opened it slowly; her eyes had dark bags under them.

"Did you hear that?"

"H-hear what?"

Her mother looked at her suspiciously. "Never mind." She slowly closed the door. Charlotte heard it click and whispered to her friends to come out. They all carefully came out of their hiding spots. "What WAS that noise?" Charlotte shrugged in response and looked out her window. She gasped. Her mother's car was gone, and all that looked left was one of her rims. "This is bad…really, really bad." One of her friends grabbed her shoulder, "What's bad Char? What's wrong?"

"My mom's car is gone."

"Oh. Ouch. That is bad. What are you going to do?"

Charlotte looked around her room quickly and spotted her brother's old little league bat. "That'll do." She grabbed it and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?!"

"To find out where my mom's car went."

She opened her door quietly and turned around again to look at her friends. "Leave as soon as you know it's safe. Call me when you all get home." She shut the door before any of them could respond and raced down the stairs towards the front door. She paused for a second before opening the door and stepping outside in only her shirt and SpongeBob boxers, thinking how bad of a idea this was, and that if her mother were to catch her, she wouldn't be allowed outside for the next 6 months.

``````````

"I should' of put on a juh-juh-jacket…" She squeezed her shoulders and rubbed her hands together for friction as she slowly made her way to where her mother's car should have been. She bent down and looked for any signs of broken glass or a tool used to break the windows, but there was nothing. "How stru-stru-strange." She picked up the rim, while still holding the bat, and rolled it around her frozen fingers. It didn't look as if it popped off; it looked more like someone ripped it off the tire itself. But there was no one in New J that she knew who could do that. Unless…

She shook her head. "Hellboy is NOT real. He's juh-juh-juh---" Another loud bang broke the silence in the air. Charlotte snapped her head up and looked around. There was no one on the street. It was dead. She rose carefully and looked around while backing up toward her door. She knew this was a bad idea, and now she was hearing things. She was just going to go back inside, make some cheap hot chocolate, crawl back into bed, and pretend none of this actually happened.

Something growled at her from her left.

Her legs started to shake and then locked on her. Her bat fell from her hand and rolled away. She felt hot tears crawl down her face and drip from her chin. "Pl-please, whatever the Heh-heh-hell you are…please just leave me-me alone." She pleaded, while trying to reach out to grab her doorknob. She screamed in her mind to get her legs moving, but with no prevail. A large black shadow leaped out of one of the alleys and landed on top of her, pressing her body to the ground with such force, that she lost her breath. She looked up and felt her eyes widen.

It was a monster.

It had large icy-blue eyes that held her still. Beneath them was an opened mouth, with many sharp dark teeth smiling down at her. The head had no real shape, just huge jutting horns at the top of its forehead, which gave it an awkward shape. Its black raptor talons squeezed at her shoulders, making her cry out. A purple tongue slid out between it's teeth and slapped down on the side of her face, sitting there for a mere second before moving up to her head, trying to taste for an open wound. It slid down to her shoulder and stopped. She heard, from what she could tell, was a low, dark chuckle. The tongue slid into her wound and began to suck on her. She screamed out. Hoping somebody, anybody could hear her. The monster pressed harder on her shoulder, pushing more blood out, and making her scream louder.

"Haven't you heard that no means no?"

Charlotte and the monster both moved their heads in the direction of the voice. She gasped quietly at the sight before her before she herself knocked unconscious.

"Hellboy."

Hellboy's POV

The bastard had already begun to snack on the girl by the time I finished getting out of that car. I fuckin' hated it when they cheated. I pulled out the Samaritan and pointed it towards the asshole.

"Listen buddy, we can do this the easy way---"

He grabbed the girl in his mouth and jumped away. Why did they never listen? I tucked the Samaritan back into my coat and ran after him. I followed the large puddles of blood leaking from the girl. She was wounded badly, I had to get her back to HQ before he decided to stop and finish his snack. I had turned another corner and slid to a stop. "Come on now pal, let's not make this diffi----"

A scream pierced the night and stopped me in my tracks.

I had no time to waste now, the beast was going to eat her alive. I stopped and pulled out a chain of holy symbols. I held each one to my head, one at a time, and hummed, mumbled, and sung the songs that would lead me to the cannibal. I suddenly felt a pull to the left. Found you. I opened my eyes and looked to see an ancient serpent perpetually hissing in my direction. "So, you're Greek, huh?" I followed the pulling serpent chain till I stopped in a dark, dank alley. There was a loud crunch and growl as I stepped forward. I looked into the alley and stood shocked. The girl's pale white face stared blankly in my direction. But, it wasn't that that stopped me. A chunk of her shoulder and hand was gone. All that was left was a large puddle of blood pooling around her body. The beast creeped over her half-gone arm with one of her fingers hanging in its mouth. Blood slowly dripped from its long teeth. I gripped the Samaritan tightly in my right hand as I felt Abe's words come rushing back in my head.

As much as I know you would like to blow the creature's inner brains on the cement, bring it back alive for inspection… and please Red, try to show some humanity…

Humanity?

The dark form pushed away the girl's carcass, like it was a used toy, and slinked slowly towards me, as if thinking that I wasn't going to kill it.

Please Red, show some humanity.

I snatched the Samaritan from my belt and raised it right at the filth that walked towards me.

"Humanity? I'll show you some fuckin' humanity."

The blast from the Samaritan rang down 4 blocks and started 10 car alarms.