What The Hell?

Brazil Rainforest

May 12, 1998

"Hey Abe, why am I down in the freakin' middle of a rainforest again?" Hellboy asked, his hand holding down his ear to he could better hear his earpiece communicator.

"Locals reported paranormal activity in the general vicinity. Besides, you always said you wanted a vacation," Abe replied. Hellboy could only imagine his grinning blue face talking to him from behind a microphone.

"A vacation would've been nice, if I wasn't stuck in a third world country on job assignment. And now we're going on crazy local superstition. Sounds real professional." Hellboy ducked under an overhanging vine, yet it still got caught on his stumps for horns. Maybe he needed to shave them again. However, there was still no easy way to avoid tripping over every stump in the forest.

"The reports stated that spirits and other entities are traveling throughout the rainforest. Almost like they're converging to a specific location," Abe explained. This did nothing to improve the infuriated demon's mood. First he had to travel in a cramped airplane for sixteen hours. Then he had to hitch a ride in a jeep older than himself, which traveled across the pothole road capital in the world. And if that wasn't enough, he then had to trample through a rainforest, which wasn't the easiest walk in the park. If it wasn't for his natural ability to be resistant to high temperatures he probably would've died of a heat stroke. And none of that takes into account every blasted insect buzzing around his head.

But all of that wasn't his problem at the moment. The only lead he had was a map from the sixties and north as his general guiding direction. After a couple more hours of mindless wandering trying to discover the spirit hotspot, Hellboy finally found something promising. "Hey Abe, got something interesting over here."

"Interesting how?"

"You know, usual creepy temple of doom type of stuff. Ghosts must be cooped up in there." It was indeed the typical evil temple stereotype, door depicting a skull's mouth filled with razor sharp teeth; gray with what seemed like fresh blood splattered against the walls. And of course it had to be stuck deep in a deadly forest, hidden by shadows and sunk low to the ground. "Why does it seem each sacrifice temple has the same style?"

"Same architect probably. Go in there and do some ghost busting."

"You do know that movie came out over a decade ago?"

"Just get into the creepy temple." Hellboy held in a snicker and approached the demonic-like doors. Eying the mystical markings lining the door, he began to mutter them under his breath.

"Hmm, those who enter will be cursed for all of eternity, blah blah blah, demonic possession, blah blah blah, sacrifice to dark master only on Tuesdays. Seriously Abe, it's so weird how every temple has basically the same message on it. Even the Tuesday part."

"Tuesday is seen as a day of evil in many cultures. You'd think it'd be Monday, but surprisingly not." Yet another fact Abe collected in that fish head noggin of his. Hellboy definitely needed to get him out Bureau headquarters sometime.

Winding his right arm up, Hellboy prepared a polite knock on the door to see if anyone's home. The polite knock resulted in his red, stone-like fist punching through the temple doors and collapsing much of the front wall of the temple. "So, anyone home?" he called out over the noise of falling rubble. As expected, the ancient temple remained silent.

"Anyone ever tell you you'd be perfect for UPS?" Abe commented.

"Abe, I'm the one who's supposed to be sarcastic. Now, let's get this show on the road." Fishing a flashlight from the numerous pockets in his coat, the giant red demon made his way down the shadow infused corridors. So far the only unpleasantries he encountered were musty air and the occasional low doorway he banged his head on. He was starting to believe that the inhabitants there were midgets.

Surprisingly, the interior of the temple reached father down than expected from a general assessment of the outside. Plus, the interior decorator was probably the same guy who built the fucked up place. Symbols of unspeakable torture and other acts of similar horror were scrawled along the walls in a long dead language. Hellboy avoided reading it.

Soon murmurs could be heard just over the slight breeze of wind. Also, when did wind suddenly appear in a locked down temple? "Abe, definitely picking up some weird vibes here," Hellboy reported, scanning the never ending corridor he was traveling with the bright beam of his flashlight. "Ghost activity is a go."

"Red, just got some info that could be useful. It appears you stumbled upon a long abandoned shrine of human sacrifice."

"Yeah, already came to that conclusion about five minutes ago," Hellboy replied, rolling his eyes.

"Not just any human sacrifice. It seems that the tribe that built the shrine were worshiping a particular dark God for the sacrifices."

"Just great, another one of those guys to deal with. So, what dark god are we dealing with here? Some weird Mayan one or something?"

"It appears that all records of their god has been destroyed, except for this one piece of text recovered from their culture. 'The one from the sky is our light' is all I could gather." Sure, he'd defeated plenty of evil beings claiming to be a god of some sort, but those guys usually don't go down easy. And with no other team members or even back up, he was screwed if a huge, demonic monster of unimaginable evil suddenly awakened.

Whispering could be heard, with the occasional chill passing through his forearm or leg sending shovers down Hellboy's spine. It seemed the hallway he was trekking down had no end, and the symbols on the walls became even more bloodier and demented in appearance. The carved stone seemed to be painted over with blood, and now the entire floor was the same rusty red. The bloody hand prints alongside the bottom of the walls certainly didn't improve things.

The air itself seemed to shimmer with the overwhelming presence of spirits and ghouls. Cold fingernails caught in is coat and playfully gripped his tail. He could even see his own breath now. "Abe, the ghost congregation here is way above normal. Something unnatural must've brought them all here."

"Seems like all those human sacrifices greatly increased the spirit population. Be prepared for the unexpected."

"Hey Abe, you know I'm always prepared," Hellboy joked.

"Yeah, yeah, red. Just don't get yourself killed."

"Not until you buy me a pizza when I get back." Hellboy ran smack into a stone doorway, unaware that it was even there. Looks like walking endlessly for a long period of time had that affect on someone. "Ugh, Abe, I found something."

Peeling his face from the exceptionally sturdy door before him, he examined what was hopefully the final obstruction to his destination. Following the cliché design of the rest of the temple, demonic symbols of evil transcending all that is good lined the door. Skulls were a common image, along with spots of blood never being bothered to be washed from the grisly stone.

Ghosts could be seen as wisps, their smoke-like forms swirling around Hellboy and their indistinguishable rambling giving the pissed off devil a headache. "Okay then, evil doorway, say hello to my little friend!" he shouted, pounding a basketball sized hole in the door with his gigantic fist. Much of the door crumbled to tiny bits, revealing the sacrifice shrine.

Imagine Hellboy's surprise at the sight. A fully working hot tub of boiling blood in the middle of a circular room with statues of a snarling snake monster surrounding it. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't exactly a hot tub; more like a raised vat with the red liquid bubbling, even though there wasn't any apparent heat source. The snake monster appeared to be dressed in robes of human skin. It was so lifelike that he could imagine the statues rising from their fixed position and attacking him at any minute. Any minute now...

"Red, what do you see?" Abe asked impatiently from the earpiece.

"A shrine with boiling blood and weird stone statues. Nothing unusual so far."

"Careful Hellboy. You never know when-"

"The stone statues will come to life and try to kill me. Yeah, already guessed that from past experiences," Hellboy replied dryly.

"Actually, I was about to comment on how that boiling blood you mentioned is actually a portal to another dimensional plane." A sinister red glow from the vat caught Hellboy's attention.

"Would've been a really good idea to warn me earlier about that," Hellboy shouted, as the blood from the vat began to rise up in a billowing mass of red liquid and bubbles. Hellboy felt himself being pulled towards the the crimson tornado, like gravity turned up a few notches in that direction.

Runes and markings flashed in mere seconds in the red, and tentacles sprouted forth to grab onto the struggling demon. Fighting was no good as even more tentacles appeared to drag him towards the blood. "Abe, what's happening?" Hellboy cried over the din of swirling human life support fluids.

"Portal... to... a.. stop.......... now... Hellboy!" The rest of the words were cut off and static filled his ear. Finally, with a mighty heave, the mass of blood engulfed and swallowed him whole. Hellboy's only regret that he wasn't going to get the pizza Abe owed him anytime soon.

After what seemed like hours spinning around in a suffocating red sea, Hellboy felt himself being spit out like a wad of gum that's lost its flavor. He was resting on his back, all in all no worse for wear. Strangely enough, he didn't have a drop of blood on him. Which just saved him a trip to the cleaners.

Sunlight poured down his face, which irritated him to no end after being stuck in a dank, dark temple for the last few minutes. Blinking rapidly for his vision to get used to the light, he got up to observe his new surroundings. "What the hell?" he whispered to himself.

He sure wasn't in the rainforest anymore. Grassy hills with flower patches dotted the landscape. A forest sprung up behind him, a certain uneasiness could be felt within it. A town seemed to have sprung up in the distance, with smoke from several houses announcing occupancy.

What really irked him was how lively everything seemed. No human pollution, no cars as far as the eye could see. Even the air had a certain freshness quality Hellboy experienced little of. It did nothing to ease his already confused mind.

An explosion could be heard behind him, along with dirt and smoke springing forth from the blast zone. And from the billowing cloud of smoke stood a stationary figure, not moving an inch. It wasn't until the smoke cleared that Hellboy got a good look at what the figure was.

"Well then, nice flames."