Dr. Emerald Bruttenholm is the sole survivor of the Blackwood massacre and is taken to the BPRD to help them investigate the attack. She takes the meeting with the paranormal creatures surprisingly well because deep down she has secrets of her own...
It was the middle of the night, and elderly Mrs. Fanny Wilkes had once again been wakened from sleep by the barking of her neighbour's new dog. Grumbling to herself about ill-trained pooches and their inconsiderate masters, she put on a dressing gown and made her way downstairs to her pristine kitchen. Even in the dark, the large refrigerator seemed to gleam in the faint street light that filtered through the curtains.
Brewing a cup of chamomile tea to soothe her angry nerves, she sat down at the counter to contemplate the miserable state of her formerly peaceful neighbourhood. Lately, the quiet suburb of Manhattan had been buzzing with wild rumours, and people seemed to go out of their way to be nosier than usual. The Bruttenholm house was at the centre of it all.
She had never really liked the odd little professor and his strange daughter who was the apple of his eye. Their house was an unbearable sight to her, with its overgrown garden and neglected hedges. "More of an Amazonian tangle than a garden!" she thought vindictively. Her repeated admonitions to the professor to maintain the tasteful standard of the neighbourhood always fell on deaf ears. On top of this, he had the audacity to mumble about faerie creatures living among his unruly, dried out bushes! Mrs. Fanny looked upon his daughter with equal abhorrence. It didn't sit well with her that the child was not sent to school like the rest of the neighbourhood kids. Instead, she was doted on, and her strangeness not addressed to her at all. She held the opinion that school would have been better for the girl. Exposure to stern teachers and bullies would serve to straighten out any differences.
The old professor was dead now, and his strange daughter had disappeared without a trace. The empty house had been searched by the FBI only a few months earlier. It had caused much excitement among the housewives, who were delighted to receive attention from the agents investigating the disappearance of Miss Bruttenholm. Rumours of hidden government artefacts and caches of stolen drugs floated around. Some suggested elopement. Mrs. Fanny, of course, was too shrewd to believe such tittle-tattle. The girl had grown up to become a rather pretty woman, always dressed respectably in her work suits but for all that, her strangeness was not hidden. Her clandestine departure had something to do with her line of work. She had learnt long ago that the professor had been fired from the Blackwoods museum for promoting unpopular theories. She was sure that the younger Bruttenholm must have followed the same course, and that had been the cause of her disappearance. Only three days previous, police officers had made rounds in the neighbourhood, telling people to be alert and report any suspicious activities concerning the Bruttenholm house.
She stretched over to look out a window, and was surprised to see light inside the ground floor of the Bruttenholm house. She hurriedly left her chair to go up for a better view. There were no cars outside and she had heard nothing that could suggest a break-in. She continued to watch the house and tried to see if she could make out any disturbance. After a half hour had passed, she was unable to bear the suspense any longer, and dialled the local police helpline. When she'd made her report, she was advised to stay inside and not approach the house for any reason.
Mrs. Fanny chewed her tongue angrily, burning with curiosity. Discarding the cup of tea, she instead began to make a pot of coffee. She would wait and keep watch until the police arrived, thinking it shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes.
But nothing happened for over an hour to ease Mrs. Fanny's nosiness – until she saw a large garbage truck arrive, and stop in front of the Bruttenholm house. Well armed soldiers filed out of the truck in an apparent strategic order. Mrs. Fanny watched with avid interest at the sight of a massive form emerging from the truck. This huge man had a sort of great deformity of his right arm, and what incredibly seemed to be a tail, swished from under his long coat. He looked around and was soon joined by a slight woman in a combat suit with a gun holster belted around her slender waist. A bald, official looking man next came out, accompanied by the strangest looking creature, and another black suited man. With a start, Mrs. Fanny realised that she was looking at the underground BPRD team which had recently been reported in the news. The members had come to the rescue when failed experiments had created a ferocious tree-like creature which had rampaged death and destruction in Brooklyn. And the coverage had identified that massive tailed man as 'Hellboy'. Fanny unlocked her window and raised it half open, as quietly as possible.
The newcomers seemed to be in deep discussion. Hellboy was the one to walk up to ring the doorbell. The armed men positioned outside the house stiffened in the shadows. Mrs. Fanny, her head partly out her window, watched the door open from the inside, and the young Miss Bruttenholm appeared! Without invitation, Hellboy walked past her. She stood at the doorway as the other four members of the company walked in too. Without closing the door behind them, she ran inside.
Try as she might, Mrs. Fanny couldn't hear much from that house, except for some indistinct cries. Shortly after, two of the armed men in the shadows went inside and came out again, dragging an unconscious man who was dressed in a strange dark costume. She couldn't see his face, as his long blond hair was curtained over it. Miss Bruttenholm ran out of the house, but was grabbed back by Hellboy. It was only now that Fanny noticed she was clothed much like the long haired man who had just been taken to the truck. The slight female was beside them and appeared to try calming her. Soon after, all were outside the house, leaving it dark once more. One by one, they boarded the truck. The black suited agent was the last among them. He carried a strange object in his hand - a short rod with a blade. Under the fluorescent glow of the street lamp, his smile of triumph was unmistakable.
The garbage truck rumbled back to life and in a matter of moments, was gone. Mrs. Fanny remained clutching her windowsill, too confused to make sense of anything she had seen.
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