My Hero Peter Cushing

My Hero, Peter Cushing

  Matt Molgaard

  “Hey mom, will you leave the door open a little?”

  “Sure I will Tommy. But no more nightmares okay?” She swept her hand through the air, signaling the room’s hideous décor. “Your father will pull all this stuff down if you wake up screaming again. You know he’s not a morning man.”

  The off white of the wall’s paint was shielded by grotesquely contorted visages. Fangs dripped thick crimson while bloodshot eyes leered at Tommy. Here the face of a monster, constructed of ill-matching pieces of flesh and tissue; stitches holding decaying skin loosely together in a nauseating mockery of man, eyed the child blankly. A wolf, with human anguish stretched across its muzzle reached for the boy. Beads of red tinged saliva caked in the creases of its snarled lips. Burnt faces, featureless masks, eyeless sockets… all pinned to the walls of Tommy’s lair. All anxious to issue their unique brand of torture upon the small, helpless child… if not for the confines of mass manufactured prints.

  Tommy’s dresser sat in the east corner of his room, adorned by the creature from the Black Lagoon, who was accompanied by a mummy, whose wrappings had begun to decay, slowly losing their grip on ancient bones. Bela Lugosi, in a long dark cape held a beautiful blonde in his grasp, leaning close to her neck, protruding incisors visible; pinpricks of red covered perfectly white teeth. Lon Chaney Jr. was the Wolfman, tormented in his transformation, caught somewhere between angst and anger. Vincent Price stood slumped, a lonely presence swimming in his eyes; the last man on earth. A disfigured hunchback regarded the top of Tommy’s dresser with an infinite sadness, while the Phantom of the Opera stood tall, overseeing the entire bunch, a nearly palpable power seeping from the hand-painted clay.

  Beside Tommy’s bed stood a nightstand, and there too rested a small army of figurines and miniature statues. A crude imitation of Boris Karloff disguised as Fu Manchu posed with frightening pride. Max Shrek extended long arms and boney fingers; the thirst in Nosferatu’s chilling stare was unmistakable. Christopher Lee turned to look over his shoulder, blood splattered across his cheeks, and behind him, just paces away crouched Tommy’s favorite figure; Peter Cushing, dressed in the suit of the wise Doctor Van Helsing. In his arms rest a buxom brunette, a stake plunged deep into the chest; a wild look in the eyes of the doctor, yet still an evident look of dominance danced in marble corneas.

  For certainties unbeknownst to Tommy, that figure, crafted from clay, fit from a ceramic mold, painted by a single set of hands, always provided a quiet comfort. Perhaps it was the idea of good persevering over evil. Perhaps it was the knowledge of one less blood-sucker lurking beneath the dim glow of the moonlight, exterminated by the mightiest rival of the undead. Perhaps, it was simply the fact that Peter Cushing had been Tommy’s favorite actor since he first witnessed the Englishman portraying the iconic doctor in the Horror of Dracula. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that as long as the good doc remained there on the night stand, forever slaughtering the undead, he was safe; even enveloped in the evening’s darkness.

  “No more nightmares, mom.” He assured her.

  But when Tommy finally fell into deep sleep, he dreamed, and in those dreams, the nightmares came to life.

  *

  He lumbered down a long stone-walled corridor. His feet felt heavy, anchored by an invisible weight that forced a labored shuffle and stifled breathing. Still, he pushed forward, colliding with the walls, battling balance. His shirt had been torn to feeble shreds, and the stone was cold against his exposed arms. A draft nipped at his back and his head swam with uncertainty. He was hungry. It was a strange, random realization, but it was fact. He was hungry, and maybe more so than ever before. His stomach growled, lurched.

  He stopped and leaned against the jagged stones that protruded, unsmoothed from the passages walls. A sharpened shard nicked at his shoulder. A trickle of blood appeared, and oozed slowly down his arm.

  His stomach lurched again.

  A coppery odor immediately filled the air. Tommy jerked his head from side to side, sniffing wildly, seeking the strange scent’s origin. He stared down the hall contently, as though expecting to see the source of the odor manifest before his eyes. Nothing showed itself, but the smell grew stronger, and Tommy’s hunger became a roar preserved for Tommy alone, his confusion uncanny.

  He lunged forward, licking his lips, trying to taste the smell that danced in the claustrophobic chamber. It matched his movement, lingering in his nose, inescapable. Faster he pushed on, head bobbing up and down, constantly sniffing, like a blood-hound on the cusp of discovery.

  “Don’t move!” A voice cried out behind him and his lead filled feet froze in midstride, the left still raised six inches above the dusty floor. He now looked less like a boy and more like a caricature of his former self.

  He turned slowly, recognizing the accent and vocal tone, but refused to believe in his own intuition. It can’t be he thought, as he turned to face the voice. But it was: the one true hero in Tommy’s foreboding world of menace, Peter Cushing.

  Amazingly, he wore the same blue polyester coat (with a brown fur-lined lapel) and dark, blood riddled slacks as that of his small bedside figurine. The same brown dress hat fit snugly atop his head. In his hand he held the stake, clenched so tightly his knuckles whitened. A thick, silver cross swung from his neck and he came to a stop, eyeing Tommy curiously from a distance.

  “There’s no point in running!” He shouted at Tommy.

  Confused, Tommy advanced toward Peter. “How are we supposed to get out of here?” He pleaded. While the thrill of seeing Peter Cushing, just yards away from him in full character was amazing, it was equally dizzying. It made no sense. To be here in this dark corridor, clothing torn to shreds, senses heightened yet so physically drained and so, so very hungry.

  He awaited no response, and Peter Cushing, now in full character, posing under the visage of the legendary Doctor Van Helsing, offered none. He stood completely still as Tommy stumbled forward, clumsily tilting back and forth like a top on the brink of teetering. With the stake at his side, the doctor braced himself, spreading his feet, bending forward at the hips. He seemed ready to leap, and collide with Tommy right there in the passageway, but he did not pounce. Instead, he waited, a bead of sweat pinned just above his brow.

  Tommy slowed to a trot as he met Van Helsing face to face. He still smelled the copper, and somehow he’d run out of breath in just a few paces. “We’ve got to get out-“

  Van Helsing plunged the stake into Tommy’s chest. His movement was swift, and he brought the wooden weapon down with startling speed and accuracy. The point of the stake tore through Tommy’s flesh. His sternum exploded in a hail of blood, cartilage and splintered wood fragments. Blood sprayed from the wound, a projectile missile formed of thick, sticky plasma. It drenched Van Helsing’s face, creating a bloody mess where once pronounced features stood, unmistakable.

  With blood covering Van Helsing’s shirt, face and boney hands, he knelt down. One arm caught the boy, cradling him like a crying baby. A wild expression strained his face. The stakes handle jutted from Tommy’s chest, it too speckled in a splash of dark ruby.

  *

  Tommy woke in a sweat, his pillows drenched from one end to the other, a drying combination of perspiration and drawn out strings of saliva. His head ached, his body stiff, all taut muscles and weary bones. And, as preposterous as it seemed, an endless throbbing, a deep ache, crawling through his sternum. It pounded in synchronization with his heartbeat, or so he thought. His nightmare lingered vivid in his memory. Every moment trapped in the tunnel with an icon he’d long cherished. His idol, unhesitant in his notion looked to be a man with murder on his mind, fully prepared to exercise his pl
an of assassination.

  A brief fight with the desire to simply waste away in his bed for countless hours and to get up and force his mind and (unfortunately) body to fall in to the normalcies of day to day youthful life ensued. It was a war of mental attrition, and Tommy refused to succumb to silly fears and outrageous nightmares. He decided against inactivity. He was young, and that meant every waking day promised adventure. Horrific nightmares or not, he would face the day, as soon as he wiped copious globs of sleep from his eyes.

  He rubbed his face, wiped the green goo from his sockets, and froze, still as stone as he stared at the figure standing at the foot of his bed

  His head swam.

  “What are you waiting for tiger?” His father bellowed. “It’s three p.m. and you’re still in bed, and we haven’t even hit the Shamrock to pick out your costume!”

  A moment of silence passed between the two, and to Tommy it felt like two eternities, tangled in an intricate dance that offered no end in sight, save for perhaps a bloody one.

  His father’s face took on a bemused light, “you do remember that it’s Halloween right?” After no response his shoulders slumped. “Sometimes Tommy, I think you live in a completely different world. Stuck in those horror passages, I tell you.” He shook his head, “Here I am, all dressed up as your favorite character of all time and you can’t even recognize me? I’m Van Helsing for God’s sake! I’m Peter Cushing!”