Free Out Are the Lights by Richard Laymon Page A

unfastened the safety harness. Pete looked at her, and smiled. She slid across the seat. He put an arm around her. Connie snuggled against him, and rested a hand on his thigh.
        A block from the Haunted Palace, Pete eased his car to the curb. They walked to the theater, holding hands.
        
***
        
        On the marquee, Connie saw that Dracula, Down Under was showing with The Town that Dreaded Sundown.
        The girl in the ticket window smiled at Pete. 'How are you, tonight?' she asked.
        'Not bad. I see you haven't found a new hairdresser.' He handed her the money.
        'The Town that Dreaded Sundown is just starting,' she said. 'Too bad you didn't get here half an hour sooner. You missed tonight's Schreck .'
        'He's a little tacky for my taste.'
        The girl laughed. 'Oh, you'd have loved this one, Schreck the Inquisitor .'
        'Sounds charming.'
        
***
        
        Inside, Pete gave the tickets to a fat man in bloody clothes.
        'Evening, Bruno.'
        Bruno growled through the nylon stocking he wore over his face.
        'Do you hang out here?' Connie asked.
        'Only been here once,' Pete said. 'Last week.'
        'It is a little tacky.'
        'So are most of the movies. Fun, though.'
        'Yeah. Like a carnival.'
        'Popcorn?'
        'I couldn't eat a thing, at the moment. Maybe a drink, though.'
        The auditorium of the theater was just as Connie remembered it: the castle walls, the battlements and turrets, the ceiling like a starlit sky.
        She had spent a lot of time in movie theaters, after the Tucson incident. Too much time. First in Tucson, then in Los Angeles.
        Hardly a day passed that she didn't find herself alone in a dark theater, eating popcorn and hot dogs and Good 'n Plenty, staring at a screen where silent people struggled through tragedy, fought to survive, laughed, and fell in love.
        She went to the movies, though she knew she shouldn't. She should be writing more pages than the two or three she managed daily. She should be reading. Most of all, she should be out in the world, doing something, meeting people, not hiding in the darkness of a movie house.
        One day, two years ago, she went to a noon showing of The Island . When it was over, she stayed in her seat and watched Jaws II , though she had seen it before. When that ended, she went out to the lobby to leave. Beyond the glass doors, the afternoon looked sunny. A young couple strolled by, holding hands and happy.
        Her throat tightened. Her eyes filled with tears.
        After buying a Pepsi and a fresh bucket of popcorn, she returned to her seat. She watched The Island again. She watched Jaws II again. When The Island started for a third time, she stayed in her seat.
        She felt sick with herself. Cowardly and self-destructive. But she couldn't force herself to walk out.
        Finally, a man sat down beside her. He smelled strongly of sweat and onions. He put a hand on her knee.
        She was wearing a skirt.
        The hand moved under its hem.
        She lifted the hand. The man smiled at her. His lips moved, blowing stench into her face.
        She broke his forefinger, and walked out of the theater.
        The next day, she didn't go to a movie. Nor the next day. She was certain, if she went back even once, she would fall again into the pattern. She was like an alcoholic, afraid to take a single drink because it would lead to another and another.
        She read voraciously.
        She finished her novel, Bayou Bride , in three months.
        She took a course in self-defense from a tough, scarred ex-Marine who claimed to be a mercenary-and proved it to Connie's satisfaction by disappearing one day. She assumed he'd gone to Rhodesia. She never saw him again.
        One of the men in the class dated her, and she found that she could go to movies safely as long as she didn't go