The True Story of the Night I Went Bad, by Pete Rawlik, author of the upcoming Lovecraftian novel Reanimators.

Its October 1985, I’m seventeen, a senior at Abington High School outside Philadelphia, and I feel trapped. I spent the previous summer traveling, having more freedom than any sixteen year old has a right to. I spent a month in Japan, Nagoya mostly, some time in Tokyo. I stand six feet tall, I run five miles a day, I have a thick mustache. By japanese standards I am imposing, and this gives me a sense of security as I ride the trains and walk through the cities. At sixteen I am roaming a foreign country, riding public transportation on my own, without fear, with complete freedom.

Back home in suburban Philadelphia, I’m stuck. There’s no bus. The train station is a block away, but it only goes to Philly. Compared to Nagoya, to Tokyo, Philadelphia is a dark, dirty city, and frankly dangerous. The city was still recovering from the MOVE Compound bombing. Crack is new, so is AIDS. I’m not as imposing as I was in Japan. In Abington, I’m just another white kid, trapped in suburbia with nothing to do.

There are entertainments: By this time I have a small collection of Cthulhu Mythos; Lovecraft, Derleth Lumley, Carter, some CAS and KEW, maybe one Ramsey Campbell. My prize possession is an Arkham House Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos signed by Derleth. There are daily distractions: comic books mostly, and movie rentals, my video store carries Starlog and Fangoria. I read both magazines devoutly, and my mind is fed by images and stories about movies, fantastic films I’ve never heard of, let alone seen. In September there was a special article about a low budget movie, one so scary that no one under 17 was to be admitted: a film entitled H. P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator!

I had by this time seen The Dunwich Horror, Die Monster Die, The Haunted Palace, and even The Shuttered Room (Saturday Creature Double Feature was good to me), but those movies were old. Re-Animator was something new, something different, something dangerous, something I had to see.

One way or another.

I scanned the newspapers ( this before the internet). It became routine, and I am routinely disappointed. My parents comment on how mature I have become now that I read things besides the Funnies. I do this for weeks, months, and then I give up. If the film was finished, if it was released, it certainly didn’t play in podunk Pennsylvania. If I were ever to see it, it would have to be on VHS. At least that was some consolation.

Weeks later things change. One day at lunch, an underclassman laments that his mother won’t take him to the movie he wants to see. I sprint to the library and find the morning paper. I nearly tear it from the binding stick as I flip through the pages to the entertainment section. There it is. In black and white, a few small lines that give only two showings one on Friday night, the other on Saturday. Nine PM.

The theater is miles away. I’ve been to it before, with my dad, years earlier.

I copy pages from the local street maps.

It takes me days to manipulate the situation. On Friday afternoon I have my grandmother drop off her Buick Skylark so that I can change the oil first thing in the morning. My siblings cover for me. I slip out the window on to the roof and scale the trellis into the back yard. I wait for a truck to pass by and start the Skylark. It coughs to life and then settles down into a comforting idle. I leave the front of my family home knowing full well that I’ve just stolen my grandmother’s car.

I drive through the cold October night, staying below the speed limit to avoid being noticed by State Troopers. The car smells like old people, and I have no idea where the registration is. As I follow the map I realize that this will be the first time since Japan that I have been out alone. It takes me more than an hour to travel the winding roads, and when I finally reach my destination I am so focused that I almost miss the theater.

The Barn Theater.

It is exactly what it sounds like.

I buy my ticket. I have to show ID. It makes me feel dirty.

I buy popcorn, and a soda.

The theater number is in the double digits, and I walk down the corridor, following the neon arrows. The hall twists and turns, or at least that’s how I remember it. Its the last door before the emergency exit. The theater is small (tiny by today’s standards), with maybe ten rows of seats. There are six other people in the room. I make seven.

There in the dark, waiting for the film to start, my mind wanders over the excuses for what I have done. My mother doesn’t do horror movies. My dad did, but not for a while now. My parents took me to see Alien in the theater, and I spent the whole film trying to see through my own personal face hugger as my mother tried to cover my eyes with her hand. Video nasties rented and watched without my parents knowledge came to a screeching halt after one of my sisters brought home I Spit On Your Grave. Asking for permission or someone to go with me, was in my mind was certainly to end in refusal. Therefore I am justified in “borrowing” my grandmother’s car (Tell that to the cop who pulls you over).

The movie starts with a bang, and instantly all worries about being caught flee from my head. For the next 86 minutes I am swallowed up in the black comedy that fills the screen in front of me. There is a magnificent soundtrack, fascinating graphics, a perfect cast (Jeff Coombs is great, but Barbara Crampton – vavavoom!). The film slowly degenerates (and I mean that in a good way) piling absurdity upon indecency.

Cat dead details later

There’s your meatball.

Dr. Hill getting caught with a co-ed.

Overdose!

Meg screams!

The credits roll, and I stay until they end, soaking in every last bit of the film. I wander out through the side door, avoiding the cops who I am sure are waiting for me in the lobby. I sneak through the car lot, looking for guys waiting for me to touch the car. I walk past it and then as the lot empties out double back. It’s almost midnight by the time I cross back into Montgomery County. I think I’m out past curfew. Can the cops pull you over just for that? I roll past the mall and my school. I know damn well where the speed traps are. Where Officer Delaney likes to park, I come up the hill and he’s sitting there in the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts. I wave as I drive by, he waves back. I work there; not waving would have been more suspicious.

I take the short cut past the church and the golf course. The 19th Hole Bar is packed, but not in a good way (Flashing blues dance across the side of the faux stucco). I creep past the place and count a half dozen cop cars. I’m about a mile from home. I take the ridge and throw the car into neutral coasting down the winding hill, with my lights on (I’ve seen The World According to Garp). I make the light at the corner and whip around the corner still in neutral. I slide back into the same spot on the curb where I left hours earlier. I sneak through the side gate, up the trellis and back into my room without a hint of anybody noticing.

The next morning while my parents gossip about the raid on the 19th Hole (Lewd and Lascivious Behavior, Live Sex Act ( as opposed to what?), school teachers and morality clauses), I change the oil in the car. I finish just in time for my grandmother to bring by lunch Gino’s Hero Burgers and KFC. She leaves and then comes back in there’s my varsity jacket in her hand, the one I wore last night.

She throws it to me and it tumbles through the air. Change and the detritus of life fly out of the pockets. I rush to gather it up, but my mother bends down to help. She gets to the tab of paper first. The rectangular one that says Re-Animator on it, and the date and time, and the theater name.

She looks at me and I hang my head before marching back outside to finish my chores. As I pass through the door I can hear her start to yell “WHAT were you thinking?”

My grandmother laughs and responds for me, “Be thankful, he could have taken the Cougar!”

I slap my head, there was no way I would ever have thought about taking my grandfather’s 1969 Cougar. But they don’t think like me. For them it was about the car, but for me it was about the film. Eldritch terrors and zombie sex top fuel injected dreams. At least they did for me back then.

And they still do today.

By Pete Rawlik, author of the upcoming Lovecraftian novel Reanimators.  Click here to pre-order!

You can also pre-order the audio version on Audible.

And be sure to check out Pete’s Herbert West Timeline.