Trisha Shetty (Editor)

In the Deathroom

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Language
  
English

Publication date
  
2000

Author
  
Stephen King

Country
  
United States of America

Genre(s)
  
Horror short story

Originally published
  
2000

Publisher
  
Book of the Month Club

Publication type
  
Anthology

In the Deathroom imagesgrassetscombooks1166254297l10621jpg

Published in
  
Secret Windows, Blood and Smoke (1st release), Everything's Eventual

Media type
  
Print (Paperback) & Audiobook

Similar
  
Stephen King books, Other books

Stephen king dollar baby in the deathroom


"In the Deathroom" is a short story by Stephen King. Originally, it appeared in the 1999 audiobook Blood and Smoke. In 2000, it was first published in written form in Secret Windows. In 2002, it was collected in King's collection Everything's Eventual.

Contents

Author's Note

This is the explanatory note Stephen King featured with the story in Everything's Eventual: "This is a slightly Kafka-esque story about an interrogation room in the South American version of Hell. In such stories, the fellow being interrogated usually ends up spilling everything and then being killed (or losing his mind.) I wanted to write one with a happier ending, however unreal that might be. And here it is."

Plot summary

Fletcher, a former reporter from The New York Times, has been captured by members of a South American dictatorship. The story begins as he is brought into the titular "deathroom" for interrogation about an allegedly communist insurgency, which he has been supporting due to the government's killing of a group of nuns which included his sister. Fletcher realizes that his captors, despite their promises to the contrary, will not let him leave the room alive.

During the course of his interrogation, Fletcher manages to keep calm, and hatches a desperate plan to escape, which, to his surprise, actually works. He fakes an epileptic seizure, and in the captors' struggle to save him, steals a gun. After killing three of his captors and maiming one, he escapes the deathroom. Fletcher, having no way of knowing if the gunfire was heard, starts up the stairs to see if he can escape.

The story ends with a man, almost certainly Fletcher, buying a pack of cigarettes at a newsstand kiosk in New York.

References

In the Deathroom Wikipedia