"In the Deathroom" is a

horror Horror may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Genres *Horror fiction, a genre of fiction ** Japanese horror, Japanese horror fiction **Korean horror, Korean horror fiction * Horror film, a film genre *Horror comics, comic books focusing o ...

short story by American writer

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

. It first 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 ''Everything's Eventual'' is a collection of 11 short stories and 3 novellas by American writer Stephen King, published in 2002. Stories "The Little Sisters of Eluria" is part of '' The Dark Tower'' series. Story order In the introduction ...

''.

Author's note

Stephen King included this note 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 ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', has been captured by members of a

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

n dictatorship. The story begins as he is brought into the titular "deathroom" for

interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

about an allegedly

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregu ...

, 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 New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

External links

{{Stephen King 2000 short stories Short stories by Stephen King

Author's note

Plot summary

See also

External links