In the Deathroom

Infobox short story |
name = In the Deathroom
author = Stephen King
country = United States
language = English
genre = Horror short story
published_in = "Secret Windows",
"Blood and Smoke" (1st release),
""
publication_type = Anthology
publisher = Book-of-the-Month Club
media_type = Print (Paperback) & Audiobook
pub_date = 2000

"In the Deathroom" is the fifth short story in the collection "" by Stephen King. It was first published in his collection "Secret Windows" in 2000.

Authors Note

This is the explanatory note Stephen King featured with the story in the collection : "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, an ex-reporter from the New York Times, has been captured by members of a South American government. The story begins as he is brought into the titular "deathroom" as he realizes that his captors, after interrogating him about a Communist insurgency he has been supporting, due to the government's killing of a group of nuns which included his sister, will not let him leave this room alive, despite their claims that he will be set free.

During the course of his interrogation, Fletcher manages to keep calm, and hatches a desperate plan to save his life, which, to his surprise, actually works. He fakes an epileptic seizure, and in the captors struggle to save him he 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.