May 9 - "Dying Room Only"

“Dying Room Only”
by Richard Matheson
Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008)

* * * (Good) Suspense

A husband and wife stop at a diner before crossing an empty desert. The woman returns from the washroom to find her husband has disappeared, and the last couple of people to see him are anything but helpful.

I expected something more gruesome from the ending. The building suspense over the missing husband’s whereabouts led me to believe something terrible – or more terrible – had happened to him. I suppose in the 56 years since the story was first published, things and thoughts have grown darker, happy endings harder to come by. The story was entertaining in the way that some episodes of old television shows have nifty ideas hidden behind the hooky trappings of the past.