Twenty Two

"Twenty Two" is episode 53 of the American television series The Twilight Zone. The story was adapted by Rod Serling from a short anecdote in the 1944 Bennett Cerf Random House anthology Famous Ghost Stories, which itself was an adaptation of "The Bus-Conductor", a short story by E. F. Benson published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1906. It was one of the six episodes of the second season which were shot on videotape in a short-lived experiment aimed to cut costs, and was directed by Jack Smight. Opening narration Plot Liz Powell awakens in her hospital room by the loud ticking of a clock. She knocks a glass of water to the floor, shattering it, then follows the sound of footsteps into the hall. She sees a nurse, half-hidden in shadow, descend to the basement in the elevator. She follows the nurse down and finds the hospital morgue, room 22. The nurse emerges from the room and says, "Room for one more, honey." Liz screams and flees to the elevator. Liz awakens, the experience being a nightmare. Liz is a professional dancer, hospitalized for exhaustion, and she has been having the same recurring, vivid nightmare. She insists the dream is really happening to her, although her agent, Barney, seems doubtful. Her doctor tries to assure her this is impossible. He produces the night nurse who attends the morgue, and Liz doesn't recognize her. The doctor suggests Liz try an experiment in lucid dreaming and alter one detail of the dream.