The Old Dude's Ticker" is a short story by American writer Stephen King. It is a homage to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", adapted to take place in the Vietnam War era. Richard Drogan, a veteran of the Vietnam War, lives with an elderly man referred to only as "The Old Dude". The Old Dude has a cataract in one eye that frightens the narrator, so much so that he plans to murder the old man. After several nights of watching the Old Dude sleep by shining a pen-light through his door, he illuminates the old man's diseased eye, which is open. The Old Dude had been awake for some time, and the narrator speculates that he was very afraid and trying to calm himself down. Seeing the eye, however, drives Drogan into a rage.