Button Day
| Published on Creepypasta.com | August 2008 |
|---|---|
| Length | 2,512 words · about 11 minutes to read |
| Story level | Medium |
| Reader rating | 8.5/10 from 666 votes |
| Category | Strange and Unexplained |
Laura was woken by her father; something that he had not done since she was a child. As her thoughts slowly swam back into focus, she was suddenly sure that she had slept naked and he had seen her, but to her relief she was wearing her baby-blue pyjamas. God, what was he doing in here anyway?
“Come on, you,” he said brightly, opening the curtains and letting the sunlight in. Outside, she could hear a lawnmower running, perhaps in the next street, and what could’ve been birdsong. “It’s Button Day, remember? Get dressed, put something nice on. We’re leaving in an hour.”
Laura stirred, her voice groggy. “Dad, what the hell? Couldn’t you just knock? What if I’d slept nude?”
He didn’t look at her, he was too busy admiring his garden from the window. “Oh, you’ve nothing I haven’t seen before. I’m your bloody father, I‘ve wiped your arse many a time before now.”
“Not the point, Dad.“ Squinting, Laura sat up, rubbing her eyes, and remembered what he’d just said.
“Dad, did you just say ‘Button Day’?”
“Well, yeah. What, did you forget?” He laughed as he crossed the room to the door. “You were only talking about it last night.”
“Wait – what?” She frowned, not understanding. Something was wrong here. A fine way to start the day, really. She hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet, and she was already getting weird shit. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, still smiling as he left the room. “Get dressed. Breakfast is ready.”
He left her sitting up in bed, holding the covers to her breasts, a look of confusion on her face. Eventually she got out of bed, and began to pull some clothes on that were to hand. Familiar sounds floated up to her from downstairs: pots and pans rattling, the TV on low, the muffled tones of her family talking to each other, a short, harsh laugh – her brother. No doubt laughing at the TV.
She did her zipper on her jeans, and stood for a second before finally saying out loud, “Button Day?”
Downstairs, her mother was washing the dishes, humming to herself. Sunlight filled the room, making it warm and fresh. Her father and brother were sitting at the table, eating toast. There was a plate set for her, and she sat down, pulling it towards her.
Her brother was wearing a crisp white shirt – and he never wore shirts. She doubted that he even owned one. This was one of her father’s, she recognised it.
“What’s with the shirt?” She asked, picking her toast up, and his eyes never left the TV, which was typical of him. A year younger than her at fourteen, he was arrogant and know it all to boot.
“It’s Button Day, isn’t it?” He mumbled through a mouthful of toast, and her mother turned around, and tutted loudly at him.
“Mark, don’t talk with your mouth full.” She saw Laura and sighed. “Laura, you could dress a little better than that. At least make an effort.”
“What for?” Laura said, then looked at the ceiling, irritated. “Oh wait, let me guess. Button Day. Am I missing something here?”
Her mother shook her head, turning back to the dishes. “Don’t be so childish, Laura. It doesn’t suit you. Please make sure you get changed into something else before we leave.”
“I wanted to see Michael today. I’m not going with you, sorry.”
A hush fell over the kitchen as everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her in surprise. Warily, Laura said, “What?”
“Are you crazy?” Her brother asked. “You can’t go out today, you’re coming with us!”
“Laura, you made plans? Today, of all days?” Her father asked, and she pushed back on her chair as a dull anger rose in her.
“Yes, I made plans! What the hell is going on this morning?”
No-one answered her. They were staring at her as if she’d took a crap on her plate. She got up, pushing her plate away. “You know what? Forget it.”
“Laura, stop this, right now,” her mother snapped. “You knew perfectly well what we were doing today. It’s been planned for a long time. Now you can just call Michael and tell him why you’re not seeing him.”
“That’s just it!” Laura yelled. “What do I tell him? I don’t know why I can’t go! It’s just you telling me I can’t!”
“It’s Button Day,” her brother said. “That’s why.”
“Button Day?” She cried. “What the hell are you all talking about? I’ve never heard of Button Day! You’re all acting like-” She suddenly stopped, comprehension dawning on her face. Her family were playing a joke on her. This was all a joke. With a warm rush, a huge weight lifted from her shoulders. Now she understood.
“Very funny, guys,” She said, her voice calm and collected. “You really had me going there.” She turned and left the room, heading for the front door. As she went, her mother called after her, “Laura! Please be back in an hour, we can’t leave without you, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Laura called back. “I wouldn’t want to miss Button Day, would I?”
The short walk to Michael’s house gave Laura enough time to feel guilty about how angry she had gotten with her family. As she’d gotten older, her temper had shortened. She planned on apologising later – she had an hour, right? Wasn’t that what her mother had said?
I wonder where we’re going, Laura thought, watching a plane a few miles above cut a white line across the sky. Or was that a joke too? Was it that they really were going out, and it had been a planned thing, and she had simply forgotten all about it?
She could see Michaels house from here, with the white fence and broad front lawn. She began to jog, eager to see him. As she crossed his driveway the front door opened and Michael came out with a look of shock on his face. He had seen her coming up the street.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Laura asked, and to her dismay he suddenly looked a little angry.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“What, did we fight, and I missed the memo?”
“You told me this was your family’s Button Day,” he said, and there was movement behind him.
Laura blinked, her mouth open in surprise. A blonde girl came to the door, squinting in the light, and slinked her arm around Michael. She was wearing a nightshirt and nothing else, and her hair was tousled.
“Go home,” the blonde said, and Laura backed away, blinking back sudden tears. Michael would not meet her eyes, so she turned and ran.
Her mother caught her just as she was about to run into her bedroom.
She pulled Laura close, holding her as she sobbed. “I know, I know. Let it all out.” She stroked Laura’s hair, rocking her a little. “Men are bastards, aren’t they?”
Laura pulled back to look at her mother, sniffing. “…You know?”
“You’ve just come back from his place in floods of tears. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened.”
“He’s got himself a blonde. A blonde! I’ll bet that’s why he wanted me to dye my hair!”
She cried for a little longer, and her mother held her. “There, there. Come on. Let’s get you changed for our trip.”
“…So we are going out?”
“Of course we are, silly! Here we are, this is a nice blouse. Your best, I think. Put this on, I want us looking our best for our Button Day.”
Laura’s stomach rolled lazily. She suddenly remembered Michael mentioning Button Day, too. This wasn’t a joke. This was real. It was all real, and she didn’t have a clue what was happening.
“Mom, listen to me a minute. Something here is very wrong.”
“I know. You really liked him, I know you did. It’s terrible that he’s upset you, on this day, of all days.”
“That’s just it, Mum – I don’t know anything about Button Day. I’ve never heard of it, and since this morning I feel as if I’m the only one who hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on!”
“Well, to be honest, I’m no expert. I know it was the Governments idea to combat overcrowding, but other than that-”
“No, no. I mean at all. I’ve never heard of it.”
There was an uneasy silence, in which her mother looked at her for a long time. Her mouth was set in a hard line.
When she finally spoke, her voice was calm. “I know you’re upset, so I’ll play along with your little prank, okay? Just get changed – here’s your blouse – and I’ll see you in the car in five minutes, okay? We’re waiting for you.”
Her mother walked away, leaving Laura alone and frightened, her best blouse in her trembling hands.
The next thing she knew, she was in the car. Everything was flowing by in a fluid, carefree motion that made her feel more and more uneasy. What the hell was going on? Why did she not recall anything about this day that everyone was talking about?
She could see everything in absurd detail, slowed down to super slow motion: The fluff on the back of her mothers headrest. A bit of stubble that her fathers razor had missed. A crack in the pavement as they passed. She suddenly felt more lucid than she had ever felt in her whole life, yet she was unable to speak, trapped inside her own body. It was as if she were a puppet, walking on strings made from fear’s own web.
Somewhere deep inside, she was still clinging to an ocean-battered rock of hope, a charred crater of sense that told her that this was all a massive joke, a huge, elaborate hoax. As they pulled up outside the white, box-like building, squat and stern, that hope faded.
“Here we are,” her father said cheerfully, and she felt herself pull the door handle and step out of the car. She stood trembling in the sun like a baby deer, the building bearing down on her as if it had teeth.
Acting as if they were at the seaside, her family got out of the car, chatting animatedly. They set off towards the main entrance, Laura trailing behind. A sign stood over them: GOVERNMENT PROPERTY – KEEP OUT. She saw the security cameras watching them, and hurried after her family, her footsteps flat and dead.
The door to the building was made of glass, and as they pushed through into the clean lobby, Laura saw a receptionist busily typing on a computer. The receptionist looked up with a professional smile at her father as he approached.
“Hi, we’re the Krandalls. Here for our Button Day,” he said, and she smiled.
“Go on through, sir. Just keep walking that way.”
Her father thanked her, and on they went, down a long brightly lit corridor, lined with brass plaques which gleamed. There was something engraved on them all, blocks and blocks of text, and she drew closer as she walked to see what it was. She saw her own reflection looking back at her, and in the harsh fluorescent lights, she looked haggard.
Names. Hundreds and hundreds of names, thousands of names, one after another. Hogg. Wilson. Carpenter. Buxton. Bell. Palmer. Rowe. Brown. The list went on, seemingly endless.
Her family walked on, still chatting as if they were on holiday, and up ahead the corridor was coming to an end.
The corridor opened up into a large, white room. In this room, four small, waist high pillars stood, each with a red button on the top. Beyond them was a long polished desk, with three Government officials seated at it. The Government insignia hung on a huge banner over it all. The room was silent, and sterile.
Laura watched her family each step up to a pillar, watching the officials expectantly, leaving a pillar for her. Her very own button. Trembling, she stepped up to the pillar, only to notice with a jolt that the floor around them all was on a slight incline, angled towards a drain behind that she hadn’t noticed when she had first arrived. One of the officials spoke, his voice echoing in the open space.
“Krandall family. The Government has deemed this to be your Button Day. We thank you for your sacrifice to your country, and to your people. Your names shall join those in the long Hall in your honour.”
“We’re proud,” her father said, and her mother nodded, sincere. Her brother looked as if he were about to weep with pride.
The official continued. “Then please, in your own time, push your buttons. May God be with you all.”
Her father turned to his wife, his son, and his daughter, and smiled. “I’ll go first, to show you how easy it is.” He pushed the button on the pillar, and it depressed with a loud, satisfying click.
As Laura watched, her fathers face turned red, as if he’d been jogging. She remembered how easily flustered he got with exercise, and assumed he’d just walked too fast down the corridor, or something. That was when a crimson teardrop slid down his cheek, and plopped fatly onto the hard, white floor.
Laura watched, frozen, as blood began to pour from her fathers eyes, nose, ears and mouth. It ran down his shirt, over the belt that she had bought him for his birthday, and down his trousers. It splattered onto the floor. All at once, his eyes burst like over-ripe plums and hung on his cheeks, still connected by red strings. Liquefied brain ran from his eye sockets.
As his body crumpled to the floor, her mother and brother looked at each other and smiled, pushing their buttons at the same time. They turned to Laura, holding their hands out, blood seeping from their eyes and noses, tricking from their mouths. They assumed Laura had pushed hers, too.
Laura drew in a breath to scream, but the soft pop of her mothers and brothers eyeballs made it catch in her throat. They fell over backwards, landing on top of each other. Blood was being channelled to the drain, which drank quietly.
All was silent.
“Miss Krandell?”
Numb, she saw the officials watching her closely.
“Miss Krandell, overpopulation is destroying our towns and cities. Your country needs your action today.”
She stared wide-eyed at the official. To her side, her brothers hand twitched, the last of the nerve impulses fading. Blood was already congealing in his empty eye sockets.
The official was standing up slowly, and she saw that he was a tall man. Taller than most, no doubt.
“Humanity has called,” he said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. The world had faded away to the button under her fingertips. It was smooth and red. Pushable.
“…Will you answer?”
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this was stupid
Reminds me of that one Star Trek episode, A Taste of Armageddon, where the citizens willingly kill themselves in virtual wars so their government doesn’t have to fight real wars.
Very good story. I’ve always loved dystopian fiction.
How would she not remember button day if thats what it was? Did she suffer amnesia? I mean really…..
@ manan doll, they made a movie “the button” (no relation to this story) off of an old twilight zone no one took credit for
@ all the shits wondering why she doesnt know: supressed memories bitches, obviously she loved her life and couldnt deal with knowing when and how she would die,
the button method is stupid in its self, if you have a button for each person, why make them come press it? if not, laura jump off the fucking pad,
her family was happy because, they live in a society thats willing to kill for others, correct? obviously they where raised to accept this fate, no mater how gruesom
im disappointed, i was hoping for something sexual do to her sleeping nude >:P
This was somewhat lengthy. A good ending, although it sounds more like short-range microwaves, has anyone read Matthew Reilly’s Scarecrow? one of the sub-villians suffers a similar fate. If the government is going to kill off various people to solve overcrowding, isn’t it somewhat contradictory to have what sounds like only one death station? If the government is willing to invest money and technology into solving overpopulation, why not send the people to the moon or mars? I presume that there are multiple stations all over the planet, and how much would that have cost? But, my main problem with this is that it took too long to reach a cheesy ending.
Fear The Darkness
-Nex
Ending was bullshit, i was waiting for her to run away, find a lost boy her age (cute by the way) who had also taken off just after his family pushed their buttons, they speak to an old man on the outskirts of town, he reveals to them that the government has been overtaken by aliens who can shapeshift and they have murdered everyone in government and taken their forms so they could get rid of the worlds population and ‘start over’ as they cannot just kill everyone, they need to do it in an orderly fashion and take record of who they get to commit suicide as the aliens also all have obsessive compulsive disorder (and they like chocolate caramel slices and ginger beer) and the only way to kill them is to throw a bucket of holy water on them, and then the old man dies and comes back as a ghost and he rapes all the aliens and ….. no wait…..i went off track….that ending was worse than the actual storys ending somehow…. ignore me people….having a moment….
Wow Arancaytar, that would really fit into the story well. I liked #2 as well.
Without intertwining a meaning to all the details, the details would have been mundane and useless. That’s what I felt when I read about “sleeping naked”, her boyfriend etc. Those are all useless and do not contribute to the story. However, if the author had somehow tied it all back together, this would have been one hella good pasta.
honestly, “The Lottery” much? otherwise I was impressed, very well written… what will the government ask us to do next? that’s definitely creepy to me, well done
I’m glad I didn’t move to britain.
AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!
Absolutely the best pasta i’ve tasted all night. Not creepy at all, but really played into one of my more abstract fears, of everybody around me knowing something i didn’t and it being like i was supposed to know it and no one beliveing me that i had no idea what was going on. I definitely feel like this should be a much longer story. Bravo good sir, this pasta has filled me up well.
I actually had come to the conclusion that there was a subtext that an alternate-reality version of herself from a world without Button Day had somehow ended up there before reading the comments to find that someone else came to the same conclusion. It explains everything — why she has literally no idea what was going on, why she would remember plans she had made with her boyfriend that she couldn’t possibly in this reality, why she expected to wake up naked but was in pajamas…
And to think I just wrote a post about Button Day without any idea that this existed… ;)
That was fantastic.
Couldn’t she have just Googled “Button Day”?
Just goes to show that nuclear families are retarded.
Wow this was creepy. I was expecting it, when they her mom said ‘over populating’. But i thought it would be like one of those stories where they all draw names and end up stoneing one of them. good job
So what was actually the point of the whole boyfriend cheating on her thing in the end anyway?
Damn, that was good.. :D
What the hell?
Isnt this a story by Anthony Horowitz?
Its in one of his short horror story books.
I think there are 2.
Loved this one enough to read it a couple of times and suggest it to friends who don’t even read creepypasta. It reminded me of an extremely demented version of The Lottery, though I’m sure somewhere in this myriad of comments, that’s already been said. The random amnesia was almost inexplicable, which did ruin the overall story because there is no reason that she should be the only one not to know. However, removing the context of the story, it would be really boring for us to read it if she already knew.
I enjoyed this to an extent that I probably shouldn’t have. Job well done.
Blantant rip-off of “The Lemming Condition” by Alan Arkin. FAIL.
Easily my favorite creepypasta. Well done.
where’s the explanation for her sudden amnesia? when did the US government suddenly turn into the society from The Giver? And I dont care how symbolic or creepy it’s supposed to be, where the hell is the explanation for why her family was so desensitized to having their goddamn brains liquefied through their skulls that they don’t mind watching their father/husband go through it first?
i dont care how nicely written this pasta was, this was a plothole-ridden piece of garbage all tied up in a fancy bow of good grammar and narrative. there is literally no suspension of disbelief at the end whatsoever, and the whole story is sacrificed for a shitty version of the “LOL BIG BROTHER BIG GOVERNMENT IN CONTROL” message from Orwell’s 1981. what the fuck.
Delicious. Easily the best pasta on this site, in my opinion.
Just saw another mystery that I think my above idea would explain:
“As her thoughts slowly swam back into focus, she was suddenly sure that she had slept naked and he had seen her, but to her relief she was wearing her baby-blue pyjamas.”
She slept naked in her own reality, but the “consciousness transfer” dropped her in the Button-Day reality, where she didn’t.
Buttons are okay. Never been a big fan, but they’re okay.
“I’m intrigued how pushing that little red button makes u bleed from every hole and make ur eyes pop out lol”
My guess: Resonance vibration. There are church bells that can give you a nosebleed if you stand too close to them. Imagine that for the entire body…
(Flaw: The soundwave would have to be extremely short-range to mangle the person near the button without even injuring others in the room.)
—
“Why didn’t Laura know what Button Day was?”
Well, clearly others remember her knowing:
“You told me this was your family’s Button Day,”
My two guesses are:
1.) She knew of this day before, and her fear induced amnesia to the point of inventing another world where Button Day didn’t exist. Basically, Button Day always existed, and she just went crazy.
2.) This is the one I prefer because it’s creepy and supernatural. Maybe it could even be written up as a prequel of sorts. I’m trying to keep this one “OOC”, not a story, though I’m slipping into a literary style by the end:
Laura knew she was going to die. She tried to find a way to avoid this, and somehow came across a way to travel to another reality in her sleep, switching places with her alternate self. So that’s what she did on the night before Button Day.
She woke up in a mixture of hope and dread, not sure whether her escape had worked. She ran to her parents’ bedroom and woke them up, and fearfully asked them if they were late for Button Day.
Her dad looked at her oddly, and asked what Button Day was.
Shaking from relief, she only just managed to blurt out that she had had a bad dream. She had barely time to run back to her room before she broke down weeping at the joy of having an entire life ahead of her again.
Through that joy, she felt only a little twinge of unease about the girl she had displaced – her twin she had never known, who would even now be spending the last day of her life in complete confusion.
> Does it remind anyone else of the blue-handed men in
> Firefly? With their blue glowsticks that did pretty much
> what the buttons did?
Absolutely.
I wonder why they pick such an awful method of execution instead of a more painless alternative.
I also want to know if Laura is going to push this button, and what will happen to her if she doesn’t. I want her to get away. :P
Mm. As scary as this story was, and oh it was a great story, it’s even moreso to entertain the idea that it’s not so out-in-left-field that it couldn’t happen, given the right push. Humanity is the only species that willing kills themselves and each other… for no reason at all. What’s a little regulated mass suicide via propaganda and good old brainwashed patriaotism? Pasta disturbs the hell out of me. o.o;
Lottery-esque, but the fact that they are actually getting themselves killed willingfully makes it take a different turn.
Makes you wonder which is creepier: this, or an entire town killing a woman with stones, including her little sons?