Button, Button: Uncanny Stories is a collection of science fiction short stories that Richard Matheson wrote throughout the 20th century. The collection contains 12 science fiction short stories that test the ethical limits of human nature, exploring issues such as Hope in the Wake of Destruction of post-apocalyptic worlds and The Dilemmas of Marriage. Each in their own way, the stories also illustrate the notion of The Devastating Effects of Selfishness.

Richard Matheson was a deeply influential science fiction author who helped shape the genre in its modern form and inspired writers like Stephen King. Matheson wrote the novel I Am Legend, and he has also written dozens of other science fiction, mystery, and Western novels and short stories.

This guide refers to the 2008 RXR, Inc. edition of the collection.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of physical and emotional abuse, racism, graphic violence, death by suicide, and death.

Uncanny Stories opens with a brief introduction from the author, who explains that his wife inspired him to write a story about sacrifice for a specific gain. “Button, Button,” the first of 12 stories contained in the collection, follows Norma and her husband Arthur as they receive a mysterious package containing a red button. A man visits and tells them that if they push the button, they will earn $50,000, but someone they do not know will die. Norma is deeply curious, while Arthur rejects the whole idea. When Norma succumbs to temptation and presses the button, Arthur is pushed in front of a train, and Norma is reminded that she never really knew her husband.

In Girl of My Dreams, Carrie has nightmare visions of people’s deaths, and her husband Greg uses this talent to exploit people for money. He doesn’t love Carrie and plans to leave her. When Carrie dreams of a young boy being run over, Greg takes her to the house of the boy’s family. He tells the mother that she must pay $10,000 if she wants to avoid her son’s death. Carrie hates using people this way and tells the woman the information for free. In retaliation, Greg kills her. As Carrie dies, she tells Greg that he will soon die too, but she does not tell him where or when.

In Dying Room Only, Jean and her husband Bob arrive at a café in the middle of the desert. The three men inside watch the couple enter. When Bob goes to the washroom, he never returns, and Jean starts to worry that something has happened to him. She demands to see inside the washroom and instead finds a door inside that leads to a shed. Jean calls the sheriff, who suspects that the men have robbed Bob and left him in the desert. The sheriff shoots at the men and demands that they take him to Bob. He drives Jean out to the desert, where she finds Bob alive and relatively unharmed.

In A Flourish of Strumpets, a company that provides sex services starts soliciting at people’s homes. Frank and Sylvia find the idea morally abhorrent, and Frank resists the company’s temptations as women appear at his doorstep day after day. However, as he gets worn down by temptation and by irritation with his own life and partner, he finds that he can’t stop thinking about one woman in particular. He sleeps with her and ends up feeling horribly guilty, but he doesn’t admit to his infidelity. One afternoon, a man from the company appears at the doorstep, asking to speak to Sylvia.

In No Such Thing as a Vampire, which is set centuries in the past, a woman awakens to find tooth marks on her neck and blood on her chest. Her husband, Dr. Gheria, refuses to let her panic, nor does he believe that a vampire is responsible. He sits by his wife’s bed every night, and every time, she wakes up to find herself injured in the same way. Dr. Gheria calls in a friend who offers to spend the night awake with Dr. Gheria, but Dr. Gheria drugs him, and he falls asleep. Dr. Gheria then takes blood from his wife’s neck and smears it on his friend’s mouth. He takes his friend to the cellar and places him in a coffin, hoping that the butler will find him and kill him. This is Dr. Gheria’s revenge for the affair that his wife and friend had together.

In Pattern for Survival, a man writes, publishes, and then buys his own science fiction pulp novels. He lives in a decaying and ruined world, likely the result of nuclear fallout. Writing, raving about, and purchasing his own novels is his way of motivating himself to carry on and survive.

In Mute, a boy named Paal Nielsen is found unharmed outside his family home as it burns. The boy is taken in by the sheriff and his wife, who find that he cannot speak at all. They consider this to be a deep cruelty and start teaching him to say his name. They also make sure that he attends school. Paal was raised by parents who had him for the sole purpose of creating a telepathic child. They developed his telepathic abilities by never speaking to him aloud; instead, they spoke only with their minds. Paal’s telepathy is strong when he is first adopted, but as time goes on, sounds replace his telepathic ability, which fades. His schoolteacher is abusive and strict, and his adoptive mother overwhelms him with her love. When a friend of Paal’s biological parents comes to check on him, he finds that Paal has lost his telepathy completely. Now, Paal can only say his name, and the act of speaking aloud causes him great pain. However, despite his lost telepathic ability, Paal gains a family who loves him.

In The Creeping Terror, the city of Los Angeles comes alive and starts to take over the country. As it does so, fruit trees pop up everywhere, and people begin acting like stereotypical Angelenos. They crave the beach, movies, and high fashion, and everyone wants to drive everywhere. Cults in support of the Los Angeles Movement start to form, and the city slowly sweeps across the entire continent. Eventually, it starts making its way to other parts of the world.

In Shock Wave, Mr. Moffat is approaching retirement, and so is the church organ that he plays. He refuses to admit that the organ no longer works properly, but he finally takes his cousin Wendall to see it. Wendall thinks that the organ seems fine at first, but as Mr. Moffat plays through the church service, it becomes clear that the organ is playing itself. Wendall wonders if Mr. Moffat could somehow be influencing it to do so. Soon, the organ is impossible to shut off, and it grows louder and louder until it becomes deafening. Churchgoers scramble out of the building as windows start to break and the walls crumble. Wendall pulls Mr. Moffat out just in time, and the organ takes down the entire church, leaving nothing but a faint breath behind.

In Clothes Make the Man, a man sits down to tell another man the story of his brother and his suit. In the man’s story, the brother insisted on wearing his suit, gloves, shoes, and hat wherever he went, and when he took a piece of clothing off, he lost his ability to do the action that corresponded with that part of his body. Without his hat, he couldn’t think; without his shoes, he couldn’t walk. Over time, the brother’s wife lost interest in him, and one day, the brother found his suit going to work without him. It replaced him at work, and it replaced him as a husband. The brother was left a shell of his former self. When the man finishes his story, the listener stands up and reveals himself to be the very suit from the anecdote.

In The Jazz Machine, which is written in verse, a Black trumpet player is propositioned by a white man who came to hear him play. The white man claims to have a machine that can capture the very emotional essence of jazz music, and he invites the trumpet player to see it and play his music into it. The trumpet player isn’t sure if the man is lying or not, but he goes with him because he knows what he has to do if it turns out to be true. The white man shows the trumpet player how the machine works and then tells him to play into it. The trumpet player does so, expressing the grief of his dead brother through his music. The machine produces a feeling so horrible and painful that the player can clearly see that the machine is functional. The trumpet player breaks the machine, not wanting to give the white man the language of oppression (jazz).

In ‘Tis the Season to Be Jelly, a family sits around the dinner table. Each of them is disintegrating and turning into jelly because nuclear war has occurred. The grandfather has a pessimistic attitude and believes that it is pointless to look forward to the future. Meanwhile, the son, Luke, is getting ready to propose to his girlfriend. The father’s nose falls off in the coffee, and the mother’s cheeks peel as she talks. After the meal, Luke goes to his girlfriend’s house and proposes. She says yes, and they skip off together in a state of total glee, even though Luke’s leg falls off.