The Knife Sharpener’s Hum

In 1992, I was working the prep station at the Golden Harvest Family Restaurant, a sprawling buffet-style joint on the edge of Bakersfield. My station was a narrow alley between the hot line and the butcher’s block, with a clear view of the meat locker’s heavy steel door. No one could cross that space without me clocking them. We had this industrial knife sharpener bolted to the butcher block, a beast of a machine with a toggle switch that had to be pressed firmly to start. One Tuesday, as I was peeling a mountain of russets, the sharpener whirred to life on its own, the grinding wheel spinning at full tilt. I yelped and dropped a potato. I checked the locker, poked my head into the dry storage, and even looked under the prep tables. The place was empty, save for the hum of the fluorescent lights. The manager, a wiry man named Dale, came over and shut it off, muttering about faulty wiring. But I saw the switch flip itself back on as soon as he turned away, and then off again when I stared at it. I didn’t sleep well that night.

A few weeks later, I was closing up. I was alone in the back, wiping down the stainless steel counters. The sharpener started up again, a low growl that seemed to sync with the flickering of the lights. I walked over to it, my heart thudding, and I saw something that made my blood run cold. The switch was vibrating, as if a finger were pressing it down, but there was no hand. And on the metal surface of the sharpener, a faint, greasy imprint of a thumb—a thumb that was larger than any I’d seen—slowly faded. I ran out of there and never went back to that station. I quit a week later.

But the incidents didn’t stop. I moved into a modest apartment with my boyfriend, Tom. Every morning, at exactly 11:22, a series of heavy thuds would come from the hall closet—three slow, deliberate knocks, like someone pounding a fist against the door. We had nothing in there but coats and a vacuum cleaner. One afternoon, while I was taking a bath, I felt a cold, wet tickle on the sole of my foot. I jerked my leg, thinking Tom was messing with me, but he was in the living room. When I looked down, there was a thin, fresh scratch, like a cat’s claw, running from my heel to my toes. I had no pets.

I started keeping a knife by my bedside. Not that it would help. The sounds and scratches escalated. One night, I woke to see a tall, gaunt figure standing in the corner of the bedroom, its face obscured by a shadow that didn’t shift with the moonlight. It pointed a long, bony finger at the closet, and then at my foot. I screamed, and Tom woke up, but by then, the figure was gone. He insisted I was dreaming, but I know what I saw.

Eventually, we moved again, this time to a house in the suburbs. The incidents stopped, or so I believed. But just last week, I was unpacking a box in the basement, and I found an old photograph from the Golden Harvest. It was the staff group photo, taken just before that cook died. I recognized his face—the one who had died in intensive care. And in the background, blurred but unmistakable, was the butcher’s block, and the sharpener. The switch was in the ‘on’ position. I dropped the photo, and as it fluttered to the floor, I heard a faint humming sound from upstairs. It was coming from the kitchen. My kitchen. The knife sharpener I’d bought from a garage sale the previous month. I walked up the stairs, my legs heavy, and saw it sitting on the counter, untouched. The hum grew louder, and the switch began to flip on and off on its own. I knew then that it had followed me, that it always would. And every time I close my eyes, I feel that cold fingernail tracing the sole of my foot, and I wonder if this time, it’s coming back for more.