These Blades Are Made for Woundin'

The knife whispered to him in its innocent, mouselike voice.

Tatum Blythee gritted his teeth and squeezed the blade’s handle in a white-knuckle grip. Moisture threatened to spill over from his eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not now, not tonight. StopitstopitSTOPIT.’

But the knife, as usual, paid him no mind. Half hidden in the reflection along the blade, the little face grinned. It giggled. Its high-pitched tones recalled the voices of untold Disney characters. ‘Murder, Tatum, murder! Killing! Death! Slayings! Stabby-stabby-stab-stab!’

Tears spilling from his eyes, he began to chop the onion like a madman.

Meanwhile, the blade giggled and chattered about everything it could do. ‘Stabbing and slicing, Tatum! Punctured lungs! Impaled hearts! Slashed open bellies! Sweet, juicy, beautiful blood, Tatum! Like a fountain, Tatum! Like a goddamn fountain!’

Tatum chopped, diced, and sliced the onion into oblivion. The recipe had asked for onion cut into cubes, and he had gone overboard.

Behind Tatum, the toilet flushed. The sounds of handwashing came, and then the bathroom lock clicked open. Louella Fairchilde, indeed as fair as her family name declared, stepped out. ‘How’s the meal prep going?’ she asked.

He chucked the knife into the sink with a metallic clang. He grabbed a different blade from the magnetic knife rack. ‘Great!’ he said, his voice cracking.

‘Oh, let me handle that,’ Lou said.

Before he could stop her, she’d picked up the knife and turned the tap on. What could he say? ‘Don’t touch that, the blade is sentient and maniacal’? He’d be the one who sounded insane. She’d leave and never look back. Hell, she’d tell her friends to steer clear of him, and they’d inform their friends. He’d be alone forever. So, he watched her with the knife. He waited for a tiny voice to delight in obscenities.

Louella prewashed the knife under the tap. With the sponge, she wiped the blade clean until it glinted. And then, she placed the knife into the dishwasher. Meanwhile, the knife said nothing. She caught his gaze as she bent down to the dishwasher. A small smile touched the corner of her lips, but there was a flash of confusion – like light on a blade – in her eyes. ‘What?’

He laughed. The sound was wild and unhinged. ‘Nothing. Hey, would you pass me the wine? I wanna caramelise these onions. It’s on the dining room table.’

The caution in her face softened, and her smile became more relaxed. ‘Sure thing. You sure do know your way around a kitchen, Tatum. I can’t wait to try it. Be right back.’

He sighed and scrolled on his phone through the rest of the recipe. His battery was running low, so he plugged it into the charger cable he always kept on the counter. ‘So, the next step is to—’

Half a second after Lou had left the room, the fresh knife in his hands chuckled. ‘Murder, Tatum! Beautiful, cold-blooded murder! Stab her in the back, Tatum! In the back! Get her in the kidneys, and watch her bleed out! Gorgeous killings, Tatum! Slash, stab, and slice!

No, not this one, too. Could it be that it wasn’t the knives at all? That it was him, that he was the one who was insane? Tatum took the knife and threw it at the wall. He screamed, not thinking about his present company. ‘NO!’

The blade thudded into the wall with the accuracy of a circus knife thrower. It punctured the wall, pointy end first, and remained there, wobbling from the force. Behind him, Louella screamed and jumped, dropping the wine. The bottle hit the kitchen tiles and shattered. Glass fragments and splashes of wasted wine flew in all directions.

That was that, then. The gig was up; Lou knew he was nuts. Tatum turned to look at her. He stood there, panting, eyes wide, hair wild, madness written all over his face. His shoulders slumped. ‘I-I’m sorry Lou. I’m so sorry. You need to leave.’

Hands held to her collarbone, Lou stepped around the glass and approached him. She reached for him, shaking. ‘Will you please tell me what’s going on, Tatum? I—’ Her voice hitched. ‘I can help. You need to trust me and open up. It’s not good to keep this sort of thing trapped deep inside.’

‘I-I—’ he stammered, ‘I can’t!’

‘Tatum—’

‘LEAVE! GO ON, GET OUT! GO! NOW!’

A heartbeat passed between them. Lou’s eyes couldn’t grow any wider. The world held its breath. The knives said nothing. And then the woman burst into tears and bolted from his apartment.

Tatum sobbed. What was wrong with him? Had he lost it? Were the men in white coats coming to take him away, ha-ha, coming to take him away? Tatum slammed the door shut. He took a step, tripped over the open dishwasher, and fell backwards. He landed on the knife Louella had cleaned and placed upright.

The blade sliced through his back and penetrated out through his chest in a gout of blood. The wet metal glinted. ‘Yay, murder!’ squeaked a tiny voice.

Tatum gasped as the cold hands of death squeezed his heart. He reached up for his phone on the counter. His fingers crawled like a blind spider until Tatum found it. ‘Lou,’ he choked, blood dribbling from his mouth. ‘L-Lou—’

The charger cable, still plugged in, caught around something and yanked. The knife rack toppled from the kitchen counter, spilling the knives into the air. The glinting blades twirled and plunged like Olympic divers going for gold. They punctured him and left him pincushioned. A choir of voices rose in ecstasy. ‘YAAAAY!’

He should have told Louella what was going on. He’d been too scared to speak about this madness, fearing it would drive her away. But he’d driven her away anyway, and it had resulted in his death. He shouldn’t have kept it all bottled inside; now it was too late. Tears trickled from his eyes and intermingled with the blood spilling from his mouth.

As he faded away, the knives wriggled inside him, giggling about death and murder.