The Last Call

The young lady who posted on this blog is dead. She has been in this state for several months now. If you wish to know how, I direct your attention to this post.


I am the old man in the Katabasis Station she met before meeting her end. As names are unimportant, one can simply call me the Intermediary. Before leaving the Station, I'm afraid she took several files with her, which is how she knew so much about her intended targets.


She was a very troubled young woman, very sad and I believe a little lonely. Of the files she stole, I believe one was her own file, so I cannot find her real name nor her history (though I am sure that someday the file will reappear with all relevant information). The last look she gave me was enough for me to realize how scared she was, so I do not begrudge her for the thefts.


I recall, back when I was young and didn't work at this Station, I would go to a bar with my friends and drink until the bartender called the last call. And one night, my friend, quite drunk, said to me, "I think if everyone would just shut up, it might be quiet around here sometime." I think Ms. Nine would have agreed with that sentiment.


So to Number Nine, requiescat in silentio.

The Last Message

I've been sitting here thinking. Thinking about what to do next. It's been almost a month now. Almost a month since I came down here, down to California. It's hot and the air is stifling and I've been here for a month. Waiting.

I know what you're thinking. What happened at Katabasis Station? Why was I clued to go there? Alright. I, being a consummate storyteller, shall tell you.

The radio tower loomed above me, steel lattices crisscrossing, going upwards into the sky. There was a short, squat building below the tower, which I knew was where I should be going.

I was sweating like a hog. I can't wait for the Quiet to come, for the sun itself to go dark and cool blackness envelope the earth. It sounds refreshing actually. Cool nothingness.

I entered the building. The floors were dirt and there were thick cables everywhere. No lights, just a suffocating heat in darkness. I heard of voice.

"Hello there. I'm glad you came." It was an old, raspy voice. I looked hard at the darkness and saw an outline of an old man. He was sitting on a chair fiddling with a microphone.

"Are you my contact?" I asked. "You're an agent of the Quiet?"

His laugh was short and harsh. It quickly descended into a coughing fit and I could hear him hacking away into the microphone. "I'm sorry," he said, "my lungs aren't what they used to be. No, my dear, I'm not an agent of what you call the Quiet. I'm afraid it has no agents."

I squinted. I couldn't see him clearly, but I could hear it in his voice: he was smiling. "I'm an agent of the Quiet, a member of the House of Nothing," I said. "There's a hole-"

"-where your heart should be, yes," the man said. "So I've read. The thing is, the Quiet doesn't use agents. It doesn't need agents. It has no, well, agency. I'm afraid you're simply a deluded young woman."

I took out my razor blade and opened it. Somehow, it didn't make me feel any safer. "I know what I am. Why did you bring me here? How did you know I would even receive your message? Is this a test? Who are you?"

"Me?" The old man sighed. "I'm the bearer of bad news. I'm an intermediary. What you might call a middleman. My dispatches go everywhere. And I always know when someone gets them. And no, this isn't a test. This is a wake up call."

I walked forward with my razor outstretched. Then, a red light flickered inside the room and I could see the old man clearly. He was bald and wrinkled beyond belief. He glanced at the red bulb above his head, sighed again, and then pressed a button on the microphone. Strange music filled the room and the man spoke clearly and loudly into the microphone:

"Two. Twenty-one. Twenty. Three. Eight. Five. Eighteen. Two. One. Eleven. Five. Eighteen."

The red bulb went out and the old man stopped talking. I heard him put the microphone down on the table and then he said, "I'm sorry. I brought you here only to tell you the truth. You do not serve the Quiet. I doubt you even know what it truly is. What you do with this information is up to you. I suggest you leave here soon. The other...inhabitants of this station get antsy when guests stay too long."

I put away my razor and turned to walk away. I didn't feel safe here. I didn't feel welcome. The shadows were threatening.

Before I left, the old man said two more things: "Farewell. And good luck."

I walked away. I'm been waiting ever since. Waiting to be told where to go, what to do. Thinking about what he said, whether it was true. Whether it mattered.

Does it? Does anything?

The Last Wave

Some people may be wondering about my nom de guerre. Is it a reference to the Beatles' seminal mindfuck Revolution 9? Well, yes and no. When I first listened to Revolution 9, I was blown away by the shear mindfuckery of it. It made my skin feel all tingly. I was nine (synchronicity, see) and hadn't killed my first person yet. My foster parents loved the Beatles and played them for me often, but this was the first piece of their music that I really loved.

But my name wasn't just taken from that. There was a story I read later on, after I had already starting killing but before I had taken my true calling as an Agent of the Quiet, called 1408. It was by Stephen King and it was about a hotel room. It wasn't a haunted hotel room. As one of the characters remarked, it was simply an "evil fucking room." And when the main character is inside, he tries to make a phone call, but is only able to hear bizarre phrases, starting with: "This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is Ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!"

Such a scary thing to hear. My love for the story (and, in particular, that phrase) combined with Revolution 9 made me choose my name when I become a member of the House of Nothing.

No more time for backstory, ladies and gents.

 -- Number Nine

The Last Word

So I figured it out. The code the numbers station gave me. It was kind of simple, so all my tough thinking was for nought: each number corresponded to a letter, a 1, b 2, et cetera. The whole thing read "K-A-T-A-B-A-S-I-S-S-T-A-T-I-O-N."

Katabasis Station. Katabasis means a trip downhill or a descent to the underworld. From what my research is telling me, "Katabasis Station" is an abandoned radio transmitter down in Baja, California. Apropos, no?

I remember my foster mother telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Not really an appropriate story for an eleven-year-old girl, but I loved hearing it anyway. Poor Eurydice, bitten by a snake on her wedding day. Poor Orpheus, who goes down to the underworld in order to rescue her. However, the only way Hades and Persephone will let her leave the underworld is if Orpheus goes first and never looks back to see if she was there. He doesn't quite make it and she's forced to stay in the underworld.

There are some who say that the moral of that story is you should have faith in things you cannot see. But that's stupid. For one thing, Orpheus already knew Eurydice was real, he just wanted to make sure she was behind him. Imagine having something behind you, but you're never able to look at it. Wouldn't it drive you crazy?

No, the real moral is: gods are bastards.

Thus endeth today's lesson.

 -- Number Nine

The Last Song

I think I'm done laying low for now. I just split a man's jugular. To be fair, he wasn't a very nice man. But still.

Time to move on. A new town, a new name, a new place to sow discord. That's what the Quiet wants me to do for it - sow discord. Discord means chaos. Chaos causes confusion, which if it involves any Entities, well, that means we're one step closer to making it happen. Making everything into nothing.

Back before I knew about the Quiet, I was a "disorganized" serial killer. I killed randomly, with no particular pattern, for no particular reason. Sometimes someone would do something that ticked me off, but I wouldn't do anything. Another time, a person would do nothing wrong and I would just take out my trusty razor...

The Quiet changed all that. One day, out of the blue, I heard...well, it wasn't exactly a voice. It was a thought. A thought popped into my head and it was a thought that perhaps we were all better off being nothing than something. I was already killing for nothing, why not kill for nothing?

Hmm. Just tried tuning to a radio station and got some weird numbers with some horrific music in the background. Sometimes the Quiet will send me a clue. Perhaps this is one of them?

"Eleven. One. Twenty. One. Two. One. Nineteen. Nine. Nineteen. Nineteen. Twenty. One. Twenty. Nine. Fifteen. Fourteen."

Time to go.

 -- Number Nine

The Last Glimpse

Do you know how rare female serial killers are? Very. And for the most part, they use "subtle" forms of murder, poison being the most popular.

There are even categories of female serial killers: black widow, angel of death, sexual predator, revenge, profit or crime, team killer, question of sanity, unexplained and unsolved. A study showed that most female serial killers fell into the "black widow" or "team killer" categories.

I was definitely in the "unexplained" category. There were no little voices in my head, no motives of money or vengeance. I didn't team up with another woman to commit crimes. I certainly didn't bump off any husbands. And I detested poison.

I preferred a straight razor. I still keep one with me. Just for old times sake. I don't kill very often now. It attracts too much attention. If I want to stay in one place, I need to keep...quiet.

Of course, every now and then, I take out the old razor and open a vein. Being an Agent of the Quiet has its perks, but sometimes I just needed to see some blood. To see the expression on a person's face as they took their last glimpse.

Bye for now.

 -- Number Nine

The Last Sunset

There's a hole where my heart used to be. Literally: there's just a hole full of nothing. It felt weird at first, but I've gotten used to it.

My name is Number Nine. (It's not the name I was born with, but it's the name I picked.) I am an Agent of the Quiet and a member of the House of Nothing. Haven't heard of those? Well, that's okay, I just made them up. (Except for the House of Nothing -- I stole that from Neil Gaiman, but he didn't use it, so why can't I?)

I hate long introductions, so let's get right down to brass tacks: I'm a bad guy. A villain. (Well, villainess. Villainelle? Whatever.) I want to help bring about the End of Existence. The Final Night. The Last Sunset. And whatever other names you want to call it.

Anyway, that's who I am. There are no whys and wherefores. The Quiet doesn't want anything. It wants nothing. That's what it is and what it wants. And so, there's a hole where my heart used to be. It felt weird at first, but you get used to it.

Bye for now.

 -- Number Nine