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