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Chapter Eight: Operation Typhoon

Clarissa had never woken up screaming before, but tonight was just a night for all new things. “For... get,” she slurred to herself as she finally came back to reality. She grit her teeth in fear, but quickly spat out a mouthful of debris she’d picked up by rolling around on the cave floor.

Sitting up, Clarissa took in her surroundings. It was the cave where It had happened, she could clearly see that; however, she didn’t really feel any sense of urgency. And yet, she knew there was something with a radio she needed. To close off something. “Crazy dream,” she grunted to herself. “And why am I back here?” Clarissa glared at the calm, inviting water. That terrible, vile fountain of deadly, eternal youth gave her as much of a clenching pain as the thought of Alex dragging her down here.

“But I didn’t,” Clarissa mumbled to herself as she got to her feet. She specifically remembered Alex, Reginald, and Jonas going to see the mouth of the cave. In fact, now that she gave it some thought she realized that Alex would never want to bring Jonas down here. Even if she did, which is something only a horrifically evil Alex would entertain, Reginald would know better and offer up his precious pot brownies as a distraction.

Snapping her fingers, Clarissa huffed to herself, “Damn it, he never did offer to share those with me. Brad said they’d baked a whole batch at his house!”

As Clarissa began to make her way out of that terrible cave, she had to acknowledge that something was seriously wrong. “One moment I’m on the beach, next I’m in the coffin,” she growled as she climbed up the precariously placed rocks. Stomach growling, she thought about food for the briefest of moments, and then she remembered that wonderful night where she and Nona had eaten a weird but tasty sandwich that was lacking in onion. Mouth watering, she took a long, hard breath of that fresh and salty sea air as she finally emerged from the cave. Beacon Beach was deserted, their friendly fire resting quietly. The beach towels were all jumbled up, but their precious/stolen beer was still in the cooler.

Delighted, Clarissa helped herself. Fizzy urine, the American classic, was a welcome sensation to her. She felt like she’d been going through hell for the longest time, but here she was. Alone in the middle of the night, relaxing on the beach with a beer. Instinctively, she checked her phone. Oddly enough, it was only 10:05. Maybe it was somehow Clarissa’s mental nerves that had gone a full circle, but she knew she should be more freaked out. She was awake at 9 PM, the light show happened not too long after, no later than 9:30, and suddenly she was in a different location. Granted, it wasn’t too far from where she had apparently been knocked out, but she knew there were a million red flags in just passing out from two or three beers.

She wanted to call for help, but her phone was conveniently out of range, which was another red flag. Her data plan always accounted for Edwards Island. She needed to call someone, anyone. If she couldn’t use her phone, she could use a radio. The one place she knew that was built to talk to the mainland was-

A flashing red light cracked across the sky like a lightning bolt, a static tearing sound seared through her eardrums, deafening her. “Not... done... soaking!”

Shrieking, Clarissa dropped her beer and ran for it. She had managed to recognize what she needed to do. Adrenaline pumping, she raced off towards Fort Milner. She wasn’t sure what exactly to look for, but she knew that there had to be some kind of radio powerful enough to contact Camena. At the very least, there had to be an emergency line of some kind, some list of numbers for the military dudes to call if the Japs ever sneaked up on the island.

Clarissa was ever thankful that she had decided to show off at school by joining the track team. Putting her long legs to good use, she made it to Fort Milner, and she only suffered two more red light attacks: one from an exploding lamp post, and another from a billboard light. Every time she tried to formulate a plan, that searing, screeching pain entered her mind, her soul, her whole body. But she didn’t have time to feel pain, she had to call for help. It wasn’t like Alex was going to do anything to help her. She would help Reginald and Jonas, maybe even Nona, but certainly not Clarissa. She found herself wanting to contact help first, beat Alex to the punch, just so she could show Alex who was really in charge.

She was overcome with anger, grief, and shame all at once. Oddly enough, the pain subsided considerably as she thought about humiliating that poser. She thought about Alex getting lost in the abandoned, scary Fort Milner, all of its decrepit and rotting infrastructure collapsing on Alex, burying her for skateboarders to find her rotten corpse. She imagined Alex bleeding out, cutting herself a million times on all of the rusted and jagged metal corners, or on all the broken glass that littered the abandoned compound. Clarissa kept herself afloat on such fantasies as she traversed the obstacle course.

And while she would have been happy to think about the defeat of Alex, more than just literally, keeping the pain away felt nice too. So it was to her great discomfort, physically and emotionally, when Alex picked up the super emergency hotline phone. Clarissa had a million different questions, but hearing a friendly-sounding voice after what had felt like an eternity was ultimately a relief to her.

“Hellooo?” Alex asked again. “Is... is anyone there? Jonas, I don’t-”

“Alex!” Clarissa suddenly blurted!

“...Oh. Clarissa. What are you doing on this line?”

There was too much going on inside Clarissa’s head, not all of it her own thoughts. She pushed past the initial urge to hate Alex and just try to solve the problem at hand. Pressing the button on her radio’s receiver, she leaned in and asked, “Alex, are you still on the island? Is it just you and Jonas? Jesus, I’m still hearing noises outside. I’m at Fort Milner, where are you?”

Sighing, Alex konked her head against the giant metal machine. The konk echoed through the tower and into the phone. “Hi, Clarissa. I’m at Harden Tower. If you wanna put those legs of yours to some use, why don’tcha jog over here? In the meantime, I gotta keep Ren in one piece. So, unless you found his brownies-”

“Alex!” Clarissa blurted again, but with a far greater sense of desperation seeping into her tone. “There’s- there’s-” she tried to explain, but realized the absurdity of the red lights, the strange memories, all of it. “I... I think there’s something wrong. I found this radio, it says it can contact Camena. I woke up without Nona-”

“Poor thing!” Alex gasped back. “Don’t worry, I know how you feel, but don’t worry! I’ll let you have her on the weekends!”

“Alex! Please!” Clarissa nearly cried out. Heaving, she felt so overwhelmed that she had trouble balancing. She sat down, in her dingy radio room, overlooking the abandoned courtyard a thousand floors down. Debris puffed up into the air as the cushion caved under her weight, staining her jeans. The old office chair creaked under a relatively light load, its frame rusted from years of rain. “I- I’m exhausted. I’m disoriented. I don’t remember the last hour! I’m- I ran all the way here and had to find this room in the dark, my battery died. Can you- can you-”

“Mmm, Jonas, naughty boy! Not while I’m on the phone!” Alex moaned. “Sorry, Clarissa, was there something you wanted?”

Clarissa hadn’t yet noticed the twitch in her face. “Can you come over and figure this radio thing out with me?”

There was a pause. Jonas spoke first. “Fort Milner looked huge on the map. Does she kno-?”

Alex hung up on her, the phone screaming in her ear. Now, she noticed the twitching. She caught her hand shaking, too. She couldn’t take a full breath, and she wanted to run but had nowhere to go except out the window.

“You broke me, Alex,” Clarissa admitted aloud, phone still to her ear. “Even if I end up in a good place, I’ll never forget what you did to me. I’ll never forgive you for killing Michael! He would hate me for saying it, but I’ll be damned if I let his memory keep me from breaking you! You hear me, Alex?!” Clarissa screamed into the phone, slamming her hand against the faceplate of the phonebox. “I don’t care how far I go, or where I go, or what happens to me! If you’re okay with kicking me while I’m down, Michael can’t blame me for pulling you down with me!”

Alex had to chuckle at that, to which Clarissa suddenly wondered if Alex had really hung up on her. Credit where it was due, Alex took it all in stride and calmly, sweetly assured Clarissa, “Good night. Sleep tight. Sink to the bottom... with us... tonight.”

An explosion of static, as if it were coming from a record player, erupted out of the receiver, red light blasting from the light sources of her radio set. Shrieking, Clarissa hurled the receiver out of her hand. Since it was on a cord, it didn’t go too far. She leapt out of her chair and raced to the door, only to leap back again when she heard the record static emanating from the speakers outside. Frantic, and out of options, Clarissa grabbed her chair and hurled it at the door. As it smashed against the rotting wood, she tried to control her breathing.

“I don’t wanna be here!” she frantically whisper shrieked to herself again and again, over and over, as if she could just jump out the window and fly away. She stood her ground, fighting the urge to just cower in the corner.

Shaking and heaving, Clarissa glared at the door, hearing the static get more and more intense. She wished, pleaded, and prayed. Wracking her mind, she fell into a desperate state of longing, for the one person who actually understood, who was actually able to empathize with this sense of hopelessness. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she suddenly wished that she was with Anna. Anna Shea. She had no idea who that woman was, but she just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Anna could help her.

“No! Not... Again!”

And as the static got more and more intense, the room tore itself apart, and Clarissa stayed awake to see it happen. It was as real as the hair on her head.

“We... Can find!”

The voices, the glaring red light, the crackling static, it was all gone, echoing away into the sunset. Clarissa stared at the doorway, fresh white paint applied to a sturdy wooden door. Bright office lights shown down into the radio room, and she could hear all kinds of office noises just outside.

Swallowing hard, Clarissa felt an intense dryness in her throat.

“I dare say you’ve made the discovery of the millennium,” Anna Shea quietly murmured almost next to Clarissa’s ear.

Jolted, Clarissa spun to her left. Sitting at the very same radio station she had just been using was Anna Shea, in a long red skirt and a bright, white shirt. She even had on one of those fancy hats Clarissa saw fancy ladies wearing in the 1950s, velvet black with a matching bow. She sat at the desk that once accompanied all of the machinery, listening very intensely to something on a pair of headphones, though she used just one ear and let the rest of the headset hang off her hand. Maggie Adler stood tall and proud over her, though naturally shorter, crisp and clean in her uniform. While normally feisty, she seemed rather stoic on this day.

There was a loud click, and Clarissa could see Anna shake as she put down the headphones.

“Ah reckon so,” Maggie grunted. With her arms crossed, and her back to Clarissa, the teenager couldn’t get a read on her face, but the body language and voice gave off a very cold feeling to her. “Marianna’s been kind enough t’ help, but she’s got other duties. What’dya say, Ms. Shea? Wanna work on it with me?”

Breath held, Clarissa stared intensely at the two women as Anna looked up from the table. Setting the headphones down, stood up to make sure she was still taller than Maggie. Satisfied with her posture, she adjusted her collar and hat, looking down at Maggie with calm, neutral eyes. Despite the standoff, she gave a gentle nod.

“I would like that very much,” she said both in front of and behind Clarissa, which caused Clarissa to spin around to find Anna Shea in the flesh, so to speak. The woman had such a fondness in her face as she relived the moment aloud.

“You-” Anna started, but was interrupted by Clarissa’s screaming.

Description
Chapter Eight: Operation Typhoon

Clarissa had never woken up screaming before, but tonight was just a night for all new things. “For... get,” she slurred to herself as she finally came back to reality. She grit her teeth in fear, but quickly spat out a mouthful of debris she’d picked up by rolling around on the cave floor.

Sitting up, Clarissa took in her surroundings. It was the cave where It had happened, she could clearly see that; however, she didn’t really feel any sense of urgency. And yet, she knew there was something with a radio she needed. To close off something. “Crazy dream,” she grunted to herself. “And why am I back here?” Clarissa glared at the calm, inviting water. That terrible, vile fountain of deadly, eternal youth gave her as much of a clenching pain as the thought of Alex dragging her down here.

“But I didn’t,” Clarissa mumbled to herself as she got to her feet. She specifically remembered Alex, Reginald, and Jonas going to see the mouth of the cave. In fact, now that she gave it some thought she realized that Alex would never want to bring Jonas down here. Even if she did, which is something only a horrifically evil Alex would entertain, Reginald would know better and offer up his precious pot brownies as a distraction.

Snapping her fingers, Clarissa huffed to herself, “Damn it, he never did offer to share those with me. Brad said they’d baked a whole batch at his house!”

As Clarissa began to make her way out of that terrible cave, she had to acknowledge that something was seriously wrong. “One moment I’m on the beach, next I’m in the coffin,” she growled as she climbed up the precariously placed rocks. Stomach growling, she thought about food for the briefest of moments, and then she remembered that wonderful night where she and Nona had eaten a weird but tasty sandwich that was lacking in onion. Mouth watering, she took a long, hard breath of that fresh and salty sea air as she finally emerged from the cave. Beacon Beach was deserted, their friendly fire resting quietly. The beach towels were all jumbled up, but their precious/stolen beer was still in the cooler.

Delighted, Clarissa helped herself. Fizzy urine, the American classic, was a welcome sensation to her. She felt like she’d been going through hell for the longest time, but here she was. Alone in the middle of the night, relaxing on the beach with a beer. Instinctively, she checked her phone. Oddly enough, it was only 10:05. Maybe it was somehow Clarissa’s mental nerves that had gone a full circle, but she knew she should be more freaked out. She was awake at 9 PM, the light show happened not too long after, no later than 9:30, and suddenly she was in a different location. Granted, it wasn’t too far from where she had apparently been knocked out, but she knew there were a million red flags in just passing out from two or three beers.

She wanted to call for help, but her phone was conveniently out of range, which was another red flag. Her data plan always accounted for Edwards Island. She needed to call someone, anyone. If she couldn’t use her phone, she could use a radio. The one place she knew that was built to talk to the mainland was-

A flashing red light cracked across the sky like a lightning bolt, a static tearing sound seared through her eardrums, deafening her. “Not... done... soaking!”

Shrieking, Clarissa dropped her beer and ran for it. She had managed to recognize what she needed to do. Adrenaline pumping, she raced off towards Fort Milner. She wasn’t sure what exactly to look for, but she knew that there had to be some kind of radio powerful enough to contact Camena. At the very least, there had to be an emergency line of some kind, some list of numbers for the military dudes to call if the Japs ever sneaked up on the island.

Clarissa was ever thankful that she had decided to show off at school by joining the track team. Putting her long legs to good use, she made it to Fort Milner, and she only suffered two more red light attacks: one from an exploding lamp post, and another from a billboard light. Every time she tried to formulate a plan, that searing, screeching pain entered her mind, her soul, her whole body. But she didn’t have time to feel pain, she had to call for help. It wasn’t like Alex was going to do anything to help her. She would help Reginald and Jonas, maybe even Nona, but certainly not Clarissa. She found herself wanting to contact help first, beat Alex to the punch, just so she could show Alex who was really in charge.

She was overcome with anger, grief, and shame all at once. Oddly enough, the pain subsided considerably as she thought about humiliating that poser. She thought about Alex getting lost in the abandoned, scary Fort Milner, all of its decrepit and rotting infrastructure collapsing on Alex, burying her for skateboarders to find her rotten corpse. She imagined Alex bleeding out, cutting herself a million times on all of the rusted and jagged metal corners, or on all the broken glass that littered the abandoned compound. Clarissa kept herself afloat on such fantasies as she traversed the obstacle course.

And while she would have been happy to think about the defeat of Alex, more than just literally, keeping the pain away felt nice too. So it was to her great discomfort, physically and emotionally, when Alex picked up the super emergency hotline phone. Clarissa had a million different questions, but hearing a friendly-sounding voice after what had felt like an eternity was ultimately a relief to her.

“Hellooo?” Alex asked again. “Is... is anyone there? Jonas, I don’t-”

“Alex!” Clarissa suddenly blurted!

“...Oh. Clarissa. What are you doing on this line?”

There was too much going on inside Clarissa’s head, not all of it her own thoughts. She pushed past the initial urge to hate Alex and just try to solve the problem at hand. Pressing the button on her radio’s receiver, she leaned in and asked, “Alex, are you still on the island? Is it just you and Jonas? Jesus, I’m still hearing noises outside. I’m at Fort Milner, where are you?”

Sighing, Alex konked her head against the giant metal machine. The konk echoed through the tower and into the phone. “Hi, Clarissa. I’m at Harden Tower. If you wanna put those legs of yours to some use, why don’tcha jog over here? In the meantime, I gotta keep Ren in one piece. So, unless you found his brownies-”

“Alex!” Clarissa blurted again, but with a far greater sense of desperation seeping into her tone. “There’s- there’s-” she tried to explain, but realized the absurdity of the red lights, the strange memories, all of it. “I... I think there’s something wrong. I found this radio, it says it can contact Camena. I woke up without Nona-”

“Poor thing!” Alex gasped back. “Don’t worry, I know how you feel, but don’t worry! I’ll let you have her on the weekends!”

“Alex! Please!” Clarissa nearly cried out. Heaving, she felt so overwhelmed that she had trouble balancing. She sat down, in her dingy radio room, overlooking the abandoned courtyard a thousand floors down. Debris puffed up into the air as the cushion caved under her weight, staining her jeans. The old office chair creaked under a relatively light load, its frame rusted from years of rain. “I- I’m exhausted. I’m disoriented. I don’t remember the last hour! I’m- I ran all the way here and had to find this room in the dark, my battery died. Can you- can you-”

“Mmm, Jonas, naughty boy! Not while I’m on the phone!” Alex moaned. “Sorry, Clarissa, was there something you wanted?”

Clarissa hadn’t yet noticed the twitch in her face. “Can you come over and figure this radio thing out with me?”

There was a pause. Jonas spoke first. “Fort Milner looked huge on the map. Does she kno-?”

Alex hung up on her, the phone screaming in her ear. Now, she noticed the twitching. She caught her hand shaking, too. She couldn’t take a full breath, and she wanted to run but had nowhere to go except out the window.

“You broke me, Alex,” Clarissa admitted aloud, phone still to her ear. “Even if I end up in a good place, I’ll never forget what you did to me. I’ll never forgive you for killing Michael! He would hate me for saying it, but I’ll be damned if I let his memory keep me from breaking you! You hear me, Alex?!” Clarissa screamed into the phone, slamming her hand against the faceplate of the phonebox. “I don’t care how far I go, or where I go, or what happens to me! If you’re okay with kicking me while I’m down, Michael can’t blame me for pulling you down with me!”

Alex had to chuckle at that, to which Clarissa suddenly wondered if Alex had really hung up on her. Credit where it was due, Alex took it all in stride and calmly, sweetly assured Clarissa, “Good night. Sleep tight. Sink to the bottom... with us... tonight.”

An explosion of static, as if it were coming from a record player, erupted out of the receiver, red light blasting from the light sources of her radio set. Shrieking, Clarissa hurled the receiver out of her hand. Since it was on a cord, it didn’t go too far. She leapt out of her chair and raced to the door, only to leap back again when she heard the record static emanating from the speakers outside. Frantic, and out of options, Clarissa grabbed her chair and hurled it at the door. As it smashed against the rotting wood, she tried to control her breathing.

“I don’t wanna be here!” she frantically whisper shrieked to herself again and again, over and over, as if she could just jump out the window and fly away. She stood her ground, fighting the urge to just cower in the corner.

Shaking and heaving, Clarissa glared at the door, hearing the static get more and more intense. She wished, pleaded, and prayed. Wracking her mind, she fell into a desperate state of longing, for the one person who actually understood, who was actually able to empathize with this sense of hopelessness. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she suddenly wished that she was with Anna. Anna Shea. She had no idea who that woman was, but she just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Anna could help her.

“No! Not... Again!”

And as the static got more and more intense, the room tore itself apart, and Clarissa stayed awake to see it happen. It was as real as the hair on her head.

“We... Can find!”

The voices, the glaring red light, the crackling static, it was all gone, echoing away into the sunset. Clarissa stared at the doorway, fresh white paint applied to a sturdy wooden door. Bright office lights shown down into the radio room, and she could hear all kinds of office noises just outside.

Swallowing hard, Clarissa felt an intense dryness in her throat.

“I dare say you’ve made the discovery of the millennium,” Anna Shea quietly murmured almost next to Clarissa’s ear.

Jolted, Clarissa spun to her left. Sitting at the very same radio station she had just been using was Anna Shea, in a long red skirt and a bright, white shirt. She even had on one of those fancy hats Clarissa saw fancy ladies wearing in the 1950s, velvet black with a matching bow. She sat at the desk that once accompanied all of the machinery, listening very intensely to something on a pair of headphones, though she used just one ear and let the rest of the headset hang off her hand. Maggie Adler stood tall and proud over her, though naturally shorter, crisp and clean in her uniform. While normally feisty, she seemed rather stoic on this day.

There was a loud click, and Clarissa could see Anna shake as she put down the headphones.

“Ah reckon so,” Maggie grunted. With her arms crossed, and her back to Clarissa, the teenager couldn’t get a read on her face, but the body language and voice gave off a very cold feeling to her. “Marianna’s been kind enough t’ help, but she’s got other duties. What’dya say, Ms. Shea? Wanna work on it with me?”

Breath held, Clarissa stared intensely at the two women as Anna looked up from the table. Setting the headphones down, stood up to make sure she was still taller than Maggie. Satisfied with her posture, she adjusted her collar and hat, looking down at Maggie with calm, neutral eyes. Despite the standoff, she gave a gentle nod.

“I would like that very much,” she said both in front of and behind Clarissa, which caused Clarissa to spin around to find Anna Shea in the flesh, so to speak. The woman had such a fondness in her face as she relived the moment aloud.

“You-” Anna started, but was interrupted by Clarissa’s screaming.