Santa Search And Rescue

Chapter One

December 19th – North Pole – 10:04pm

Santa, please, be reasonable.  That storm is headed right for the U.S. east coast.  It will be there just as you’re making your test run.  We need to wait until tomorrow night.  Just look at the radar!  We can’t risk another accident!

Alexander Berry, better known as Alex, was not having a good day.  Or night, if one wanted to be specific.  As Santa’s Head Elf, he was responsible for all of the little details that made Christmas possible – from checking the naughty and nice lists, to having Santa’s suit freshly dry cleaned, to making sure the sleigh and reindeer were ready to fly.  In short, Alex was the man, or in this case elf, who made Christmas happen.  Santa was just the public front for the holiday.

Tonight was supposed to have been Santa’s final test flight before the big night.  Though the magical vehicle was maintained throughout the year, Alex was a firm believer in testing all equipment before the big night.  It was a trick he’d leaned from his predecessor and it had never let him down yet.  Well, at least not anytime recently.  Alex preferred not to think of those other times, considering them aberrations.

Nonsense, Axey, my boy!  I’ll be back before that storm even crosses the Allegheny Ridge!  I’ve got plenty of time!  Santa still insisted on calling Alex by that infernal nickname, one he’d been given as a child.  As an elf only a few days shy of his 278th birthday, Alex thought he’d at least earned the right to be called by the name he preferred.  Too bad his boss didn’t see it that way.

You’re only going that far?  Alex was slightly mollified by that, though he had to wonder if the old guy still had a trick or two up his sleeve.  Alex wouldn’t put it past him.  However, if Santa turned around before crossing the mountains, there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that he could make it back to the North Pole without incident.

Santa winked at Alex and smiled, a rather toothy grin that Alex thought was full of more mischief than honesty, though he admitted that he could have been overreacting.  He did that on occasion.  I promise, son.  No tricks for me tonight.  Just some clean and simple flying.  Vixen had a cold last week and Lionel doesn’t want to put too much stress on her.  He was referring to Lionel Greentree, Santa’s head groom.  He says if we do, she might fly crooked later on.  We can’t have that.

Alex nodded.  Okay, then.  Say to Harrisburg and back?  Pennsylvania’s state capitol building had some nice, bright lights on its dome and would be the perfect spot for Santa to turn the sleigh around without its running lights being seeing from the ground, a necessary precaution these days when people were constantly calling 911 to report flying saucers if they so much as saw a plane in the night sky.

Agreed!  I’ll be back before you know it!  Santa laughed and climbed into the sleigh in his full Christmas regalia, though the suit did look a little tight.  It seemed silly to worry about it, but Alex knew his boss had been hitting the Christmas cookies a little too hard the past few months.  If the suit needed to be let out, it was better to find out now, while there was still plenty of red velvet to be had in the stores.  

Alex moved to the flight control panel and nodded to Anna Partridge, the flight controller for the evening.  Remember, he warned, shooting the jolly man a dark look, "Harrisburg and back.  No side trips to see the lights in Pittsburgh.  I don’t care what they did to The Point’s fountain this year."

Santa simply waved and pulled his goggles down over his eyes as Anna ran through pre-flight and made sure everything looked good.  When Alex nodded, Anna gave the all clear and Santa and his sleigh launched into the night where the snow was already starting to swirl and blow across the frigid expanse of the North Pole.

Alex still had a bad feeling about the test flight, but the launch had been clean and smooth.  According to Anna’s control panel, the sleigh had reached cruising speed in the expected thirty seconds and Santa was well on his way into his test flight.  He checked a few more readings, made a note that the right runner should probably be adjusted as it was tending to drag slightly to port and then returned to his office.  Perhaps all of his worry had been for nothing.

His computer had barely booted up when Anna burst through the door, her long red hair flying behind her like a cloak.  Immediately, Alex came to attention.  Form the look on her face, whatever had happened wasn’t good.

It’s Santa!  She was breathing so hard that she could barely get out the words.  He was making the turn over Harrisburg and something happened!  The starboard flight controller gave out and he went down!  We haven’t been able to establish radio contact and his GPS tracker is bouncing around like crazy.  We can’t get a fix on him!

Nothing at all?  Alex found it hard to believe that Santa wouldn’t even switch on the radio.  Then again, he though, there had been times in the past…  No, he wasn’t even going to go there.

Anna shook her head, a look of pure desperation crossing her face.  Not so much as a squeak.  He didn’t even activate his emergency beacon.

Alex felt sick to his stomach and he began to sweat.  Just a few days before the big night and Santa was missing.  This was just freakin’ great.

Call search and rescue! he barked.  Get every available elf on this now!  We need to find Santa because I’d hate to think of the consequences if we don’t!  Then Alex took off at a run for his place.  He needed to pack some things, quickly.  If Santa was missing, it was his job to find him.  He didn’t want to even consider the consequences if he didn’t.

December 19th – Harrisburg, PA – 10:09 pm

Julia Logan peered into her tiny backyard, gripping the baseball bat for all she was worth.  It was times like this that she wished she either owned a gun or had actually gone to those self-defense classes she’d thought about.  Though she only rented half of the duplex on the outskirts of Harrisburg, whatever had hit the roof hadn’t bothered discriminating between her half and the half rented by George Kelly, the perennially drunk, eternal college student next door.  At least that’s what George had told Julia he was.  For all she knew, he was a serial killer.  Though in general, he didn’t bother her, so she didn’t much care one way or the other.  Just so long as he was quiet – which George was most of the time.

Since it happened to be after 7:00pm and before 2:00am the next morning, George was, of