The Missing Report

            It was the second time in as many days. Lydia Lisenrush shook her arm to try to get the feeling to come back. She was in perfect health. Every day, she was out there with the boys, running four laps around Far Watch. She spent an hour every day in the weight room, had the physician give her a monthly exam. She knew that her health and well-being were crucial to the survival of Port O’James and indeed the entire North East Colony. After the destruction of Altonin, the danger was clear, and she was fully committed to making sure Far Watch stood between the Icelord and her people.

            She could not understand the hesitant attitude of the brass in Port Sang. General Toron refused to provide more men, and had still not ordered full mobilization, deferring to the wisdom of the civilian government.

            Wisdom, indeed.

            Lisenrush concentrated on her arm, shaking it and flexing it. Doctor Hansen had proven unhelpful in explaining the loss of sensation, suggesting that she had perhaps leaned on it without realizing it. He was a civilian, one of the soft masses who strove to do the bare minimum.

            The body was still in its holding cell. She knew she would have to decide what to do with it. It would be wisest, she thought, to merely destroy it, which was the usual procedure with draugar, but at the same time, instinct told her to wait.

            She could not afford to humanize the body. It had fooled the entire Enforcement department in town, and Lisenrush was convinced that if she had not intervened, they would have set it loose, which would have of course been disastrous.

            She checked the clock. It was already noon. Buck and Jorgensen were late with their report. There were only a handful of rangers left, and late reports made her worry. She pulled on her coat and hat and walked out to the Comm. Station.

            “Sir?” asked Perkins. Lisenrush had never really gotten to know him. He was the son of foreigners, and had very dark skin, which made an odd contrast with the snow-filled landscape of the forest. Still, he did his job well, so she saw no reason to actively dislike him.

            “Anything on the radio from Buck or Jorgensen? I’m waiting for their report.”

            Perkins frowned, looking confused. “I’m sorry, sir, Buck and Jorgensen?”

            “Yes, is there something wrong with your hearing?”

            “No sir. Buck and Jorgensen got back over an hour ago. I thought they had gone straight to you.”

            “Where are they now?”

            “I don’t know. Should I summon them?”

            Lisenrush shook her head. “They’re probably at the mess. Stay sharp, Perkins.”

            “Yes sir.”

            She made her way to the mess, passing by the one window of the cell where they were keeping the body. It was a disturbing notion, to be so close to the undead. She would have to make a decision soon.

            Buck was sitting with some of the other men when Lisenrush entered the room. He only noticed her when she reached his table.

            “Lieutenant, on your feet!” she yelled. Buck nearly choked on his stew. When he had recovered, he stood up and saluted.

            “Sir, yes sir.”

            Lisenrush glared at him and spat as she spoke – an affectation she had learned from her predecessor, a tough-as-iron old berserker with a wild white beard named Krieger. “I have been waiting for your report all morning, and I only find out now that you and Jorgensen have been back for over an hour? You had better have a fucking good explanation, lieutenant.”

            Buck stared back at her in horror. “I… uh… sir, I…”

            “Spit it out, Buck.”

            “Sir, we did give you our report. You dismissed us at 1020 hours.”

            Lisenrush could feel her blood boil. “Do you think that’s funny, lieutenant? You think that’s a funny?”

            “No, sir.”

            “Well, I’ll tell you what is. You and Jorgensen are on latrine duty for the next month.”

            “Sir, I…” but Buck could see the fury in her face, and merely replied with a dutiful “Yes, sir.”

            “And I expect a written report on my desk by 1300 hours from both of you.”

            Lisenrush stormed back to her office. She sat down at her desk and rubbed her arm. She could still hardly feel anything. She went to her computer to make a new log, recording the disciplinary action for Buck and Jorgensen. Yet when she looked at the screen, she found something very odd.

            The report from the two rangers was right here, entered in at 1025 that morning. All the details of an uneventful patrol were there, with everything entered by the book.

            She suddenly recalled a very old memory. She was nine years old, and her sister, Elsa, was playing with her in the snow. Lydia had climbed one of the trees, but the wood had rotted during the mild winter, and the branch she had stepped out on crumbled away. She fell nearly fifteen feet, her leg folding under her in an excruciating way, cracking the bone. She called out for help, but Elsa was nowhere to be seen. She had never been so angry in her life. Even to this day, nearly thirty years later, she still thought she had never felt angrier. The anger had helped her. It dulled the pain, and it took away her fear.

            She felt that same kind of anger now – a kind of pained frustration, but the cause of it was a mystery. It was as if she were screaming out, trying to get someone’s attention, but she knew neither the content of the message nor to whom she was screaming.

            The draugr should be interrogated.

            It could prove pointless – a draugr was a puppet of the Icelord, not an enemy soldier who could feel pain or remorse. To assign such attributes to this one just because it looked like a living woman was probably a foolish thing to do, yet on the other hand, there was little that Lisenrush imagined she would lose by doing so, if proper precautions were taken.

            She read through the Buck/Jorgensen log entry once more to make sure it was complete. She would have to find a way to explain her outburst in the mess hall. Perhaps Buck had misinterpreted what she said – not that they had failed to deliver any report, but that their report was unsatisfactory.

            As she read through it, correcting the occasional spelling error and typo, she came across a strange phrase. Was it something Jorgensen had disagreed with Buck on? The phrase came out of nowhere, though, with few context clues to figure out to what it was referring.

            “It’s standing there, even now, and you still refuse to see it.”

            Her arm went fully numb again.

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2012)