Watching the Detectives: Fiction

a scene to give you the nature of BeeGee (Beatrice Grace)

Considerations for SFW: swearing and discussions of historical deaths and horror movies. Don’t get in trouble on my account.

---

The insular group calls themselves “The Peers”. As one of them tells a reporter anonymously, it’s because they “are without peer”. All but one (Peter) is on the college cheerleading team.

They all have given each other goofy, not-so-affectionate nicknames, partially because their given names come from their posh, hyperdriven parents, and partially because their names are mostly old-fashioned First Families of Virginia, upper-class white, already-old names. And partially because of what they have done in their high school past that has trapped them at this special college instead of UVA, William and Mary, Georgetown, Duke, Chapel Hill. More about that college and its…gifts…later. As Leonard Cohen, who is in my ears right now, wrote and sang, “change my name, the one I am using now is covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame” (Lover Lover Lover).

The three in this scene are the one who goes missing, Beatrice Grace (BeeGee, as in the band), Gwendolyn (Bendy Gwendy, because she is the main tumbler on the team; you met Gwendy in the prologue here), Alexandra (Ex, because she is a serial heartbreaker accidentally on purpose and because she supplies X to the other Peers), and Peter (Rock, Pope, Rome, all offensive plays off of St. Peter).

It is early October, 2016, on campus. BeeGee will disappear after and because of the Peers’ Halloween party, in about 25 days or so. BeeGee is an avid rockclimber and mountaineer, and adrenaline-junkie; she is the top flyer on the team, and often tries to break regulations by doing dangerous cheerleading stunts. A talented flyer on a championship team, which theirs is, can be thrown as high as 18 feet/5.5 meters (the record). The average flight of a basket toss flight is 10 feet. Basket tosses are so dangerous that they are illegal in high school competitions.

My favorite line in this scene/chapter:

---

Pics or it didn’t happen.

“Whatcha doin’—oh my God what the fuck is that what is wrong with you—!”

In one fluid motion from camaraderie to abject disgust, Ex smiled at BeeGee's back as BeeGee sat on a picnic table bench in the quad, slid one leg over the bench to join BeeGee, got a glimpse of BeeGee’s laptop screen, recoiled with fight or flight, and ended up in a tangle on the grass. Count one two three four bam clap.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Hi, Ex,” BeeGee responded, smirking at the computer screen. "That was graceful."

“Yeah, don’t apologize or help me up or anything.” 

Ex stood in an indignant fluidity, collected her scattered belongings, brushed grass off everything, and reseated herself, this time not within eyesight of BeeGee or her laptop. 

“You should come with a trigger warning. Just in general. There’s your next tattoo. A general trigger warning. ‘May disturb the general population. Hazardous to small children, the elderly, and individuals with heart conditions. Ask your doctor.’”

“I don’t think I have any real estate large enough for that kind of ink.” BeeGee continued to slyly smirk, obviously pleased with herself at having so completely rattled Ex, and yet not yet looking away from her computer. “Maybe just the warning triangle and exclamation point will have to do, a cute little one on my other ankle, exactly opposite from the Burchett birch tree.”

“I already deeply regret asking this, but what was that I just saw? It looked like a dead body lying in snow.”

“A dead body lying in snow,” BeeGee confirmed, as she gnawed on an energy bar from one corner of her mouth like an animal, like a cartoon character smoking a cigar, a beaver pretending to be a gangster.

Ex raised her hands to the heavens in mock defeat. “Of course, of course it is. Now tell me it’s a still from a horror movie, please.”

Gnaw, gnaw, gulp. “Nope.” 

Chug of water, swallow. “Real.”

“Why, Beatrice Grace Burchett, are you looking at pictures of dead bodies in snow?”

BeeGee offered Ex a brief watch-it sideeye for the Beatrice Grace, then: “They’re all hikers that failed to make it to the summit of Mount Everest.”

“So they’re just left where they fell? Listen to me, you’re sucking me in to your morbid risking-death hiking and climbing bullshit. I’m not doing this with you again. Yes, I am. Damn it.” One of Alexandra's fingers crept to her mouth to be gnawed on, as if of its own accord.

“Where they either fell or camped. Often, if the hiker made it to a high enough elevation, retrieving their body is a risky venture for other hikers and sherpas.”

“So that’s where the bodies stay? They don’t bury them?”

BeeGee looked over her lowered monitor at Ex. “Really?” She held up perfectly manicured fingers one at a time with great gusto. “One: permafrost. Two: I’m not volunteering to be the asshole that has to hump the shovel up Everest so some guy who couldn’t make it gets a proper burial. Or to hump the guy alllll the way back down. Just not realistic. Besides,” and here comes the sly pirate grin again with another finger, “three: the bodies are useful.”

“Jesus take the wheel, you’re baiting me, and I know better than this, and I can feel my ass turning black and blue from that fall you just made me take, but I will play your reindeer game. How are the bodies useful, BeemotherfuckingGee?”

BeeGee grinned her pirate grin at Ex, stuffed the last piece of energy bar into her mouth, and, with her mouth deliberately full, crowed and spit “Landmarks!”—crumbs spewing everywhere, on her sweater, her keyboard, and the bench of the picnic table.

“Gross! You’re full of shit. Also, disgusting. And full of shit.”

BeeGee, nearly choking on the war between swallowing and laughing, finally controlled the battlefield. 

“I’m sorry, but goddamn,” she swiped her mouth lustily with the back of her hand, ‘the look on your face. And I love when I actually make the church mouse swear. That's several in a row."

"Stop it." Ex felt the self-conscious urge to bend in over her chest, to protect her inner self, to fetal, but she fought it. It was just BeeGee. And some dumb pictures. And a little teasing per usual.

"But I’m serious. Biblically serious.”

“Landmarks?” BeeGee nodded and moved to turn the cleaned-off laptop towards Ex. Ex threw up both hands to ward off the incoming visuals. “No, no, nonono, pass, I’m good, just tell me.”

“Coward. Yeah, it’s become tradition. There’s over 200 of them, and it’s kinda honoring them in a way. Those people are still in the adventuring mountain-climbing game. Climbers know that they’ve gone so far when they reach Green Boots, stuff like that.”

“‘Green Boots’,” Ex muttered into her finger, now back in her mouth.

“The fascinatingly eerie part for me would be how well-preserved some of the bodies are. Think about it: it’s just you, your guide, snow, the howling wind, and this guy that died trying to do thirty years ago what you’re doing now. How…moving.”

“Have you ever considered knitting? There’s no corpses in knitting, BeeGee.”

“And check this out—“ BeeGee’s fingers flew across her keyboard.

“Oh, good, more. I wish I hadn’t quit vaping. I could use several hits of nicotine or really anything else right about now, thanks to you.”

“No, you couldn’t,” BeeGee responded absently. "Bad for cheering. Lung capacity. Ah—here it is! Ever heard of the Dyatlov Pass incident?”

“Does it involve dead bodies of hikers?”

“Yep!” BeeGee flashed her most winning patented Harmless White Girl smile at Ex.

“That big-eyed innocent look doesn’t get you anywhere with me…Oh, all right, go ahead, tell me, just no pictures.”

“Oh, it’s your turn to learn about the Dyatlov Pass? Welcome to the club.” Gwendy seated herself next to BeeGee, across from Ex. “I recognized the website. As you were, Professor BeeGee.”

“She’s always been like this?”

“Has she made you watch the movie "Alive" yet?” Gwendy asked Ex, who shook her head, dark eyes wide. “It’s about those soccer players whose plane crashed and they ate each other or some shit like that. I’m blurry on the details, I was really baked.” Gwendy smiled up at Peter as he tousled her hair. He hoisted himself up onto the picnic table next to her, slinging his backpack up with him, and Gwendy continued. “She lives for this shit, exploration taken to the extreme, survivalism gone wrong, blah blah blah. This little psycho was teething on the Donner Party, pun intended. I swear, to her, 'The Thing' is snuff porn.”

“'She' is right here, I can hear you. May I continue, please?”

“Yes, ma’am, sor-ry.” Gwendy took a big swig from her water bottle as—

“Anyway—winter, 1959, several Russian college students went for a cross-country ski mountain hike.”

“Russian winter. Russian winter mountains. Wow, gluttons for punishment,” Ex giggled until she was met with another BeeGee look, this look being her We Are Not Amused one-eyebrow-raise. “Sorry. Geez, looks like someone needs a Happy Meal.”

“You’re going to need Biofreeze to recover from the extra laps you’re going to run after practice tonight.” Over Gwendy’s and Rock’s hoots, BeeGee continued: 

“They were experienced, prepared for every eventuality. But they didn’t return on schedule. A rescue group found them, all dead, scattered away in different directions from their tent. It looked as if they had clawed their way out of their tent from the inside—“

Rock pulled his knit cap down over his eyebrows, and did his best imitation of Heather’s confession tape from "The Blair Witch Project", complete with exaggerated snotty breath intakes: “Tell Gwendolyn's mom I’m sorry, and Beatrice's mom, and my mom—“

Without looking, BeeGee aimed a lackadaisical swat in his direction, and connected with Gwendy’s arm instead—“Ow! Bitch!”

“—and some of the hikers had inexplicable injuries. Funny, there were seven of them and seven of us.”

Simultaneously, Ex: “‘Inexplicable’, how? Now you have me a little spooked, Bee.” 

Gwendy: "BeeGee, stop being so morbid. That's not funny at all."

Rock wiggled his fingers at Ex accompanied with a hearty ooooWEEEoooo, and she shooed him off with a wrist flick in his direction. He stretched to poke her in the ribs, and she grabbed his wrist and nearly flipped him off the table. In a deliberately poor Russian accent, Rock laughed: "Girl tiny but strong. Can use her in Siberian camps."

“Always so offensive.” But Gwendy was laughing.

“Offensive? You guys call me Rock and Pope. And Rome!”

"I give up." BeeGee made as if to close her laptop and stand up, though all knew she was faking.

“Come on, I’m paying attention now, don’t leave me hanging,” Ex urged, swatting again at Rock.

“Okay...One had an extensive skull fracture, with no object nearby that could have caused it. One of the women’s tongue was missing."

Ex gagged in spite of herself, Gwendy and Rock grinned at each other then both stuck their quite-present tongues out at Ex, and BeeGee powered through, expecting those responses—

“—A third had extensive brain damage but with no damage to the skull or head. The others died of hypothermia. The creepiest thing to me is that they fought to escape their tent, and all left the campsite on foot—and those two facts are a couple of the only proven facts to this day.”

“Well!” Rock stretched, his voice an exaggerated chipper. “Who’s not sleeping tonight? I’m not. Me!”

“Her tongue was missing?” Ex bit the side of her lower lip. “Like maybe she bit part of it off, from trauma or excessive shuddering from, whatchamacallit, hypothermia?”

“Nope,” BeeGee grinned, obviously and gleefully anticipating this question. “Gone. Nada. No tongue for you.” She hit a few keystrokes, then started to swivel the computer around to her friends. “Here’s a collection of search party and scene photos, sorry the captions are in Russian—“

Both Ex and Gwendy bounced backwards several inches, and Rock reached over Gwendy’s shoulder to partially close the laptop. “Bitch. You know better.”

“Come on, Pope, they’re just, like, seventy-year-old black and whites of dead people. This isn’t 'The Ring'. They aren’t going to crawl out of my computer and get you.”

“Not everyone has your strong stomach,” Rock countered, with one eye on Ex.

BeeGee shrugged and wheeled the laptop screen back flush with her, and began typing again, after brushing off some more errant granola bar crumbs.

“Why are you so fascinated with hiking, adventuring, and climbing disasters?” Gwendy asked, putting both hands on the small of her back and arching a stretch. Rock reached down, swatting her hands away and motioning her to swivel her back towards him. Smiling, she bowed towards him, curving over her knees on the bench as he rubbed underneath her sweater, but kept her eyes on BeeGee. “I mean, do your own thing, you know that, but climbing's this thing you love so much, and yet you are fascinated by real life and fictional accounts of it going horribly wrong.”

“Well, you don’t hear these cool stories about things going right.”

“Oh, you mean like mysterious tongue thieves? Those cool stories, that’s the kind you mean?”

“Yuck it up, Pope—“

“—I specifically hate that one—“

“—I know, your Holiness—but do you have any stories in your life that approximate that? Or on your family tree? Or that you stumbled across late at night because you missed the last Metro? Fucking fascinating. These people have unexplained and completely irrational injuries. They went on what was, for them, a strenuous but routine and well-planned hiking and camping excursion. Russian students really did that sort of trek all the time for fun. And yet they went down in history. Fucking history, man! It’s only the creepy and the catastrophic that people remember and talk about. No one talks about the hiker or BASE jumper who had a lovely day, a successful run with a nice picnic and spot of tea, then toddled their talented ass home to do it again tomorrow.” She paused for breath and argument, receiving none of the latter, only baffled looks. “Not even if they’re best of the best, Olympians. Name me one biathlon Olympian medalist, any level, any country—that’s the cross-country skiing with precision shooting. You can’t do it, can you? What about decathlon?”

“Bruce Jenner. Ha!”

“That’s Caitlyn Jenner to you,” Rock corrected.

“It’s only been a year.”

“It’s already been a year, you mean.”

“Ex, that was forty goddamn years ago, and you only know about Jenner from watching the Kardashians.”

“It counts. Hey, it counts!”

“No, it doesn’t, because you don’t know what Jenner did, do you? What’s a decathlon?” BeeGee folded her arms.

Long, awkward stare contest silence. Ex finally gave in and laugh-answered with “Okay, Wheaties box, you got me, I don’t know.”

“My point exactly. And the only soccer you know about is—“

“—Sweet baby Jeebus, David Abs and Lats Beckham.”

“Thank you, Rock,” BeeGee responded over the other girls’ laughter, “and you know him because he had all those underwear ads. You don’t know his stats.”

“No, girl, but I know his measurements.”

“So Beckham, because of his junk, and the movie 'Bend It Like Beckham'…and the team that ate their teammates after the plane crash, their story was told in the movie 'Alive' and in a book.”

“Uruguay,” Gwendy piped up, then covered her mouth with one hand in surprise and horror. “Oh, Jesus, you’re right.”

“Yep.” BeeGee stood and began to pack up. “You don’t remember the person’s name that invented BASE jumping, but you can describe every time it went wrong on YouTube and all the bungee jump squishes in ‘Faces of Death’. You can’t name anyone who has successfully hiked the US and lived off the land, but you know who Christopher McCandless is.”

“That’s not a fair one, though, Bee,” Ex countered as BeeGee shouldered her bag. “'Into the Wild' was huge around here, because he was from NoVa. He’s one of our peeps.”

BeeGee took a couple of steps away from the picnic table, turned back to face her friends, reshouldering her backpack and adjusting the twisted collar of her chunky sweater as she did so. “Yeah, he was. Alexander Supertramp. Northern Virginia privileged kid golden child who didn’t play by the rules. Only he didn’t get reined back in like we have been. Funny, that.” And then she strode off into the dappled sunlight of a NoVa late afternoon, and disappeared into the shadows of the carefully manicured birch trees and the glare of the mountain sun across the quad, out of sight.