the tale of the beauty rush killer

At Santa Rita Experimental Range, our group stayed in three separate houses. The students all stayed in the newly remodeled bunk house (which is what I stayed in two years ago), our PI/instructor stayed in his own cabin up the hill (which had muddy bear claw prints stamped across the door...on the INSIDE), and the TAs plus myself all stayed in a decaying cabin next to the bunk house called Martin House. It was composed of a living room with a tiny kitchen attached to the side of it, one bathroom, a large bedroom, and a split bedroom that included a sun porch. Jen called the single bedroom, leaving Scott and I to squabble over who got the sun porch and who got the actual room. In the end, I convinced him to sleep in the sun room because a) it was absolutely full of spiders and b) he was the noob on the course. I definitely got the longer stick in this case, considering that his blanket of spiders was incredibly creepy to me ("If my face gets chewed off by spiders tonight, I'm going to be really upset" - direct quote) and also his room flooded with sunlight at 5 AM every morning.

As we were unpacking that first night, Jen discovered something terrifying in her room. She was opening the drawers of the dresser stationed in her room, looking for someplace to hide her flask, when she found a truly creepy combination of items.



A SKI MASK AND LIP STICK. WHAT?????

Immediately we began concocting all sort of horror story scenarios. We were absolutely sure that the mask belonged to a serial killer who put lipstick/lip gloss/chapstick on his victims before he murdered them. We then had to decide what to do with our newfound knowledge. It was a heavy burden, realizing that there was a serial killer loose in Madera Canyon and he was most likely coming back to reclaim his lost items.



At first Jen just wanted to throw it all away, but I retrieved the items from the trash and instead hung the mask on the doorknob with the lip gloss stored safely inside. We decided that this way the serial killer could see that the mask was conveniently placed outside of the house, making it so he didn't actually have to enter our abode and kill us all. Or rather, Jen and I, because Scott told us that there's a guy "kill code" stating that guys can't kill other guys in serial killer movies. So just Jen and I would be murdered.

The rest of the night was spent giggling and making up ridiculous/awesome scenarios with our serial killer friend. The lip gloss found with the ski mask was Beauty Rush brand, and I innocently remarked that I had the same color at home. Immediately Jen and Scott gasped and both stated that I had to fucked myself over and I was gonna die. We dubbed him the Beauty Rush Killer that very moment.



He creeps into women's rooms at night and shushes them as he lovingly puts lipstick/lip gloss/chapstick (we really couldn't decide) on their lips. Scott did a really great/terrifying impression of him going, "Shshsh, not gonna hurt ya". Thinking about it now makes me laugh really hard, I wish I had recorded it. That night was really windy and the windowpanes right by my bed were slamming against the wall since they weren't bolted down. Basically it was the worst night ever to have just found a ski mask and lipstick in the next room over and to have discussed serial killers for the past several hours. So we kind of freaked out a little and kept giggling nervously as we tried not to really think about serial killers, even though it was hilarious and scary all in one. Lots of shshshing and talking about PVC-pipe contraptions that could put chapstick on someone through a window later, we finally fell asleep despite the loud bangings of the window and our giggle-fits.

Scott promised that there was only a 87% chance that he would try to scare Jen and I that night.



And it happened several more times after that. He also scratched at Jen's door a lot.

Best roommate ever.

We also decided that the Beauty Rush Killer had probably buried his previous victims underneath our kitchen because the kitchen smells RANCID. It was a combination of rotten eggs, methane, and in general DEATH every time I had to cook something in that room.

Jen has a bunch of pictures of us freaking out over the mask and lipstick, putting it on the door, and creeping on each other which I may post when she gives them to me. SO FUNNY