TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER: THERE ARE SOME BRIEF MENTIONS OF SUICIDE AS WELL AS THE USAGE OF DRUGS! PLEASE BE ADVISED
Vince drove them down further along the road. Sam was sitting next to him, not saying much but kept her eyes over at the houses and buildings they were passing.
They had switched drivers, which had taken a lot of convincing from Vince's end to get Sam to give him the keys.
It was behind them now as Vince made a turn and slowly pulled the car up to the park. In the distance, he could see the fountain as he turned the engine off and stepped out.
"Are you sure we can stop here?" Sam asked as she too got out.
"It's a public space." Vince said, opening his arms out to emphasise the point, as he walked towards a nearby bench., "Besides, even if the killer somehow found us we'd hear them coming a mile away, anyways, no one knows that we're here, so it's the perfect place to cool our heads off."
"I've already told you, I'm fine," Sam said defensively as she followed Vince, taking a seat across from him.
"Bullshit," Vince says flippantly, "We nearly could have died in a collision just before. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if we died in a car crash and not the killer?"
Sam just looked at him as he let out a sigh.
"Look, I just think right now we just need to clear our heads a bit and just get it out of our system and then we can go on figuring out who the killer is from there."
"Like… what specifically?" Sam asked, leaning back a bit and crossing her arms.
"Anything really, feelings, thoughts. Basically just anything you want to get out."
Sam stared at him, thinking.
"Look, I'll go first," Vince said and he cleared his throat a bit, "I fucking hate Stu's guts."
"That's the most basic thing you could have said," Sam said.
"Hey, it's a start," Vince retorted.
"Fair…"
Sam began to collect her words, standing up and gently beginning to pace around.
"I mean, I'm terrified. I mean, I don't want to be him. Like ever. And that's not it… it's the fact that his mum, my grandma also killed people. Wearing that mask. It's just, everytime I thought of it back then when I first found out, all I could think of is that one day somethings gonna make it snap and that'd I end up hurting Tara, or my mum. I'm just- I'm just scared I'm gonna be like it in every way possible."
Vince nodded, his eyes softening on her as Sam's eyes looked to the ground, "I hate him, and I hate how I'm just left to deal with this, I just…"
Sam then glanced over at Vince, a sort of half smile came on her.
"I guess, you got it a lot easier for you."
Vince's eyes narrowed at Sam, crossing his arms as his whole body stiffened.
"Easy?" He said defensively, "How do I have it easy?"
Sam looked at him surprised as he squinted his eyes at her. "Just… you didn't have to go through the same stuff as me…"
"Really? That's how it's "easy" for me?" Vince said angrily, raising his voice slightly "If anything, you have it easy. No one knows that you're related to Billy except the killers, you're safe, you haven't been ostracised by everyone."
Sam narrowed her eyes at Vince, coming back to the table and glaring right at him.
"I went through a lot too" She argued, putting her hands on the bench, "My Dad doesn't want to talk to me-"
"Neither does mine-"
"-I'm not trying to make this a contest alright! We've both been fucked over, can we just agree to that?"
"This was never a contest, I'm just a tad confused about how I have it easier than the girl who didn't know about her killer father and Granny Loomis!"
"Is this a joke to you?"
"You'd think my life has been a joke? Believe me I wish it was!"
"YOUR UNCLE WAS MY DAD'S ACCOMPLICE, THEY DON'T SEE YOU AS THE BIGGER MONSTER!"
"YOU KNOW WHY HE DID IT!"
Sam stared as Vince just kept breathing in and out, shocked by his own words as he slumped back down on the bench, tears streaming down his eyes as he could no longer hold it in.
"You know…" Vince says, his voice cracking as Sam slowly sat back on the bench, "You know what his reasoning was, you know why he came out the way he did. But for me… I don't why Stu did those things, why he killed all those people. Why it was so easy for him to go along with Billy's schemes and not wonder why he was doing them for…. I don't have any definitive answer and that's the scariest thing of all. …"
"You have no idea how much he destroyed my family…"
Sam stared at him, "I'm sorry," She says genuinely, her gaze softening looking at him as he tries to wipe his tears from his face, "I didn't even know Stu had a sister…"
"Yeah well, she wasn't there when the murders were happening, neither were their parents; My grandparents. It's really a long story…" Vince admitted, sniffling slightly.
"Maybe you should just let it out…" Sam suggested.
"Yeah… I guess" Vince sniffled a bit more as he cleared his voice.
"My Mum was out of town that week with my parents. She had a volleyball match out of state and her parents both wanted to support her. They didn't take Stu with him cause they felt he needed to study and get better grades. They said they'd be back by Sunday. Mum said they'd heard about Casey and Steven when they were away but they couldn't get back in time. And by the time they did they got the news of what had happened."
"Mum was really torn up about it, especially learning the truth of who the killers were. She said she'd been calling him throughout the week. Even on the night that he died."
"Afterwards, the whole town descended on them, it was really bad from what my Mum said. They were especially not happy with the fact they didn't immediately sell the house."
"They didn't?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, It was all any of them could talk about. It was either 'they all must be that ignorant that they didn't see the kind of monster living in that house' or 'they all must have twisted fantasies of killing people if they're so fine with living in the house where he murdered people'. Mum got a lot of heat for it too, even though she had nothing to do with it. None of them did."
"Then when it came time for Mum to leave for college, she'd gotten into a fight with my grandparents."
"What for?"
"Don't know, she wouldn't tell me. I know it must have been pretty bad because she didn't talk to them for about 2 years while she was away. Then she met my dad, dated for a bit and then she got pregnant with me. She quit college after she found out and she and Dad moved back in with my grandparents and sure enough I was born."
Vince gave a half smile at the thought of the image he had in his head; Him; a baby being cradled in his mother's arms with his father and grandparents by his side. No sadness, no fear, no anger. Just joy; pure joy.
But that couldn't last.
"Initially, they put my name on the birth certificate as 'Vince Macher'. That's what the killer called me on the phone last night," Vince said coldly.
Sam stared at him as Vince continued;
"I lived in that house for a few years after I was born… I don't really remember it much, just the small bits, like some scribbling I did in the bathroom under the sink. Pieces of it really. I didn't know shit about what was going on. The adults I guess now saw me as another target that they could push their anger onto cause they made sure I had no one when I was in preschool. They always made sure that I wasn't allowed to carry any scissors without someone watching me, or on Halloween they'd make sure to give me the wrong date for the dress up day and then some job for me to do so I couldn't do the party stuff with the others."
Vince glanced over at the rest of the park.
"It got worse though when any of the copycat killings happened. Then it would be sooo much worse, they'd make sure Mum and Dad and my Grandparents didn't get invited to any of the community events, they'd give them some issues at the grocery store or just corner them to grill them about how their presence isn't welcomed. Or even sometimes they'd get the cops called on them. I'm pretty sure there were times where they tried CPS involved, trying to get me taken away. They never succeeded though."
He let out a sigh, he knew what he would bring up next.
"It screwed up my grandparents a lot. I don't even think I know who they really were when I was growing up. I think something in them snapped at some point. They just didn't want to live anymore. Either of them. That's why they kept getting sent in and out of rehab, giving better pills to try and help them get better, but it didn't really change anything. Not really."
Vince's mind then began to turn, and he began to think back to one of his memories and before he knew it he was beginning to tell it, when he was only 6 years old, on the floor of the Macher house; drawing.
His Mum was somewhere in the house, though where he didn't quite care. He was content as he lay on his stomach with a few crayons in his hands. He was happy, at least for the moment.
It was there that his grandmother was passing him in the hallway. She had long brown hair, just like his Mum as she tilted her head and looked at Vince's drawing; a family of 6 rabbits holding hands with each other on a bright sunny day.
Vince looked up as he noticed his grandmother's shadow.
"Hi Granny!" He said cheerfully.
His grandmother, though, doesn't look as happy as he does. Instead, there are tears in her eyes and there seems to be no real life in them either. She stares at him for a bit, before crouching down, sniffling as she does.
"Oh Stu," She weeps, putting her hands on his shoulders, "I'm so sorry. So very sorry…"
Vince at the age had heard of that name. He knew that was his Uncle Stu who had died before he was born. But nothing else.
"Granny, I'm Vince," He said innocently correcting her. But Grandma just shook her head as she stood up.
"I'm so sorry, so very sorry" She muttered as she moved past him and up the stairs. Vince glanced at her as she left but soon enough his mind went back to his drawing as he continued to colour it in. A few minutes passed and by then he had forgotten about his encounter with his grandma.
It was about 10 minutes later that Vince began to colour in the sky, and as he was doing it he heard a loud noise.
Slack!
It made him jump in his skin like a hiccup of sorts, but he quickly went back to colouring.
Slack!
The noise came again and it made him stand still for a second.
In his tiny young mind, the sound reminded him of one of those cartoons where they're pulling someone back in with rope.
The TV's probably on, he thought and went back to drawing for a second.
Then, something fell.
It landed right on Vince's drawing.
It splatters a bit in tiny proportions as Vince stares as it had landed on his drawing.
Something red.
What? He thinks to himself, it looked like paint. Maybe Mummy's painting he thought and turned his head to look up.
He didn't have time to even realise what he was looking at before he felt that same red fall onto his cheek.
His whole body becomes cold and stiff as he sees what's above him.
His grandparents, both of them are hanging from the ceiling
And that red, the red that had just landed on Vince was coming from them.
He stared up, his mind became a sort of mush as tries to comprehend what he should do as he felt tears welling up in his eyes.
His voice feels like it's in his throat as he finally yells: "MUMMY!"
It's a scream that echoes throughout the house as he soon hears his mother's footsteps coming up the hallway. "Honey, what-" And then she sees it and she too finds herself staring at them in horror.
"Oh god," She wails and quickly she begins to phone the ambulance. They soon arrive and chaos comes back around as both grandparents are taken in the ambulance, still alive as they're left flailing and screaming. He remembers his Mum watching this happen from the front door, crying her eyes out as Vince stares, the blood splatter still on his face.
"They were lucky that the ambulance managed to get there in time and stabilised them," Vince stated, "They had to be heavily sedated afterwards. But it would just repeat, they'd be given stronger medication, they would be sent home. Something would happen and they would try to end it all."
His eyes softened a bit as he frowned.
"They eventually did it. When I was 8. They overdosed during one of their stays at the rehab centre, and by that point my Dad had enough. He left me and My Mum after the funeral. The last thing they'd ever do together afterwards was get my last name changed to Schneider. Then he left and never came back."
"He always kept sending us letters to Mum. Not to me though."
"Really?"
"Yeah, Mum would never let me read them. She always puts them in the fireplace when we got them…"
He let out another sigh, collecting his thoughts.
"I just want to know if it was worth it…"
"What do you mean?"
"Was it worth it! Whether it was worth it to kill those people, whether it was worth putting us all through this, whether it was worth destroying our family!"
He lets out an exhale.
"That's the thing that scares me the most, it's not knowing why he did it. Because right now, it seems like the only reason my family and I have suffered so much is because he thought it was fun to kill people and I don't want to believe it, that this was all just because he thought it was funny, that we were a joke to him ..."
Vince sniffled a bit, glancing over at Sam
"They all made sure that I knew it. I found out the truth a bit after my grandparents' funeral. And then it all made sense, why I wasn't allowed to go out for halloween, why I wasn't allowed at sleepovers or why all of my friend's parents hated me and how people just didn't stay friends with me… How they'd call me murderer during recess, or how the second they knew I was Leslie Macher's son they didn't see me as Vince. They saw him. "
"Woah…" Sam, "That is a lot."
"Yeah, that's exactly why I was just angry back then. I just hated all of them. That's why I went absolutely wild when I was a teen, I would just take any drink he could get his hands on and just scream out on the streets." He then let out a slight chuckle, "That's probably why I'd ended up at the station most nights."
Sam let out a slight laugh and the two briefly smiled at each other, before her eyes glanced over at a car passing down the road. Her mind goes to before in the car, to Billy sitting in the back, to-
"Sam?"
Sam doesn't quite look at Vince just yet, still fixated on the car. Her eyes are a bit wide and Vince expects the worst.
"Is he back again?" Vince asked, looking over where Sam was looking at. He then picked up a rock on the ground and threw it in the same direction, "Fuck off!" He yells at where Sam is looking.
"Did I hit him? Vince asks, and Sam just laughs, "He's not there. Sorry."
"Oh good," Vince said, relaxing slightly as he glanced around.
She then looked at the ground for a moment and then back to Vince. "Umm, thanks for before, you know, calming me down…"
"Oh yeah, it's totally fine, it gets it, it feels so real it's hard to ignore."
"What? What do you mean?"
"So, we should probably start figuring out which one of our suspects is the killer," Vince said, ignoring Sam's question as he jumped off the bench and onto the ground, grabbing a few rocks nearby. Sam paces around the bench to him.
"Vince," She calls, "Have you… have you had hallucinations before…"
Vince stops, and for a moment everything just goes still. It had been so long ago, he had never really talked about it with anyone.
He then pulled out his pocket knife and began to carve the letter C into one of the rocks.
"Do you remember the Stab-a-thon Charlie and Robbie did during the second murders here?" Vince asked slowly.
"I was at home. Mum had a curfew and said it was too dangerous to go out."
Vince let out a dry chuckle.
"Same, my Mum absolutely didn't want me to go. But at school, a bunch of my friends were saying that one of them had an older brother who was going who could take them. I didn't want to go, for my own reasons obviously, but they all kept calling me a pussy if I didn't go with them. So that night, I managed to sneak out of the house and got picked up by them on the street."
At the time, Vince was only 12 years old and he looked completely different to the man he was now. His hair was much more shaggy and untidy and he wore mostly black and red vests with a ton of necklaces. He currently sat in the back of the van with his "friends": Adrian, Garrick, Troy and Warren.
It was Troy's brother, Kendrick who was currently driving them to where the Stabathon was being held as the young tweens in the back were chatting in hushes amongst themselves.
"I'm telling you, we should have bought costumes."
"Yeah, we could have easily gone with the og cast, like I'd be Steven, you'd be Casey, the principal. Oh and Vince… Vince can be Ghostface."
They all snickered as Vince just sat there awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs a bit as he mindlessly began tapping his foot on the ground.
"We shouldn't be out here"Vince said quietly, the others looked at him. As he continued, "There's still a killer out there."
"Oh, don't be a pussy'!" They all hounded him.
"You're being a right wussy here Vince."
"Do you always sour everything?"
"Besides," Troy said, looking pretty confident in himself all of a sudden, "There's no way the killers are gonna be at the Stab-a-thon."
Vine stared at him dumbfounded, mouth slight agape as he raised his voice slightly, "The fuck are you on? This is exactly where the killer would be. You might as well hold up a sign that says 'hey killer I'm right here, KILL ME!"
"Come on, you know what I mean," Troy said, shrugging defensively as they made a turn.
It was then that Troy pulled something from his pocket, a zip lock bag which had a white sort of powder. Vince immediately knew exactly what it was as Try discretely began to open.
"The fuck is that?" Vince whispered harshly.
"Got this from my brother's stash," Troy whispered harshly, "Shut the fuck up."
"You seriously brought LSD to a party with a very likely to be there KILLER on the loose?"
"Yeah, be a good trip or whatever. It'll be really fun."
Troy then began to pour small portions of LSD from his zip lock into the other boy's hands. When it came to Vinces turn, Troy eyed him up and down as Vince thought about it.
It took a moment but he reluctantly pulled his hand out as Troy poured his portion into Vince's hand. He stared at it for a moment and then glanced at the others who were already putting it in their mouth.
Maybe this will calm me down Vince thought, trying to convince himself, Yeah, I can enjoy the party. He then let out a deep breath before shooting his head up and poured the white powder into his mouth and swallowed.
The taste of it is strong, enough that he winces slightly as it goes down his throat. The others watched him, snickering and smiling as Vince just turned his head to the window, watching them lass trees and streetlights.
They eventually make a turn onto a dirt road where they can see the barn up in the distance. Kendrick drove up a bit closer to the entrance where there were several cars already parked.
Everything was well lit, with some partygoers out the front, laughing and chatting with each other.
Vince felt his skin grow cold as he saw they were dressed up, some of them were wearing Ghostface masks, while others were wearing much cruder costumes. Vince saw at least two people dressed like Casey Beckem and Steven Orth, with a lot of added fake blood drenched across their shirts.
Vince was staring at them as they all stepped out.
"Alright, listen up" Kendrick said sternly as he walked around the car, pointing at them as he spoke, "There's to be no drinking from any of you, right? And no taking any substances, any one offers you any, you walk away."
All of them except Vince gave knowing glances to each other and snickered.
"Right, I'll meet you all back here by the end of Stab 5," Kendrick continued as he made his way into the barn, "Make sure you little shits dont get into any trouble!"
Once Kendrick was out of earshot, the others burst out laughing.
"Oh my fucking god, he didn't even know!"
"I can't believe he didn't even notice!"
They continued to laugh as they all headed in. As they did, Vince just kept looking at the other party goers, he could feel his stomach start to lurch.
More people dressed like the victims of the original Woodsboro massacre, dome even had the gall to be covered in fake blood and fake intestines.
And what was even worse that made Vince tremble was on the wall, someone had made a mock up of Tatum Riley's death with a makeshift Garage door and a mannequin.
His stomach lurched even more, yet he couldn't take his eyes off it. No one knew he was here, who he was in relation to these deaths and murders, but still. It felt like those people, those victims were watching him, staring at him.
If his mum had seen where he would never forgive him, and he agreed with that sentiment. This was absolutely not the place he should be, the nephew of Stu Macher.
I shouldn't be here, Vince thought.
"I shouldn't be here" Vince said aloud and began to back away. The others turn around and Gently grab his arm to pull him back in, all of them talking all over each other.
"Oh come one, we just got here."
"It's not that bad."
"The movies haven't even started."
"There's probably not that much worse there anyway."
Vince sniffled slightly as they went further in, with Adrian dragging him by the arm. As he did, a sort of headache started to come on, and the smell of licorice filled His nostrils.
"Hey so you smell that?" Vince asked.
"Smell what?" Adrian asked and the others began to listen in.
"Licorice."
"No, what are you going on about?"
"I can smell it," Vice said earnestly, his pupils beginning to dilate now.
"Woah, you must really be tripping now huh?"
The boys then started to laugh again as Adrien then let go of Vince's arm.
"Alright, let's get some BOOZE!" Troy yelled and the others cheered with him, except Vince.
"But Kendrick already said not-"
Vince couldn't even finish his sentence as he watched his friends march over to one of the tables which had beer bottles and cans on it. And Vince then watched as his friends began to argue very loudly with the older teens standing guard of it.
Vince lets out a sigh as he turns around, stumbling slightly as he does, surprising himself.
Has it already kicked in? He thought and he looked around, the party was becoming much more crowded by the minute, and the music which was a remix dub version of the Stab movie theme song was blaring through the speaker.
He felt his stomach lurch again and his dinner from a few hours ago came hurling up his throat and right back down. He covered his mouth a bit from the reflux as he looked around, his eyes watering a bit as he saw one of the archways that led to the outside.
I need to get some fresh air, he thought and he began to gently push through the crowd.
Plenty of them already had cups of alcohol, dancing and jumping up and down as Vince tried to push passed. He kept looking around him wildly as everyone looked so unfocused, so blurry.
He could see the smudging colours of black and white with the few people dressed as ghostface that made Vinces head turn.
What if one of them's the killer? He thought frighteningly, What if they're just waiting for their time to kill another person? What if they've come for me? What if I'm a target? What if it's my-
His body then collided with something, or rather someone as he felt something cold and wet smaller on his face, which immediately made him shut his eyes in surprise as he took a step back
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Came a woman's voice came as he opened his eyes again, and he now wished he had kept them shit as his skin grew cold.
It was a girl, much older than him who was carrying one of those plastic red cups in her hand and just so happened to be dressed as Casey Becker, she had wore a cheap shot Bob wig. Now that was all she looked to everyone else at the party, but to Vince in his hallucinative mind, that was not all.
She had blood all over her, and it didn't look like the fake sort of blood that he'd seen the others wore, it was dark red and it covered her shirt as he saw on her neck the burn marks of rope that by the looms of it had been tight around her chest.
There was blood coming down her lips despite how nonchalant she looked with her injuries, at least in Vinces mind. He stared at her with utter fear as he felt his lurch again, his dinner threatening to come up again, this time it went through his mouth but he quickly kept it close. His eyes watery as the girl looks at him puzzling.
Fuck, I'm already hallucinating, he though and he shot his eyes down, not to look at her. He feels another reflux coming along and he knows he can't hold it in.
"Sorry!" He says quickly and pushes past some people, where's the bathroom? Where's the bathroom? Where's the bathroom? He thought incessantly, looking wildly around. He began to turn a corner of the barn, at this point just running when they appeared.
Vinces was running so fast he barely had time to stop himself as 4 pairs of ghostface masks were staring at him, their hands holding bloody knives. Vince bumped into them hard as they began to make a stabbing motion at them. Vince screamed loudly as he tried to back away as two of them grabbed him by the arms.
Laughter erupts from the ghostface masks as they let go of Vince, making him fall onto the ground. Tears are streaming out of his eyes as he starts to hyperventilate and looks up at them, now getting a better view of them.
They were still laughing as they high fived each other, the "knives" in their hands, which Vince could have sworn were a metallic silver that looked like cheap rubber as they flopped and ricocheted back into shape as they did.
"Oh my fucking god, you should have seen your face one of them says!" One of them says, pointing and laughing at him who was still crying on the ground.
"Oh my god, he a fucking pussy!"
"Fuck off!" Vince yells, still crying as he finally gets up, showing past them as hard as he could. This gets another boast Of laughter as he can hear them yell for him.
"PU-SSY!"
"LITTLE SHITBAG!"
Vince is still crying as he runs off, not even sure where he is going at the moment as he tries to catch his breath.
I wanna go home, he thinks to himself as he keeps looking back at where he came from. Everywhere he looked, nothing looks quite right, everyone looks warped and distorted someway, it's enough that it makes Vince's head turn.
He's so caught up in it all, that he feels his foot skip on some stray hay, he skids and before he knew it he was face first on the ground. He felt a sharp pain in his knees as he pushed his arms up, turning his head up to look ahead of him.
Unfortunately, he was met by a pair of feet.
Two pairs of feet which were bair and dripping down with blood. They laid in front of him, seemingly floating in mid air as Vince felt his skin grow cold as he looked up. His whole body trembled as he saw his grandparents hanging from the ceiling, just as they had when he was 6 years old. They were motionless as they occasionally swung around.
Vince felt another reflux coming as he covered his mouth, his whole body beginning to whirl and strain as he tried to keep it in. He shut his eyes, tears streaming down his face as he propelled himself up and started in a feverish run, he glanced behind him only to see his grandparents were gone.
He turned his head back in front of him and saw the door to the bathroom. He went straight through, his stomach lurching even more. He couldn't keep it in anymore.
And what was worse, all of the toilets were being used. His eyes watered as he felt another reflux coming along, but he knew this time he couldn;t hold it in. His eyes saw the sink and as quickly as he could, put his whole face into the sink and let it all out.
He gagged and coughed a bit as it went out of him, it was enough that he felt his throat begin to hurt when it was done.
He couched a bit more as he heard a few people going to the sink to wash their hands. Vince didn't look up at them as he turned on the tap and tried his best to clean up his mess.
"Oh, dude, what the fuck?"
"Are you trying to gas everyone out of here, jeez!"
"Who fucking let their kid out here."
He heard them leave as Vince started to splatter water on his face.
I don't wanna be here anymore. I wanna go home. This isn't worth it, he thought, rubbing his face slightly. He gazed up at the mirror, staring at his own reflection, his eyes and face were red like he had just gotten out of some accident.
And that's not all, everything in the mirror doesn't look right, there seemed to be constant flashes of colours and shapes that spazzed in and out, it was enough that he winced and shut his eyes.
He let out a few deep breaths as he dried his hands and stepped out of the bathroom. There were plenty more people now as everything still looked wonky, and yet he could not see any of his friends.
Where the fuck are they? He thought, as he began to stumble around, If I can't find them I'll try looking for Kendrick, maybe he might be able to drive me home.
He eventually finds himself back at the start of the barn, where the mannequin of Tatum Riley and the makeshift garage are. Vince doesn't look directly at it as more and more teens continue to arrive. He starts to scratch his arm and turns to look at the mannequin.
Tatum Riley, Sidney Presscott's best friend, Dewey Riley's younger sister and at the time Stu Macher's girlfriend, the one who had almost survived.
Vince stared at the mannequin's head. Who was fucked up enough that they thought making this was such a good idea? She was a victim, she was a real person who lived in Woodboro, she was a teenager just like the rest of them and what did the teens think of her? A decoration to celebrate a movie franchise that exploited her death.
Vince glanced around, and on one of the tables nearby he saw a table cloth and without really thinking he went over and grabbed it, carrying it with him and throwing it over the mannequin.
Vince stood there for a moment, staring at the mannequin, not even sure if what he was doing was of his own volition or was simply a result of the drugs in his system. After all, this wasn't really Tatum Riley, this wasn't actually her body or corpse.
And yet…
He thought of the sheriff, Dewey Riley.
Dewey Riley, the one who for whatever reason was always coming to rescue him when he went out and caused trouble, who instead of taking him to the police station like Judy Hicks would drive him back to his Mum's house, who always was trying to stop his fights whenever he went out brawling in the middle of the night; The one who Vince hated.
He thought about how he knew that it was very likely that the police would find out about this "party" happening during a murder investigation and likely try to break it up. He thought about the fact that it would be highly likely that Dewey would show up and burst through those doors and he would see once again that the town and its people were still making fun of his dead sister, that they only saw her as a cool decoration for their party. That her death was mildly funny to him.
And despite how much Vince hated Dewey and how he would constantly meddle and get in his business, he knew that he didn't want Dewey to go through that.
"I'm sorry," He whispers to the covered mannequin, to the woman who perhaps in another lifetime could have been his aunty, and he feels the tears coming back again, "I'm so sorry."
He hears some laughter from behind him, but pays no mind to it as he suddenly sees something begin to move under the sheet. He lets out a yell and quickly backs away, his vision distorting slightly as the laughter seems to be all around him. He doesn't even look up as he dashes out of the room, back towards the main area where he sees the punch table.
Maybe I can get some water, He thought and he stumbled a bit over there, he made sure to keep his head down as he did.
There were a couple of people loitering around there, drinking from their red cups as Vince stood over the table, grabbing himself a cup.
He's pretty sure it's water as he takes a large sip of it, guzzling it down slightly.
"Funny, I don't remember kids being invited."
Vince jumped in his skin slightly and he turned and saw a girl standing next to him.
She was much older than him around 17 or 18 and had short blonde hair and was currently like him with a red cup in her hands.
Vince stared at her wide eyed as he glanced around the room.
"Yeah… my friend's brother brought me here-" He said sheepishly.
"It's cool of whatever, just… didn't think anyone would let their kids out this late," She said smiling, also glancing around at the party.
"Didn't want to be here anyways…"
"Because of the murders?"
"Not just that… It's just, the whole stab at movies in general…"
"Not a fan of them?"
"Not when they're literally based on real life murders.."
"Ahh… I'm guessing these recent murders aren't exactly helping much…"
"How'd you think my Mum's been feeling? I don't know what she would have thought about me being here… Or yesterday morning…."
"What'd you do ?" The girl laughed slightly and Vince glanced up at her, her laugh faltering slightly, "You're not like the killer… are you?"
"No," Vince says quickly, "No… I was just, I was hoping to get that new book that Sydney Prescott wrote."
"The Angel of death…"
"What?"
"Sorry, that's what one of my friends called her…" The girl went quiet all of a sudden.
"Yeah, I was on my way to it when the police got called in. I was hoping to get it signed…. Guess not… I wouldn't even know how to talk to her…"
"So… why would your mum be so against you going? I mean, does she have something against Sydney?"
"I'm not exactly sure.."
Vince found himself staring down at the floor with no real emotion left in his eyes. He knew just as everyone how she along with Gale Weathers had managed to beat and kill Billy and Stu in the original murders, along with the other strings of copycat killings.
And in all that while she had never hated Sydney. Why would he? If anything, she would never have forgiven her if she had allowed Stu or Billy to live. He'd just start to imagine Stu behind bars, still a chance for him to escape, to find him when Vince was fast asleep and kill him.
But there was some part of him that was scared of her, scared that perhaps someday, she would find out his relation to Stu and would be pointing a gun at him.
It scared him sometimes, but it was always an irrational thought that left him quickly. In fact he'd made sure not to mention who he was when he was making his way down to the bookshop, he didn't want to bring her painful memories.
But for his mother, for Leslie, Vince never quite knew what her feelings towards Stu were.
He didn't know what she would do if she had found out she had purchased her book.
He never believed that his mother could be capable of the violence that Stu had, and yet… he did not tell her either way.
"Yeah.. she just-"
Vince looked up at the girl, but his eyes did not stay focused on her for long. There was someone moving in the crowd, staring right at him, with short brown hair and wearing a white sweater with the sleeves of it covered in blood.
His whole body felt cold as he started to breath in and out quickly; he knew who he was.
"Umm… yeah…" Vince gasped, backed away from the table and for the girl as he did, as he suddenly felt like his whole body was too hot. The man in the crowd still had his eyes on him, smiling. "I gotta go, It was nice talking to you!" And he ran off.
He didn't know it, but the girl he had been talking to had been Kirby Reed.
Vince bolted away from the table, and through the crowd, not watching where he was going as his stomach lurched again, as he looked frantically for a way outside.
It wasn't him, It wasn't him, It wasn't him, he thought frantically. He looks around him again and sure enough he sees him again in the crowd, he passes a few teenagers and he vanishes, still smiling, almost laughing to himself.
He sees a bit away from him outside of the barn, and starts to run to it when.
"Yo, Vince!"
"Where are you going?"
Vince turned around and to his shock, Adrian, Garrick, Troy and Warren were now walking towards him.
A bit of relief comes to him as he quickly walks over, talking as he does.
"I want to go home, Where's Kendrick?"
"Are you kidding me?" Says Troy, annoyed, "We just got here 2 seconds ago!"
"It's been half an hour!' Vince yelled angrily.
"Nah, nah, It's about 10 minutes," Adrien piped up.
"About 40 minutes."
"20!"
"Look, fucking shut up!" Vince yelled overtop of them, and then looked to Troy, "Where's your brother, I want to go home."
"Don't know," Troy shrugged, smirking slightly, "I think I saw him getting into the beer or whatever. What? You gonna be a pussy about it Vince?"
Vince by this point had tears from his eyes and had begun to hyperventilate.
"I just… Wanna go home… right now…" Vince breathed, looking at all of them, all of them were now smiling and laughing.
"Oh my fucking god, you really are a pussy," Adrien laughed.
"Ohh, you want me to call Daddy Dewey for you Vincey?" Garrick mocked him in a babish sort of voice.
"He's not my Dad!" Vince said irritable, glaring daggers at his so called friends.
"Oh, sure he isn't," Troy said, a smirk on his face, "You look absolutely like shit!"
"Fuck off" Vince said harshly, tears streaming down his face at this point.
"That's probably why you're mum is such a bitch-"
Vince saw red and before Troy could even finish, Vince charged right at him and shoved him as hard as he could.
"YOU FUCKING FUCKHEAD!" Vince yelled with pure rage as Troy fell back a bit, a bit dazed.
"What the fuck, dipshit?" Troy yells angrily and then charges at Vince with an even harder shove. Vince stands his ground and barely moves as he grips Troy's arms tightly and pinches them really hard.
"Arrgh, the fuck are you on?" Troy yells, slurring with his words as he tries to push Vince's face away with his hand.
"FUCKING DIPRAG! Vince yelled as he then tackled Troy to the ground, this time moving his hands to Troy's face close to his eye and began to pinch.
"Vince, fucking get off him!" He hears someone say from around him, but ignores them as pinches harder.
It then that Vince feels a pair of arms from behind grab at him and drag him off Troy, all the while screaming at him.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING DEAR TALK ABOUT MY MUM LIKE THAT YOU FUCK SHIT-ASS!"
"Dude what the fuck is your problem?" Adrien asked angrily as pulled Troy from off the ground, who was still wincing in pain. Vince still had tears in his eyes as he glanced over at who had just pulled him off and he felt his blood run cold.
It was a boy much older, wearing a white sweater and dangy pants. He had black long hair in a mullet, but his face was his face; and he's covered in blood.
He yells loudly, tears still coming down his face as he shoves the older teen away and takes off once and goes back through into the crowd. His stomach lurching all the same as he tries to keep his head down. He could hear the others calling back for him but he completely ignored them as he pushed by the crowd. His whole body feels like it's sweating, like he is about to overheat when he spots something.
At the back of the barn, there was a ladder which led up to another storey.
Yes, Finally, he thought and began to run towards the ladder. He can finally get away!
But just as he was getting to the ladder, before he could even begin his climb, he looked up at the second storey and his whole body ran cold.
Standing on the second storey, towering over the ladder was him.
He was more bloodied now, with blood along his sleeve, his hair, his face.
Stu Macher stared down at Vince who started back up at him, eyes widened as started to hyperventilate, tears streaming from his eyes as he started to back away. He could hear laughter erupted from Stu's lips and he crouched down and then jumped to the ground below. Vince stumbled as he backed far away.
Stu's laughter grew louder like a fester as he lunged towards him. Vince backed away fast as he could, screaming the whole time before he got back onto his feet, running back through the crowd. He kept looking back as he saw Stu in the crowd chasing after him.
By this point, Vince was beyond the break of tears as he shoved his way through the crowd before finally feeling himself trip on someone's foot and fall face onto the ground. Vince shut his eyes tightly as he made contact with the ground and instinctively covered his head with arms and curled up into a ball.
By this point, he was balling as he heard some voices around him.
"Man, are you ok?"
"What the fuck just happened?"
Vince felt a pair of hands gently touch his shoulders and he immediately flinched and shocked him off, just screaming incoherently.
He didn't want to open his eyes, he knew if he did that he would just be around him.
"Fucking hell, what's wrong with him?"
"You think he's on something?"
"Probably, who's giving stuff to this kid?"
Vince ignored them and just kept crying.
"Dude, how the fuck are you helping him. Look, hey, hey kid."
Someone else had come by and Vince for just a little bit seemed to be listening to what they were saying.
"Listen to me, whatever you're seeing isn't there. Ok? Just take a few breaths."
Vince didn't immediately do as what they'd said and kept his eyes shut, trembling as the voice continued.
"Hey, it's alright, just keep breathing. In and out. It's alright right.. No one here is gonna hurt you."
Slowly but surely, Vince begins to breathe through his nose, and then his mouth as he begins to relax slightly; enough that he lowers his hands from his face and opens his eyes.
He looks around him briefly, there's a couple of older teens standing around him, with one of them, a boy with ginger hair crouching down beside him.
"Are you feeling a bit better?" He asked him.
Vince didn't say anything, he didn't get to as he heard a familiar voice call from the crowd.
"Oh my god, Vince!"
Vince turned his head and saw Kenrick pushing through the crowd towards him. His eyes went wide a bit and he slowly got up and began to run to him.
"Did you guys take drugs? Are you-"
Kendrick didn't get to finish as Vince wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tightly. Kendrick looked a bit shocked as Vince was trembling.
"Hey… it's alright.." Kendrick said after a while, gently tapping on Vince's shoulder,
"I'm gonna take you home."
Vince just nodded as Kendrick gently led him away from the crowd and back towards the front of the barn where they had parked. He opened the van door and lifted Vince inside, putting him on one of the seats.
"Ok, I'm gonna go get the other's and then we're gonna head off," Kendrick explained, crouching down to Vince's level and putting a hand on his shoulder. Vince shook his head violently, still crying.
"Please don't leave me by myself," He pleaded, "I don't wanna get killed. He's gonna kill me!"
"I won't be gone long," Kendrick says gently, gently giving Vince's shoulder a squeeze, "If it makes you feel any better I'll lock the doors until I get back. You can listen to the radio if it makes you feel better."
Vince nods slightly as Kendrick sighs.
"Alright, now I need you to tell me what kind of drugs you guys took," Kendrick said gently.
"Troy got it, he took from your stash. It was a white powder."
"My stash?" Kendrick exploded, "That fucking dipshit, I just-"
He took a deep breath and seemed to calm down for a moment as Vince looked at him terrified.
"It's alright, I'll tell him off later... Just… lay down for a while, while I go get the others."
Vince said nothing but nodded as Kendrick shut the Van door and locked it. He moved quickly up to the front where he watched as Kendrick marched back into the barn.
Vince turned on the radio and began to play through the channels until he found something. He then went further back into the van and just sat on one of the seats and leaned back a bit.
About 10 minutes later, he heard arguing from outside and sure enough it was Kendrick with the others, with Troy and Kendrick yelling at each other. Vince completely ignore whatever looks they were giving him as the music from the radio was all he was focused on:
"When you close your eyes, and you fall asleep. Everything about you is a mystery. You tell me that you want me, You tell me that you need me, You tell me that you love me And I know that I'm right 'Cause I hear it in the night."
"My mum was absolutely furious with me when I got home," Vince finished the story, who by then had finished carving the rocks, "Though I can't really remember what her exact words were cause I was still high."
He let out a dry chuckle after that as Sam stared at him.
He continued.
"I know how scary it is seeing him, how real it feels at the time. It's the exact reason I never took those kinds of drugs ever again."
"I'm so sorry that happened to you."
"Nah, they 're all really shit friends huh? That's probably why I stopped hanging out. I heard they got into a lot of trouble with their parents."
Vince let out a chuckle and so did Sam as he began to rub his hands together.
"Alright, I think I'm just about done," He said, putting his knife down. Sam walked over and sat next to him and looked at exactly what he'd done.
Right in front of him lay a bunch of rocks, all of which had their initials written into it of all the suspects: "Sam, Tara, Mindy, Chad, Amber, Richie, Wes, Vince, Dewey and Judy," With Dewey getting the biggest rock out of them all along with a makeshift leaf hat for good measure.
"Alright, so we can already rule out us, Tara and Dewey," Vince explained, grabbing the respective rocks and putting them away from the rest.
"Wait, how do we know Dewey's not a suspect?" Sam asked.
"First of all," Vince said matter of factly, as began to count with his fingers, "1, he's been nearly killed by the ghostface copycats for the last 26 years. If we wanted to be the killer he would have done it already. "
"And 2," Vince said, though his tone went away into something more genuine, "I know him, he'd never hurt anyone unless it was in self-defence."
"You sound like you and him have a history together."
"We do," Vince answered honestly, "When I was a kid, and I'd get into trouble with the police, he always drove me back to my house to my mum. He was always looking out for me…. And every time I would curse him out…"
"I guess I didn't believe he actually saw me and just saw… him. I grew out of that mindset eventually… But I Know I am a complete asshole to him, and I want to make it up to him.
He then eyed Sam.
"And accusing him of being a killer isn't gonna help with that."
"Fair enough," Sam said, and Vince continued, gesturing to the rest of the rocks.
"Anyways, there's still plenty of suspects remaining, and there's even more combinations of who they may be working with."
"Why's Richie there?" Sam asked, "He's not a part of Tara;'s friend group."
"Maybe not, but he's in your social group and he came with you here so he's on the suspect list. I mean, do you know that you can actually trust him?"
Vince looked right into her eyes as she said it as she thought about it for a moment, looking away from him and then looking back.
"That's the sort of stuff Dewey said before."
"Well if Dewey said it, he must be on the right track."
"Besides, even if it isn't him,we still have several suspects to go over," Vince said as he picked up Wes and Judy's rocks.
"Easy motive right here," Vince says, gesturing to Wes's rock, "Maybe Wes likes Tara and is upset that she can't have her, so he tries to kill her and wants to recreate the first stab movie to impress her."
"And Judy of course would help him," Sam said, catching on, "She'd do anything to help cover for her son."
"Exactly! But you know, it might be them, which then leads us to our next line of suspects," Vince said, putting the rocks down and picking up Mindy and Chad's.
"Mindy of course is the movie buff who knows everything that happens in horror movies and Chad is her big dumb headed meat brother who does all the heavy lifting. Couldn't come up with an easy power duo to be behind all this."
"You really seem to hate Chad huh." Sam said.
"Yeah well he and the others hated me first!"
"Why is that?"
"How should I know? Pretty sure cause he thinks that I'm some creep for working with Liv and Tara and has deluded the others into believing it too. I have done absolutely nothing to either of them. I was just chatting with Mindy one time while they were visiting and somehow Chad thinks I'm hitting on his sister. THAT'S IT!"
"Jesus, " Sam sort of laughed.
"Anyways, its whatever, there's still-"
But before Vince could continue his sentence, came the sirens.
They quickly turned their heads and saw police cars speeding down the road. It wasn't just one, it was 2, then 3 then 4 and by the end they saw 6 police cars pass by. And then the ambulance.
"Oh no," Sam said, and the two then just looked at each other; they knew exactly what those sirens meant.
Without saying a word, the two dashed back towards the car, and whilst Sam initially went towards the driver seat, one look at Vince Was enough for her to move and get in into the passenger's side.
They both quickly put their seatbelt on as Vince started the car, pulling out of the park and following the direction of the police cars.