Chapter two: Stu Macher

Leslie Schneider, born Leslie Macher, stared down at her son in his crib, rocking the crib back and forth slowly, humming to him, hoping desperately that whatever had been wrong with her baby brother, was not genetic.

She reminded herself that it wasn't just her genes in her baby's veins, if these sorts of things, were in fact, genetic, but also the genes of her husband. These sorts of things were a flip of the coin.

Maybe the baby would inherit her family's mental health, but maybe he would inherit his father's mental health.

She tried to tell herself that she could hang onto that.

It had been almost four years since her younger brother's death in Woodsboro.

Leslie had loved her brother. Had loved him dearly.

There had been a three-year age difference.

When Leslie had gone off to college, Stu had turned fifteen. Leslie visited from college regularly.

But all throughout her life, even before college? Close as she and her brother had been? She had never seen it…..who her brother really had been.

Never, throughout all her years, had Leslie even been able to get a glimpse of what was beneath that playful grin that had always painted her brother's face.

It hit her then, that that was exactly what Stu's grin had been. "Painted on."

Everything with him had been a sham.

Just like it had been with Billy Loomis.

Stu and Billy, they had fooled everyone.

Leslie had always figured that her baby brother was too honest, too much of a jokester, to ever successfully deceive anyone.

And yet?

And yet, Stu, like Billy Loomis, was one of the most famous serial killers in this part of America, and no one had known, until Sidney Prescott had electrocuted him with that TV.

Leslie closed her eyes, trying desperately to block out the image of her baby brother, lying dead on a silver slab, face burnt and bloody, eyes staring up, dead, unmoving. His hands covered with blood. His own, for the first time.

That was the thing that always got to Leslie.

That he had shed so much blood, not his own. She had tried to tell herself, tried to delude herself that maybe he hadn't killed anyone, unlike Billy Loomis.

For a time, she had tried to cling onto the memory of the baby brother that she thought she had known.

If she hadn't been able to save Stu, then she would preserve his memory, she would preserve her memory of him.

She tried so hard over the next near four years to tell herself that all the killings had been done by Billy Loomis, not by her brother.

And for a while? She had been able to believe that lie.

In a way, she told herself that that made sense.

But she knew she couldn't admit that it was the truth.

How could she? Sidney had witnessed another Ghostface masked killer come into her room, saw the killer slash at Billy, and Stu and Billy pretended that Billy was being attacked, and then that same killer, had slit the throat of the cameraman of Gale Weathers, Kenny.

There was no getting out of the fact that Stu had killed at least one person, and had definitely tried to kill others.

Had he also been complicit in Maureen Prescott's murder, or had that just been Billy? Sidney claimed that Billy and Stu had said that they both had had a hand in that. But had that only been Stu puffing and trying to sound like he had more notches in his belt than he had?

Maybe.

Stu said a lot. Didn't mean that he meant it.

Leslie let out a pained chuckle as she opened her eyes and looked down at her sleeping son, Vincent.

Funny what a grieving family member would do, to try to convince themselves that their deceased loved one, wasn't a monster.

Had Stu always been a monster and she had just never known? How had she never known?

How had their parents never known?

How had they not realized that there had been something deeply broken in Stu, likely from the moment he had been born?

If they had known, could they have saved him? Saved his victims from his bloodlust?

Leslie desperately tried to in strengthen herself at the sight of her son. Her son was the only source of strength she had, besides her husband.

She hated that she was not as close to her parents any longer as she used to be.

You'd think that a grieving family would grow closer after such a loss.

But something like this? Finding out that a member of your family wasn't who you thought he was?

That he had actual fantasies of committing multiple murders?

That he enjoyed maiming and killing? Enjoyed butchering people?

How did you move on from that?

Leslie had felt herself drift away from her parents, day by day.

It wasn't just because every time she looked at them, she saw Stu's face in her father's chin, thin and slim body structure and eyes, and in her mother's cheekbones and mouth and nose.

It wasn't just because she felt like distancing herself from the Macher name, might distance herself from the blame that the town wanted to lay at her and her parents' feet for how Stu had turned out.

It was because some part of her blamed her parents, too.

How had they not been able to see it? They had been his parents.

Shouldn't they have suspected?

Leslie stared at her son, wrapped up in his soft, blue baby blanket, so unaware of the dangerous and frightening world that he had been forced to join. She had at one time, entertained naming him after his uncle, but couldn't bear the thought. He didn't need that hanging over his head. It was bad enough that he was related to Stu.

She again, saw Stu's face in her mind, only this time, it was him much younger than when he died.

When he had been ten, he had seen how his sister had cried, when she had suffered through her first breakup, at the age of thirteen.

What had his response been? He had played her favorite boy band song, at the time, and had danced like an idiot in front of her room. She had tried to get angry at him, but between his silly grin and his silly movements, she had just found herself laughing, even if she had been crying previously.

She had seen him grin wider at her laughter, relieved obviously, that he had made her laugh.

She had tried, for years to tell herself that that was the real Stu, not the monster that the media was making him out to be.

And if he was considered a monster now? It was because of Billy Loomis. Billy had corrupted him.

She had held onto that notion, for years.

But deep down, she was almost positive of the truth.

In the end, she blamed herself, more than anyone else.

She and Stu had been so close…..never mind her parents-how had she not seen it?!

How had she not seen that her brother had desperately needed therapeutic and psychiatric help?

Now, Leslie could no longer laugh through the tears.

Now, all she could do was cry, and cling onto the thought that she could keep Vincent from becoming the monster his uncle had been.

She wouldn't need to worry, though. Vincent would live twenty-one years, and never commit the actions that his uncle had committed.

But another not that different from Vincent's uncle would take his life, a few months after his twenty-first birthday, in a parking lot, outside of a bar, one night, by a single stab wound to the neck.