"So I hear," I said. "All right, then. There's some people with a Scranton connection making and selling snuff films."
"I thought all that stuff was some bullshit urban legend," Pettigrew said.
"This stuff isn't," I told him. "I've seen one, and it's the real deal. There's four different ones that we know about, and they all follow the same pattern. Two guys are chained up inside a pentagram. A demon is summoned, and it possesses one of the guys. Then he's set free, and the demon makes him torture and kill the other guy. It's the nastiest shit I've ever seen – and I've seen a lot."
"Jesus," Pettigrew said. "That is beyond sick."
"No argument from me," I said.
"Demons, huh? Well, that's supies for you – fuckin' perverts, every damn one."
"Let's not generalize," I said. "So I take it all of this is news to you?"
"Yeah, it's the first I've heard of it," he said, and I believed him.
"If you come across anything that smells like this, I'd appreciate a call."
He shrugged those big shoulders, not committing himself. "What else you got?"
"Somebody's been burning witches," I said. "Two, so far. We don't know why, and we sure as hell don't know who."
"Yeah, I saw something on the news about one of them," he said.
"Is that all you know about it – what was on TV?"
Pettigrew was silent, looking at the floor in front of him, as if he'd found a crack that made an interesting pattern in the concrete. "I hear things, all kinds of shit," he said finally. "It's hard to know how much of it's true, and what's connected to what, you know?"
"Yeah," I said. "So?"
"I get a feeling it's not going to stop with the witches," he said. "Pretty soon, other supies are going to turn up as members of the true dead, and you know what I call that?"
"What?"
"A good start." He frowned at the floor. "But this is some crazy shit, if the whisper stream has it right. These motherfuckers are looking to start the Big Party." He looked up at me then, and I saw something in his face that was a mix of eagerness and fear. "Helter Skelter, man. Helter fucking Skelter."
Helter Skelter. Years ago, a crew of Charlie Manson's bloodthirsty wackos had written that in blood on the interior walls of a house, out in the Hollywood Hills. The blood came from the bodies of four women who'd been having a social evening when the killers broke in. One of the women was the wife of the famous were actor, Larry Talbot.
The next night, a different bunch of crazies, also sent by Manson, had invaded an elegant house in LA, not far from the La Brea tar pits. Armed with holy water, wooden stakes, and an Uzi that sprayed silver bullets, they'd left behind three dead vamps and "Helter Skelter" written all over the place in vampire blood.
The Talbot-La Brea murders had scared the shit out of undead Southern California, but it wasn't long before the police, acting on a tip, busted Charlie and his bunch of misfits at some ranch they had out there in the desert. It was at their trial that the prosecution explained to the jury in detail what Manson's conception of Helter Skelter really was.
The name came from an innocent little song on the Beatles' White Magic album, but there was nothing innocent about what Crazy Charlie had in mind for America: race war.
Out of Manson's deranged mind had come the notion that the Bible predicted a final showdown between humans and supes, or what Charlie called the "Children of Light" and the "Children of Darkness." When it became clear to the supes that humans were targeting them, courtesy of Charlie and his troops, they would strike back indiscriminately. This would bring a swift response from humans, prompting a struggle that would eventually result in the annihilation of every supe on the planet.
Or something like that.
Charlie was currently serving ninety-nine years to forever, and the rest of his tribe also went down for long stretches. A few of them were released eventually, and one of the women actually tried to assassinate President Ford. But somebody in the crowd grabbed the gun away before Betty could take a bullet.
In any case, the visions of Helter Skelter were locked up with the madman who had dreamed them, and that particular brand of craziness wasn't going to trouble the world again.
Or so everybody thought.
I looked at Pettigrew. "If you really believe that, you oughta be happy as a pig eating garbage," I said.
His mouth tightened at my insulting metaphor, but what he said was, "I don't know, man. I just don't know. It's a cool idea to rap about over a few beers or some weed, but making it really happen…" He let his voice trail off.
"You afraid you might get killed, is that it?"
He shook his head. "No, within the context of the struggle, my life is nothing."
I just looked at him. After ten seconds or so, his somber expression broke and he snorted with laughter.
"Guess you still know bullshit when you hear it, huh?"
"I encounter so much, you might say it's pretty familiar," I said.
"Yeah, well, sure, I'm afraid I might die, if the capital 'S' shit hits the capital 'F' fan. I've got a wife and kids that I love the hell out of, most days. And I'm pretty damn fond of myself, too. But that's not the real reason why this Helter Skelter stuff scares me."
"What, then?"
"I'm afraid we just might lose."
It was time for me to go to work for real. When I got to the squad room, I saw that Karl had already arrived. He was alone in the place, apart from Lieutenant McGuire, who was in his glass-enclosed office at the far end.
Karl looked up, said, "Hey," and went back to work on his computer. I wanted to let him know about my conversation with Pettigrew, even though he might be pissed that I went there without him. I walked around to his side, grabbed an empty chair from somebody's desk, and wheeled it over to where Karl was sitting. As I plopped down he turned and looked at me curiously. "What's up, Stan?"