The whole notion really turned me on.

Turned on Rusty, too.

We used to talk about that sort of thing in hushed, excited voices. Not in front of Slim, though. I couldn’t have said any of that stuff with Slim listening. But also we figured, being a girl herself, she might not want to hang out with us if she knew we had fantasies like that.

Whenever I imagined the Janks Field witch orgies, I always pictured Slim as the virgin tied to the altar. (I didn’t mention that part to Rusty or anyone else.) Slim never got sacrificed because I came to her rescue in the nick of time and cut her free.

I don’t know if any humans actually were sacrificed at Janks Field back in those days. It was fun to think about, though: sexy and romantic and exciting. Whereas the sacrifice of animals, which apparently was going on, just seemed plain disgusting to us.

The animal sacrifices disgusted and worried just about everyone. For one thing, pets were disappearing. For another, people going to Janks Field for make-out sessions or wild parties didn’t appreciate tripping over the dismembered remains of Rover or Kitty. Also, they must’ve been worried that they might be next.

Something had to be done about Janks Field. Since it was outside the city limits of Grandville, the county council chose to deal with it. They tried to solve the problem by installing a chain-link fence around the field.

The fence remained intact for about a week.

But then a concerned citizen named Fargus Durge entered the picture. He said, “You don’t have orgies and pagan sacrifices going on in the town squares of Grandville or Bixton or Clarksburg, do you?” Everyone agreed on that. “Well, what’s the difference between the town squares and Janks Field? The squares’re in the middle of town, that’s what. Whereas Janks Field, it’s all by itself out there in the middle of nowhere. It’s isolated! That’s how come it’s a magnet for every teenage hoodlum, weirdo, malcontent, deviate, sadist, satanist and sex-fiend in the county.”