Post by kkfounder on Sept 22, 2006 16:00:07 GMT -5
What is Kansas known for? Being flatter than a pancake? Having the biggest hand-dug well? The home of Dorthy when she's not visiting the Munchkins in OZ? Then there's having the largest known ball of yarn, or knowing it is the birthplace of the man who discovered Pluto. There's also the factor that it's home to the Chiefs, Royals, Jay hawks, and Wildcats. Also Boot Hill, with its stories of gunfights, and bandits that roamed the old west - where the law meant nothing.
And then there is Stull.
Stull, a small town in Kansas, located in central nowhere. Only the rich, or city-like folk live in the few house placed within the city. For the rest, it's the hard lands of country life, far away from the influences of Stull. Why, you might wonder, do the people make such a fuss to keep away from such a seemingly innocent town? It all happened 100, or so, years ago. Back to the time when being accused of witchcraft was detrimental to anyone and everyone - where being different was not good, not good at all.
Five people stood on a small hill near Stull, the town's people gathering around them, bloodthirsty looks glisten deep within their eyes. "Hang them!" Emitted from somewhere within the crowd. Faces turned to a petite woman, standing toward the front of the growing crowd. Her beautiful face deformed by the scowl present upon her angelic-like features. To her, and every other person in the crowd, these five people had committed acts against God, acts that would not go unpunished – they were accused to the practiced of witchcraft.
A young girl, no older than 5-years-old, stood within the circle of a 16-year-old boy's arms, as she cried, cried for her mother, as she stood with those other four people. The boy's calming pleas silently carried into her ears unnoticed, as she waited for what was to happen next. He brushed the dirt ridden, brown curls off of her ashen face before he was pulled away from her, the rope fitting snuggly around neck began to itch. He argued with the people, that she was only a young girl, as they fitted her with her own noose.
While next to him, stood a girl with flaming red hair, and freckles that seemed to cover every inch of her body. Tears formed within her murky hazel eyes, but never did they fall once - she refused to allow such a thing to happen. She would not waist such emotions on these lowlife people, she stood there unmoving as they placed what seemed would be her death carelessly around her neck. Looking out to the crowd, her eyes met with a small group of whom she'd thought to have been her friends. Meeting their gazes equally, each and every one of their faces turned to the ground. To her, they were no longer friends, just more bodies among the rowdy mob of town's people.
Standing next to the retentive girl, there was a particularly stout, blond woman with an up turned nose and brilliant blue eyes, dulled from the effects of the past few hours. Pleonastically, she yelled back at the crowd, saying that they'd done nothing wrong. That what they were doing was wrong, that they were wrong. But they were ignored, for in the town's point of view, these five people had done something, not only wrong, but unforgivable.
Finally, an elderly woman of around eighty, her wispy aged hair strewn out in the soft Kansas breeze. If she'd opened her mouth to protest her death than the people would have seen that she'd almost no teeth – while the teeth she did have had become rotten from years of mistreatment. Though instead she merely closed her eyes, breathing in what would be her last few breaths of life. Ended not through old age, but because of something that the witch hysteria had caused. It didn't matter that she would loose her life this day. It was that these four other people with her, standing before the people of Stull, would never be allowed to fulfill their own lives, that was what brought her pain.
Though none of these thoughts or arguments mattered to the town's people. Five people hung that day, for the whole town to witness. But something was unsettling - the boy. The boy had no family here, no friends, and no one had ever seen him before that day. They wondered, why he had been up there with those other traitors? And how could he not have had any family?
By the spring equinox, about a month had past, and no one seemed to care or remember what had happened for that matter. It was time for celebration - it was time to start planting again! As the yearly festivities took over the small town of Stull, Kansas, no one cared to remember the five-year-old girl or the roughly handsome boy with no family known of. They'd forgotten the both the blonde and red head, as well as the old woman with snow white hair. No they had other things on their minds, more important thing to think about – like where the festival would be held this coming year.
It had been decided that it would be held within the walls of their new church, placed at the base of the familiar small hill. As the night wore on, three small children gazed lazily out the window they sat by, eyes widening in terror, they ran toward their celebrating parents, screaming alarm. It was of the five bodies, still hanging forgotten, viewable through the trees toward the top of the hill. The men raced to where the bodies hung, out of breath and in disbelief. What they found was not flesh-ridden bodies, oh no, they still were fully in tacked and warm to the touch.
The self-proclaimed town mayor hurriedly sent everyone home, to pray riddance to all bad spirits that obviously must have surrounded these people's bodies. Though he was not officially their mayor, the town's people seemed to listen to his loud commands, sometimes begrudgingly, but they listened all the same.
Finding himself back at the church, he warily rubbed the bridge of his nose. All thoughts of permanently settling here, told him it would turn bad, things would most likely begin to happen. But it was too late to stop any of it, his voice may have some power with these people, but it wouldn't get through to them on this issue without having to explain his troubles. No, he would keep his mouth shut, and pray that nothing horrible would happen. The creaks of a door opening caused him to jump, shakily the mayor turned toward the stable area. Sighing with relief, he smiled at the stable boy that was wandering towards him, hands firmly behind his back.
He forced his smile to widen, hoping hide any worry that may have been present before hand. "And how can I he-" But he stopped short as the boy ran at him, hatchet drawn from behind his back.
Stull's mayor never had a chance of escape, the boy had had made sure of it. Not to say that he hadn't tried, though the unnamed boy caught the man by the ankles, just in view of the town's prized statue. As he lay there waiting for what he knew to be his end, the mayor glanced over at that beautiful statue, a statue that was to represent Gabrielle. Then suddenly he felt the impact of something sharp cut into him and the world around him slowly faded out, his screams gone unheard. Shadows then soon after, fell over the church, as it began to rain much needed water. That same boy, gone insane from grief, could have been seen walking away from the barley recognizable corpse of Stull's first town mayor. Toward that same hill top where this all began only a month ago.
Now to say this is all that happened and nothing else, to the town of Stull, Kansas 100 years ago would be a lie. But it is alleged that the boy was in fact the brother of the little girl that had been hung only a month before. While the next day they found asleep at the base of the tree where his sister's body had hung. When questioned he claimed that the devil had come up from the old pine tree, where the five people had been hung, and told him it was he to kill the mayor. That he'd done well in doing so, and that the devil would take what belonged to him. And he was forgiven, then placed in the pastor's care, to be purged of any demon that may have still resided in his soul.
They believed him, it was their only explanation, though he couldn't claim that he'd seen the bodies taken beneath the ground, the boy had said that they'd been there when he'd gone to sleep. No one could deny him his story, for the bodies, they were no longer there.
Now it is the year 2007 in the small town of Stull. The church was abandoned ten years ago, leaving nothing but ruins left today. No one dare enter that building again, afraid that it really had been cursed upon. The citizens of the town never speak of what happened there 100 years ago – well the elders do not tell the tale. While the new generation of Stull can't wait to get out of Kansas, away from legends and myths, stories that their parents tell when they were young to frighten them. Though they also dream big, to live in a place where there is more than farms, and countryside – it will have more than one school that doesn't hold all grades, kindergarten to twelfth. And a better place to hang out than the local diner, which by the way is named Stull Diner – didn’t see that one coming did you?
The myths that surround Stull are unlimited, but those that stand out have to deal with the events that took place that night, some time ago. A story along the lines of the Devil gathering the souls of all the people whom died most violent and painful deaths, over the past year - to a prance around the Earth at the witching hour, midnight on the spring equinox or Halloween. On that day, possibly both, the gateway to hell opens once again allowing the dead to roam.
It is said that if you should find the stairs, and venture down, it would be almost impossible for you to return by traversing up them. Also it is believed that if you make an upside down cross with two bottles and throw them against the walls they will not break. Witches were hung from the old pine tree, and maybe the most unsettling was the myth about a boy; a boy that was buried there. Said to be the devil's own son. Was it the boy with no family - that hung along with the four others?
Here in Stull everyone knows everyone else’s business, the newspaper is only printed once a month. You get arrested for going onto the old cemetery after dark, not that that stops the high school students. And it is still rumored that the cemetery is one of the seven gates of hell. But what happens to this small town when a girl ends up dead on the side of the road, and a new family from New York City moves in shortly after? Well the same thing that happens when you mix Baking soda and vinegar together, things start to get a little messy.[/center]