If someone tells you to go to hell,

Take Highway 40

and proceed ten miles west from Lawrence.

But if you want to see the devil himself

make your brave voyage on the night of

the Spring Equinox or Halloween.

Satanic stories abound over Stull, Kansas —

a hamlet too small to have its own post office

but large enough to contain legions of evil spirits.

They say a little boy had been scorched to death

in the a field his father was burning,

and a man was found hung from an oak tree

after vanishing like a wisp of smoke,

while yet another at the old church felt

an unearthly gale while inside the building

But it’s the cemetery that is most feared

for they say it is Beelzebub’s gate,

The voices of the dead will strangle you

while evils spirits carve out your innards.

Legend has it that early settlers erased

the shame of their witchcraft practices

by erasing Deer Creek Community

and replacing its name with “Stull.”

Folks swear an old tree in graveyard

once served as gallows for condemned witches

who return each year as Satan’s army.

Pshaw! Look, see vandalized grave markers

and that church building leveled into limestone gravel.

Nonsense! There is no evil here in Stull, Kansas

So why did the Pope supposedly order his private plane

to avoid crossing Stulls’ path on his way to Colorado?