The town of Salem had long buried its shame beneath cobblestones and tourist attractions. Every autumn, the streets filled with visitors wearing witch hats, snapping pictures of old courthouses, and laughing at ghost tours. The history of the 1692 trials was reduced to souvenirs and t-shirts. But history, when mocked, does not rest quietly.
The ground beneath Salem was saturated with the memory of screams. It carried the echoes of prayers shouted to deaf skies, of pleas denied, of bodies swinging from ropes in the cold dawn. Though centuries had passed, the soil remembered.
It began with whispers.
Locals living near Gallows Hill reported strange sounds at night. Not the rustle of wind through trees, nor the creak of shifting timbers, but voices—whispered prayers and ragged cries, carried on the breeze as though the air itself begged for mercy. Some claimed they saw figures standing at the hill’s edge, watching silently, their outlines blurred by moonlight. But when anyone approached, the figures vanished, leaving only the scent of smoke and ash.
In the fall of 2024, a group of students from Boston arrived in Salem to film a documentary. They were drawn by curiosity, hungry for sensationalism. Their plan was simple: record ghost tours, capture interviews with locals, and maybe, if luck favored them, spend a night at Gallows Hill. They were eager, mocking, and unafraid.
The town welcomed them with its usual charm. Shops sold black candles and grimoires. Actors in costumes told tales of witchcraft and curses with a practiced theatrical smile. The students laughed, rolling their eyes at the kitsch, but their laughter grew thin when they reached Gallows Hill at dusk.
The place was quieter than they expected. The trees leaned close together, their branches knotted like gnarled fingers clawing at the sky. The air was heavy, stale, as though the earth had not exhaled in centuries. The students set up cameras, joking about summoning spirits, but as the night deepened, their humor drained away.
The first sign came when one of them, Emma, heard her name whispered behind her ear. She spun around, expecting to find one of her friends teasing her, but there was nothing—only shadows between the trees. Moments later, the same voice whispered again, softer, almost tender, as if coaxing her closer.
Another student, Mark, caught movement on his camera. A flicker of white gliding between the trees, there and gone in an instant. He replayed the footage, but the figure moved too fast, its face blurred, its form stretched unnaturally.
The group laughed nervously, brushing it off. They lit candles for atmosphere, daring one another to call out names of the accused witches: Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Martha Carrier. They spoke the names aloud, their voices echoing in the still night. Then the wind rose, sudden and fierce, snuffing the candles out in one breath.
Darkness fell heavy.
From the shadows came the sound of footsteps—slow, deliberate, crunching the leaves underfoot. The students huddled together, the bravado gone from their voices. Their flashlights flickered, catching glimpses of pale faces between the trees. Hollow eyes stared at them, unblinking, their mouths twisted open as though mid-scream.
One of the girls began to cry, insisting she wanted to leave. But when they turned toward the trail, it was gone. The path had vanished, swallowed by trees that seemed to close in tighter with every heartbeat.
Emma felt a hand brush her shoulder. Cold. Too cold. She screamed, spinning, but the only thing she saw was a woman’s face—hollow, gray, eyes weeping streams of ash. The woman opened her mouth, and from it poured not words but the sound of ropes tightening, wood cracking, necks breaking.
The spirits of the accused had awoken.
The students ran, stumbling through the dark, cameras crashing against their chests, breath tearing from their lungs. But the forest was no longer a forest. It was a maze of gallows, ropes swaying from branches, shadows of bodies swinging in silence. The air stank of rot and smoke.
One by one, the students were separated. Mark fell behind, his flashlight dropping into the leaves. When he bent to grab it, pale hands clawed from the earth, wrapping around his wrists, dragging him down. His screams cut through the night but were quickly smothered by soil filling his mouth, his lungs, his grave.
Another girl, Sophie, stumbled into a clearing where the accused women stood in a circle. Their faces were twisted with agony and rage, their feet hovering inches above the ground, ropes biting deep into their necks. They turned to her as one, mouths opening in a shriek that shattered glass and split skin. When the noise stopped, Sophie’s eyes were bleeding, her body limp, her soul torn free to join them.
Emma and two others ran blindly, guided by terror rather than sense. They burst into what they thought was the edge of the hill, but instead they found themselves in the heart of the old trial. The townsfolk of 1692 stood there, faces warped by hatred, eyes alight with fanaticism. Judges in dark robes raised their hands, condemning the living as they had the dead.
“The devil walks among you,” one voice thundered, pointing at Emma. “She bears the mark!”
The villagers surged forward, their forms translucent yet solid enough to grip, to drag, to choke. Emma clawed at their hands, screaming, but the noose descended all the same.
The students’ cameras recorded everything. Later, when search parties came, all they found were smashed lights, broken lenses, and the faint smell of burning candles. No bodies. No footprints leading away. The town claimed the students must have wandered too far and gotten lost in the woods. But those who watched the footage recovered from the hill knew better.
The recordings showed faces no one wanted to acknowledge—faces of the dead, staring into the lens, lips moving in silent curses. In the final seconds, the screen filled with a close-up of Emma’s face, pale and lifeless, her eyes rolled white, as a rope snapped taut behind her.
Tourists still visit Gallows Hill. They laugh, they pose for photos, they buy charms to ward off bad luck. But sometimes, late at night, when the wind howls down the narrow streets of Salem, the townsfolk hear the echo of screams. Some swear they see children from centuries past playing in the graveyards, their laughter shrill and hollow. Others speak of women in white drifting between the stones, their faces bruised, their necks bent at impossible angles.
And when someone dares to mock the trials, to sneer at the stories as foolish superstition, the ground remembers. The ropes creak again. The trees sway as if burdened with unseen weight. And the spirits of the accused, forever wronged, step forward to claim their revenge.
For in Salem, the trials never ended. The nooses never loosened. And the witches never forgot.