The Creeps! || Book of Spooky Stories (COMPLETED ✔️)

42 ~ Tie A Noose

Many years ago, there was a young Scottish girl named Anna Dorothea Starts who traveled to the Untied States to seek her fortune. She came to work as a servent in a large stone house near the town of Catskill in New York State.

The man who owned the house was mean-tempered and a violent individual named William Salisbury. He had paid for her ticket to America, and, as soon as she began working for him, Anna realized what kind of a man he was.

Salisbury treated Anna like a slave, and told her she wouldn't be paid until she worked off the cost of her plane ticket. She was trapped. Salisbury was vicious and brutal, taking pleasure in the suffering of others. He frequently lost his temper at Anna and looked for any reason to beat or abuse her.

On one occasion, Salisbury caught Anna passing by a closed door and accused her of eavesdropping on a conversation between him and his wife. Despite the young girl's protests, he took her outside and whipped her until her entire body was covered in welts and bruises. Salisbury was cruel to Anna that, one day, she couldn't take anymore, and decided to run away.

When Salisbury found out she was missing, his anger knew no bounds. Cursing and swearing, he hopped on his horse and chased her through the countryside. The furious man relentlessly pursued poor Anna and scoured the woods until he finally found her fleeing in the trees.

When Salisbury caught her, he took a cord and tied her hands to the tail of the horse. Then, he dragged her all the way back to the house. By the time they had reached the home, Anna was dead. Her body had been dashed to pieces by rocks and stone that littered the countryside roads. All that was left of the young girl was a tattered, bloody mess.

Salisbury was arrested and tried for murder. In court, he claimed he hadn't meant to harm the girl at all and said he was only trying to teach her a lesson. According to the story he told, his horse had become frightened and reared up, throwing him off. Then, the horse ran off and dragged the girl off to her death. He tried to explain it all away as a tragic accident.

In the end, the jury didn't believe Salisbury's story and he was given the death penalty. He was sentence to be hanged by the neck for the crime of the murder.

However, Salisbury was a rich man, and money can buy you many things. In this case, he used his money to bribe the judge. His sentence was suspended until he was 99 years of age, if he even lived that long. In the meantime, Salisbury was ordered to wear a hangman's noose around his neck to remind him of his crime. He was ordered to report to the judge in Catskill once a year to make sure he was keeping the noose tied around his neck.

After the trial, Salisbury was a changed man. Wherever he went, people would see the hangman's noose and they stared and pointed at him, knowing he was a murderer. He couldn't escape the shame. Salisbury became an outcast and no one in the town would associate with him. Not even his wife, who soon left him.

Soon afterwards, rumors began to circulate that the ghost of Anna had been seen in the area. Sometimes, she would be spotted sitting on the stone wall at the bottom of Salisbury's garden, with hellish flames rising from her fingertips and the sound of unearthly laughter coming from her lips.

At other times, the ghost of the murdered girl was spotted, tied to a ghastly horse that dashed past the man's bedroom window every night. Those who saw her described her as a bloody skeleton with tattered garments and streaming hair flapping in the wind.

The clatter of hooves on the rocks and the girl's terrified shrieks echoed outside Salisbury's window all night long. People would walk miles to avoid walking by Salisbury's house, not wanting to hear the horrible screams of the dead.

As the years went by, Salisbury became a recluse, never speaking to anyone and spending his time alone in his house. They say the ghost of the murdered girl tormented Salisbury every night, eventually driving him insane.

One day, his body was found hanging from the ceiling of his house. Whether he was driven by suicide or he was forced into it by the ghost, nobody knows. Whatever the reason, he had taken his life with the very same noose that he was ordered to wear around his neck.