HAUNTED WIRRAL: Tom Slemen delves into the Weird Case of the Warning Emojis

In this latest tale, Tom explores the mystery of the weird case of the warning emojis...

One December morning in 2016, two young ladies in their twenties – Kristine and Elsa – were supposed to meet at the Starbucks situated off New Chester Road, less than a mile north of Childer Thornton.

Kristine and Elsa, who both hailed from Hooton, had been friends since their childhood days but after Elsa had married a Liverpool man and moved to Mossley Hill two years back, they had seen less of one another – only meeting up now and then of a weekend for a day out.

The girls, however, did keep in touch via their mobiles and on this wintry day they were supposed to meet up at 11am to have coffee and cake as they discussed Kristine’s idea about opening a vintage clothing boutique in Birkenhead.

Eleven o’clock came and went, and at a quarter past the hour, Kristine decided she’d text Elsa to see why she was late.

Before she could even key in the passcode to the mobile, it played a brief xylophonic ringtone, and a very strange text message appeared.

It was a rather alarming emoji Kristine had never seen before: a little cartoonlike icon of a red-headed man in a coffin, with the uppercase letters RIP next to it.

That little man in the coffin had a red beard and to Kristine’s eyes it looked like a caricature of Rory – Elsa’s husband.

Who had sent this morbid text message?

It was from someone called Heela – and there was no number listed.

Kristine knew no one named Heela, but whoever he or she was, they had a sense of gallows humour.

“I thought that was my phone then,’ said a man who looked about Kristine’s age.

He’d just parked himself at the table to her left with what looked like a Caffe Misto.

“I’ve just had a weird anonymous text, bit creepy too,’ Kristine told the stranger without taking her eyes off her phone.

“Look,’ she thrust her iPhone out and the young man squinted at the morbid icon, then turned his eyes to Kristine. “Just someone messing about,” he said, “bit morbid though.”

Then Kristine’s phone began to ring, and it displayed Elsa’s name upon its screen.

Kristine answered it and Elsa could hardly get her words out as she fought back tears.

Her husband Rory was dead.

He’d had a heart attack, and Elsa had only just found out.

She had reached Lime Street Station when her mother had called her to break the news so she was returning home now in a taxi.

After Elsa had hung up, Kristine recalled that emoji of the coffin with the man in it who looked like Rory, and she turned to the man on the next table, who asked, “You okay?”

Kristine told him what had just happened, and the man – who later introduced himself as Stephen Sheridan, said that whoever had sent that distasteful emoji had to have known Rory had died, and must have had software to make the little man in the icon look like him.

“And he obviously knows you and your mobile number,” Stephen added.

“I don’t know anyone who works with phones,” Kristine replied, racking her brains to recall any acquaintance who could be such a cold-hearted joker.

“Someone who works with computers, an IT savvy type?” Stephen said, but still Kristine knew no one in that line of work.

Stephen asked Kristine if she’d like to go for a drink, as she’d received a bit of a shock, and he assured her he was not trying to hook up with her, but she said, “I think I’ll just go home, but thanks anyway.”

Kristine called Elsa but her friend’s mum answered and said Elsa just needed some time to grieve and advised Kristine not to come over to Liverpool yet.

At 7pm sharp that evening, two strange emojis were sent to Kristine’s mobile.

The first was of an electric plug in a socket, and there was a plus sign (+) next to this image, followed by an emoji that looked exactly like Kristine – same profile and dark blue hair – bending over.

Next to this image was an equals sign and the word OUCH!

Kristine was spooked and baffled by this latest text from “Heela” – what on earth did it mean?

She found out twenty minutes later when she bent down to plug in her electric piano; her back went.

The pain was so intense, she almost passed out.

She staggered to the sofa and fell on it.

As she writhed in agony, she thought of the text message that had apparently predicted the painful mishap.

These weird text messages with their eerie emojis continued to bombard Kristine, and they seemingly predicted two deaths, a fire, a car crash, and even a life-threatening medical diagnosis concerning Kristine’s mother, and then, on New Year’s Day, the last text message from Heela was sent, and it simply read, “Have a Wonderful New Year”.

If some warped hacker was behind the weird text messages, how did he or she know in advance what was going to happen to the people they referred to?

It’s almost as if someone with a talent for clairvoyance was sending them, and Kristine herself believes that Heela was some mischievous spirit – and if this is so, why was Kristine on the receiving end of the frightening texts?

The mystery remains unsolved.

Over the forthcoming weeks Tom will tell you more tales of the mysterious and the uncanny in the Globe.

Haunted Liverpool 28 is another dazzling collection of supernatural fact by Tom Slemen, England’s greatest writer on the paranormal.