HAUNTED WIRRAL: The mystery of Sally

This week, Tom tells the tale of a terrifying encounter with a the mysterious Sally.

IN 2015, an off-duty nurse named Jenny, aged 27, and 30-year-old husband Jack were in Birkenhead, shopping when Jenny bumped into her friend Izzy.

Jenny and her husband went with Izzy to a café on Chester Street to have a natter and a coffee and as the girls caught up on each other's lives and Jack played Pac-Man 256 on his phone, Jenny's mobile started to ring.

At that moment, the phone was being held by Izzy as she surveyed Jenny’s holiday photographs on it - and as she passed the iPhone to her friend, she accidentally pressed the Accept Call button, and Jenny looked at the screen and gasped: "Oh no, it's her."

"Hang up!" said Jack, and Izzy noticed the ruffled expression on his face - she also saw that Jenny seemed afraid of the caller - whoever it was.

Jenny pressed her thumb repeatedly on the touch-screen of the phone as Jack again urged her to hang up, but jenny seemed to be having trouble hanging up.

She lifted the phone to her ear and now Izzy noticed that the colour seemed to have drained from the face of her friend.

"Stop calling," said Jenny, and Izzy could hear what sounded like a young female voice coming from the phone that asked: "Why? Why don't you want to talk to me, Jenny?"

"Hang up!" shouted Jack, and his raised voice made Izzy jump, and people in the café looked over at him.

"No, no, stop it!" Jenny told the caller, and seemed almost near to tears, and Jack lunged forward, tried to grab the iPhone from his wife, but she dropped it and it hit the table and bounced into Izzy's lap.

Izzy picked it up and saw the caller's name was "Sally".

"What's going on?" Izzy asked the couple, "You two seem scared - "

"Hang up, Izzy," said Jack, reaching for the phone, and as Izzy's thumb hovered over the red button on the screen to end the call, she hesitated as she heard the caller say "Who's Izzy? Izzy! Can you please talk to me?"

Curiosity got the better of Izzy and she quickly lifted the iPhone to her ear, and Jack yelled: "For God's sake, Izzy! Hang up I told you!"

"Can you keep your voice down, sir?" the proprietor of the café asked, walking over to the window table where the couple and Izzy were seated.

"Just hang up, please Izzy," said Jenny in an uneven voice, and she had a look of dread upon her face.

"Yes, sorry," Izzy said, blushing as she handed the iPhone to her friend.

Jenny ended the call and switched the phone off and put it in her pocket, and as she took a sharp intake of breath, Jack told Izzy: "Her name's Sally, and she calls us night and day and turns up at our place all hours of the day and night."

"She only sounds like a kid," said Izzy, trying to work out what was going on.

"How old is she? Who is she?"

"We don't know who she is," said Jenny, and Izzy noticed her friend’s shaking hand as she grabbed her cappuccino.

"She just started calling us one day about two months ago, and we have tried getting her blocked but she gets through - "

"And comes around," added Jack, "and we can't get shut of her."

"Hang on a mo," said Izzy with a poor attempt at a smile on her face. "How old is she, and why is she pestering you two?"

"She looks about ten," said Jenny, "and it all started when we saw her a few months back, standing on the corner of Gertrude Street and Duncan Street when we were going to my mum's place. She knew my name - how - I don't know, but she said I was like her big sister."

"She was dead chatty," chipped in Jack, "and she followed us to Jenny's mum's, and I told her to beat it.

"Next thing she’s phoning by the minute."

"But how did she know you and how did she get your number?" Izzy wondered out loud.

"We can't work that out" Jenny replied. "She creeps me out. There's something really weird about her."

Later that afternoon, when Jenny and Jack had gone home, Izzy got a call on her mobile from a "Sally" - a name that was not listed in her contacts. She answered it, and it was that girl who was pestering Jenny and Jack.

"You sound nice, Izzy," said the girl, "you can be my big sister."

"How did you get my number?’ an irritated Izzy asked.

"Does it make any difference how I got it?" Sally asked: "Can I come and see you, Izzy?"

"No you can't," Sally said, seething at the audacity of the girl, "now don’t call me again!"

But Sally called her seven more times that day, wanting to know why Izzy was being ‘mean’ to her.

Izzy recalled Jenny saying the girl was on the corner of Gertrude Street and Duncan Street, and she went along there the next day, hoping to see this Sally.

A girl stood on the corner, and she had a bob of black hair, a cherubic face and a blue gingham dress - and she seemed to be expecting Izzy.

When Izzy told the girl she'd report her to the authorities, Sally looked at a passing car - and that car suddenly veered onto the pavement.

Izzy threw herself out of its path in the nick of time.

A slate then fell from a roof, hitting Izzy on the shoulder, and realising the girl was somehow causing these incidents, Izzy backed away – and she saw the girl's eyes glow.

She ran off in terror.

The calls from Sally continued day and night for a week, but Izzy never answered them, and she ended up buying a new mobile.

She never ventured anywhere near Duncan Street after that brush with the girl.

Is Sally a ghost, or some child with deadly psychic powers?

• Haunted Liverpool 33 is out now on Amazon.