Stephen King reveals what the text messages in 'Mr. Harrigan's Phone' really mean

Messages from the dead aren't always easy to decipher, and apparently that goes double when they come in the form of texts.

Fans of Stephen King will likely have seen the new movie adaptation of Mr. Harrigan's Phone on Netflix over the weekend — a story about a lonely boy, Craig (Jaeden Martell), who befriends an elderly billionaire called Mr Harrigan (Donald Sutherland), introducing the man to the world of smartphones before he eventually passes away.

The hook? Mr Harrigan is buried with his phone in his pocket, and Craig finds that he can communicate with him from beyond the grave.

Anyone who's read King's novella or watched the movie will know that these messages come in a fairly cryptic form, and in both the book and the movie the real meaning is never entirely explained.

So on Wednesday, King took to Twitter to get people's best guesses.

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It's worth noting that the final message, "CCC sT", is at least guessed at by Craig in the story to mean "Craig, stop", after he's called on My Harrigan to take care of something for him in the world of the living. The first two messages are left open to interpretation, though, and King's tweet prompted a range of guesses from fans.

The next day, as promised, the author returned to give his interpretation.

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It makes sense, doesn't it? Mr Harrigan is sending Craig his love from beyond the grave, but he's also expressing discomfort — either from the effort he's going to to respond to Craig's messages, his effort to solve Craig's IRL problems, or both. Finally he's telling him to stop, because Craig's requests are hurting both of them too much.

And as for the reason the messages are in code? King explained that, too.

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Mr Harrigan's Phone is currently streaming on Netflix.