Free House of Bones by Graham Masterton

Liam cautioned him. He tiptoed across the landing and gently nudged open the bedroom door. From where he was standing, John couldn’t see anything, only the bedroom window, and a dark horse-chestnut tree outside.Liam went into the room and the door swung back.
    John waited for almost a minute. Then he called, “Liam? What’s going on?”
    There was no answer. “Liam?” John repeated. “Come on, Liam, stop messing about. Let’s go.”
    Still no answer. John went over to the bedroom door and opened it a little way. “Liam?”
    He looked around the door and what he saw he couldn’t immediately understand. He felt as if his entire skin surface was prickling and his stomach was tightening up into a tennis ball.
    â€œ
Liam
?”
    Liam was kneeling on the other side of the room. Except that it wasn’t all of Liam. Half of his head had disappeared into the wall, so that all John could see of it was his right eye and his right nostril and the right side of his mouth, dragged wide open in agony. His left arm had disappeared and most of his chest, too. His left knee had gone, but his left foot was still free, even though it was trembling uncontrollably, like the hoof of a recently-shot stag.
    John stood and stared at him in horror. Then he hurried over and crouched down beside him and shouted, “Liam! What’s happening to you? What can I do?”
    Liam grasped frantically for John’s hand. He was tense, tight, shivering. “Help me,” he croaked. “Help me, John, for the love of God. It’s pullingme in.” John grabbed hold of his arm, but Liam was being sucked into the flowery-patterned wallpaper as smoothly and steadily as if he were being sucked into quicksand. John pulled at him, lodging his feet against the skirting board to give himself as much leverage as he could, and for a moment he thought that he had managed to stop Liam from going into the wallpaper any further.
    â€œGet me out, John,” Liam begged him. “You have to get me out of here.”
    But then his head was pulled even deeper into the wall, and his mouth disappeared with a last choking cough. The last that John saw of his face was his single right eye, as green as glass, staring at him in absolute terror. Then that too was gone.
    â€œ
Liam
!” he screamed at him. “
Liam
”!
    He wrenched at Liam’s polo shirt, but all he succeeded in doing was tearing the collar. He wrenched again and again, but Liam’s chest disappeared, and then his shoulder, and then his legs. At the very last, John was pulling at nothing but his arm, but that was sucked in, too, right up to the wrist. For a few seconds his hand reached out of the wall, his fingers splayed wide as if he were still pleading to be rescued. Then even that was gone, and the wall was bare.
    John stood up, so shocked and shaky that he had to lean against the wall to regain his balance. But he felt something stir beneath his hand – somethingthat seemed to
crawl
right underneath the wallpaper.
    He rushed down the stairs so quickly that he lost his footing and had to snatch at the handrail to stop himself from falling. He ran into the street and stopped, circling wildly around and around, panting in terror.
What was he going to do? What was he going to do
? There was nobody in sight, as if all the residents of Madeira Terrace knew what was happening, and stayed well away.
    He ran a little way up the hill but then he stopped and went down again. He stood by the gate but he was too frightened to go back into the house. What was he going to do? Call the police? But who was going to believe that Liam had vanished into the wall? The police would probably think that
he
had murdered Liam and buried his body somewhere.
    He couldn’t think of anybody else he could call. They shouldn’t have been trespassing in the house in the first place, so he couldn’t expect any help from Mr Cleat. The only thing