Ivory by Steve Merrifield Page A

the twisted, scarred, hellish face of
King stared into his, blood and saliva oozing from his inanely
grinning mouth. King lay on top of him his embrace holding him
still. Martin looked down his body for the hissing gurgling sound
and saw that their bodies were joined by four glass shard that
skewered them together like meat on a spit. Three of the jagged
shards met his chest and nailed his lungs to the floor boards. He
wheezed his last breaths as King’s blood mingled with Martin’s and
King breathed his last insane words; “My
blood flows in your veins now. We are the same, you and
I.”

Chapter Seven

    Martin
convulsed in phantom pain and awoke. He found himself staring at
the familiar wall of the bedroom he shared with Jenny. Sweat beaded
on his forehead as big as rain drops. He panted for breath and
found that he had no trouble taking. He looked down his body under
the damp duvet. His hairs were matted to his flabby chest and
stomach, but with sweat not blood. Of course there wouldn’t be
blood. He lowered himself back onto the pillow and glanced over at
Jenny who was sleeping. She had become used to his night-time
restlessness over the past year so he hadn’t woken her. He was
relieved. He didn’t need her fawning over him to talk about what
was wrong.
    He rolled over
and turned his back to her and stared at muslin drapes backlit with
the pale orange light of night time in the city. His nightmare had
brought back the events of the evening. As if the actual events
hadn’t been frightening enough to revisit, his mind had created an
alternative ending to the horror. King had not risen from the dead.
He had hoped for movement, some miracle that the glass had missed
every vital organ so that he wouldn’t have a man’s death on his
conscience, but King’s ruined body had laid weeping blood across
the floor for the corrupted soul that had festered within.
    He was
dead.
    Martin had
been involved in a man’s death.
    Ivory had seemed unaffected by it. There was no look of
disbelief, no torment of guilt at playing a part in his death, only
a brief cock of her head in a gesture of curiosity at the novelty
of such a death. Candy’s reactions were of a contrasting extreme as
she screamed, howled and sobbed and attempted to drag Ivory from
the scene. However, Ivory resisted her frantic encouragement to
leave as her curiosity seemingly extended to observing Martin’s
paralysis from the disbelief and guilt at being involved in the
killing of another man. Finally, as Martin’s troubled mind accepted
what had happened and the urge to escape took hold, and he began
the frantic calculation of any evidence of his presence, Ivory
smiled at him. That smile. It made even less sense to him on this occasion. Was
she that unaffected by what had occurred? She gave into Candy’s
insistence and disappeared out the door.
    She was gone
again.
    In Ivory’s
absence he found clarity defined from being alone with a dead body.
He took the glass he had held earlier and pocketed it, then
snatched up the folder King had given him to look through. Both
items would hold Martin’s fingerprints. He searched the sparsely
furnished flat and couldn’t find any other portfolios that might
link Ivory to the scene. He couldn’t do much for any hairs or DNA
that Ivory may have left in the bedroom. He didn’t want to think
about King and Ivory in there, not that he needed to as those
moments were already preserved in the photographs in the folder.
Candy’s vomit was also something he couldn’t remove, which was
worrying as it could lead the police to her. Martin was not going
to the police and Ivory seemingly couldn’t communicate, so Candy
was their only vulnerability. He prayed that her presence at King’s
death would dissuade her from wanting to be associated with it.
    Martin had
returned to Jenny and explained that he had sustained his injury
slipping on petrol at the petrol station, and cut himself on broken
glass that had been on the