Read Online A World of Ash: The Territory 3 by Justin Woolley - Free Book Online

Pitt, a uniform that had always seemed just one or two sizes too small for his enormous frame. It had been ripped and dirtied in his final struggle with the ghouls, but it was unmistakable. His body, lying there on the ground, had seemed smaller somehow, as if in death he had lost whatever power had made him seem larger than life, and it wasn’t just that he’d been decapitated. Squid couldn’t see his head anywhere among the bodies, dust, and viscous black blood that covered the surrounding street. In fact, there weren’t anywhere near enough heads for the number of ghoul corpses scattered before them. There was plenty of gore, though, as if their heads had been crushed and trampled into the muck. It wasn’t a thought Squid wanted to dwell on.
    Mr. Stownes had obviously turned into a ghoul and then been killed with the rest when Ernest and his men had arrived. He had sacrificed himself to give Squid and Nim time to enter the dome. His only reward had been to be left here, in a long-abandoned city, headless and alone. Squid had briefly scanned the area for the body of Mr. Stix, too, but it was nowhere in sight. Maybe he’d gone off chasing the runners for their moisture; maybe he was dead somewhere else. Squid would have felt better if the two men, even in death, had been left next to each other. He was sure they would have wanted it that way.
    It was in the tunnels that Squid had seen the short, stocky weapons the Reach Border Patrol carried at work and understood what must have happened to Mr. Stownes’s head. A small number of ghouls, maybe five or six, had come wandering out of the dark. They were some of the ancient and long-decayed monsters that seemed to inhabit the tunnels. Slow to move and low in numbers they hadn’t stood much of a chance against the fast reactions of the men from Reach. They had lifted their guns as the stuttering shapes of the ghouls entered the outskirts of the lamplight. The men held still, not firing, looking toward Ernest in anticipation. This had caused a rising nervousness in Squid as the desiccated corpses shambled closer, until he realized that Ernest was being smart. He had his head tilted to the side, his eyes closed. He was trying to listen, not wanting to have his men fire their weapons if it would attract more ghouls from the surrounding tunnels. As the ghouls drew nearer Ernest nodded at his men. They fired.
    The Reach weapons were louder than the mechanical rifles Squid was used to, and it wasn’t just the echoing of the sound within the tunnel walls. The guns were different. It only took a split second after the Border Patrol had opened fire for Squid to know he was right. With a burst of dusty flesh, congealed blood and chunks of brain matter, the heads of the ghouls exploded like fruit thrown against a wall. The ghouls fell backward under the force of the impact, and what had once been on top of their necks was now running in clotted streaks down the walls or floating as red-gray dust in the air.
    “That’s why we use shotguns,” Ernest had said, indicating his double-barrelled weapon when he saw Squid watching. “Takes the head clean off.”
    Since then they had continued on into the darkness of the tunnels without any more ghoul encounters, keeping that blue line under their feet, like a trail of breadcrumbs guiding them home. They had been walking through the dark for many hours, resting often as it was difficult for Nim and especially Squid in their weakened state to keep pace with the fit and strong men of Reach. At each stop they slept for a few hours before Ernest woke them, gave them water and dried meat, and the walking continued.
    Ernest had treated them well, looking after them and keeping them safe as they traveled the tunnels. The other men showed little interest in them but Squid was sure they were just being vigilant, keeping their eyes and ears open for any sign of more wandering packs of ghouls. It became easy to forget they were essentially