The Forest of Hands and Teeth Chapter 16 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • The fab foursome—Mary, Harry, Travis, Cass—watch as the zombies devour or infect the entire village.
  • Jacob is curled in a ball behind them, crying.
  • Travis's fingers brush Mary's, and they link pinkies. It might as well be a pinky-swear as far as Mary is concerned—the Travster is still hers.
  • But then Trav's fingers touch the remains of Mary's Binding ropes. Bad news—he drops her hand. The village getting destroyed kind of puts a damper on the moment as well.
  • Harry wonders if they should help, but nobody moves.
  • They never thought this would happen to their village. It was always a threat, but they never believed they could actually be destroyed.
  • They were wrong. Dead wrong.
  • Some of the zombies start clawing at the gate, and Mary recognizes some of them. Super creepy.
  • It's too much for Cass, so she rocks Jacob and sings him lullabies.
  • They decide to walk down the path out of sight so the zombies don't break down the gate.
  • Travis hopes that the villagers will get the town back by morning, but that doesn't seem particularly likely.
  • Mary starts walking down the path, and decides that she'll keep on keeping on the path, even if the village takes control back from the zombies.
  • The path is narrow, so everyone sits in a line that night. It starts to rain.
  • Cass whimpers when a dead dude curls his fingers in the fence behind her, and Mary tries to make her feel better by reminding her about the ocean.
  • Cass doesn't care, and says their place is in the village.
  • Mary tells her that the village is probably gone so the only chance they've got is the ocean; Cass tells her that's like giving up on everybody they know, and she won't do it.
  • Mary hears the zombies at the fence and wonders what kind of people they used to be.
  • Cass tells her that she's selfish to want to go down the path and that she thinks going down the path equals death.
  • Mary can't swallow that pill. She tells Cass that they're pretty much not alive as it is because death comes knocking for them at every turn, but Cass just gives her the cold shoulder.
  • Mary starts a thinkfest about Gabrielle—where she came from, why she came—and she tries to pry off the remaining pieces of the Binding rope on her wrists. No can do, though.
  • She wonders about Trav and Cass's ropes, and hopes that maybe they cut them before they had to when the breach happened.
  • She has an inner freak-out and wonders if she sabotaged her relationship with the Travster because she didn't wait until the end for him.
  • When she sleeps, she dreams about drowning in the ocean.