The Forest of Hands and Teeth Chapter 17 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • When Mary wakes up, everything is chaotic.
  • Cass tells her the zombies are attacking, and she sees Harry with his axe, ready to save the day.
  • Then she sees Harry drop his weapon and head toward a man and a woman.
  • It's Jed and his wife, Beth, a.k.a. Harry and Travis's sis.
  • Jed gives her a hug, and Mary feels like she's walking in Relief City.
  • Jed gives them the lowdown on the village: It's gone. Kaput. Finito.
  • Harry's not convinced, and he asks about the Guardians. Jed says the Fast One took out too many people too fast, until suddenly there were just too many zombies to fight them off.
  • It's a total bummer and everyone feels like they got punched in the gut.
  • Harry still looks like he wonders if he could have been Superman and saved the village, though, and he wonders if he was a fraidy-cat for running.
  • The gang has a more practical concern though: food. Jed tells them that there're food and supplies all along the path.
  • Wait—what? He says the Sisterhood knew they might need the path someday, so the Guardians kept it stocked. Score.
  • Harry freaks out at Jed, and says he never knew about this, and his dad didn't tell him anything (which is a big dealio because his daddy was the Big Kahuna of the Guardians).
  • Mary says that the Sisterhood kept secrets, so why not the Guardians?
  • Harry's still annoyed and asks Jed why he doesn't know where the paths lead.
  • Jed says that as a Guardian he was just a go-fer for the Sisters, just doing what they told him to do. Nothing more.
  • Mary wonders if there were more secret passages under the cathedral and if the surviving Sisters and Guardians were heading off to create a new civilization somewhere else.
  • It's time to get a move on now, and Jed and Mary end up behind the others.
  • Jed starts to have a tearfest, and Mary is stunned; he tells Mary that Beth is infected.
  • Whoa. Mary says he has to kill her without thinking about it.
  • Jed's Mr. Desperate now, kneeling and begging Mary and saying it's no biggie, it was just a nibble.
  • Mary reminds him that Beth is a goner, no matter how little the nibble, and Jed freaks out and has a tantrum on the ground. He says he won't kill her, so Mary suggests he could let her loose into zombieville.
  • Jed flips out and grabs Mary around the neck, shoving her up against the fence.
  • He says she probably feels all cheeky because he got mad at her before and now he's getting served a big ol' bite of zombie pie himself.
  • Mary can't breathe or think. Thankfully Jed realizes what he's doing and drops his hands.
  • She starts running away from him, but he's all sad and sweet now and says that Mary would understand if she'd been in love before.
  • Oh no you didn't, Jed. Mary goes off on him—what he has to do with Beth isn't about love, she says, it's about survival.
  • He starts blabbering about how the village only cared about survival instead of love, rocking himself back and forth like a hobbyhorse and saying that it should have been about love because love is the best thing in the whole universe and keeps you safe.
  • Mary says she knows about love and reminds him that when Beth's a zombie, they'll all pay the price.
  • Jed asks for another day and night with his wifey. He knows she has a couple more days before she's a flesh gobbler, so Mary agrees.
  • After Jed leaves, Mary feels like a loser because she gave up on the Travster on Binding night; she wonders if she ever really did love him.