The Forest of Hands and Teeth Chapter 26 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Mary goes all Captain America and starts pushing Travis up the stairs. She tells him to grab sheets from the bedrooms and throws a mattress down the stairs to slow down the zombie horde.
  • She grabs the sheets from the Travster, wraps Argos in one of them, and hauls him into the attic.
  • She looks down at Travis, and he shakes his head at her, telling her not to come back down to get herself killed. But there's this small problem—if she doesn't, Travis will die.
  • She hands him an axe, and he looks up at her.
  • Time freezes as she stares into his green eyes.
  • Time unfreezes, and Mary becomes Catwoman, leaping from the attic down in front of Travis and grabbing the axe.
  • Mary ponders the difficulty of actually having to slice through zombies and kill them, and then she becomes a killing machine.
  • Suddenly she sees a girl wearing the same color as Gabrielle. Not good—Mary pauses her massive killing spree for a moment and a zombie grabs her foot. The zombie mob starts to climb all over her.
  • She almost lets herself just sink and die, but Travis screams her name, so she reaches for him.
  • Then Argos the wonder pup flings himself out of the attic and becomes a canine of destruction.
  • Mary is free and starts up the ladder, shoving Travis ahead of her. Then she reaches down and yanks Argos by the scruff of his neck into the attic. Travis bolts the door shut.
  • Travis and Mary stare at her bloody legs. She has no idea if it's bite blood or just plain old scratch blood.
  • He grabs her legs, then says, "I love you, Mary" (26.38). This starts up Mary's waterworks, and they cling to each other in a bear hug.
  • Mary falls asleep and dreams about her zombie mom attacking her.