The Forest of Hands and Teeth Chapter 15 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Mary doesn't die. Wait—what? Zombie-lady is stuck on the handle of the knife, inches from Mary's face.
  • Mary wiggles out from under Zombie-lady and Harry grabs her before decapitating poor Zombie-lady.
  • The village has become zombified, and people are dead and dying and turning into zombies everywhere.
  • Harry points to the Cathedral, and they make a beeline for it. The Sisters are busy getting it all boarded up, but the zombies haven't attacked there yet.
  • Sister Tabitha gets the last shutter closed and heads to the front door.
  • She sees Mary, Harry, Jake, and Argos coming closer, so she waits at the door a second.
  • It's like Mary suddenly sees everything in focus as Sister Tabitha forces the Sisters to keep the doors open for Mary and the crew.
  • Then Gabby attacks out of nowhere. Sister T's a goner, and the other Sisters shove her outside. Gabby tries to attack them, but Sister T yanks her away. Gabby vampire-bites her throat, and a full-on brawl between Gabby and Sister Tabitha breaks out on the ground.
  • The Cathedral is closed, and all the platforms are raised. Mary figures she's dead meat, but then she remembers the path.
  • She and her peeps race for it and just make it inside when Gabby crashes into the gate behind them.
  • They're safe, but Mary walks to within an arm's length of Gabby at the gate and stares her down; she's a nasty zombie-chick, but her eyes are still clear.
  • Mary realizes that this is her path, the one she took to get to their village in the first place. She wants to talk with her.
  • But that ain't gonna happen now because Gabby is still a super-zombie, and heads back to the killing spree.
  • Harry tries to get his girl to get a move on down the path, but Mary won't budge, lacing her fingers into the wire of the gate and staring at the Gabbymeister.
  • Mary tells Harry that Gabrielle was the one who started the whole thing. She also tells him the Sisters threw her to the zombies.
  • She starts to pound the fence.
  • Harry tells her that all that stuff doesn't mean diddley—the only thing that matters is that the fences were breached and they are stuck on the path and can't help people.
  • They stare at the fog of killed and killing.
  • Then two figures head toward them from the fog, and Mary recognizes one of them as her (sort-of) lover boy, Travis.