The Forest of Hands and Teeth Chapter 32 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Mary tries to stay on the rope, but that ain't gonna happen—she's way too tired. Travis gives up holding up his arms and collapses against the tree.
  • She goes to him, and—sigh of relief—he's still alive.
  • She rocks Travis like a baby and tells him he'll be okay, then tries to get him to tell her what possessed him to do what he did.
  • His eyes start rolling back in his head, so Mary shakes him.
  • She is desperate, telling him there might be help somewhere, that maybe he wasn't actually bitten.
  • He laughs a little, and she feels like they're little kids again.
  • It's time for a reality check, though, and Travis tells her that he was a dead man either way—that he was already bitten during his escape from the house to the tree house.
  • Mary leans her head on his forehead and tells him she'll pray. He says that's not her forte, that she believes in the ocean more than God anyway.
  • She says she believes in him.
  • He chuckles at that one and knows that's a load of fertilizer.
  • Mary tries to squeeze the Travster better and has a guiltfest for being angry with him on their last day together.
  • Travis asks her to tell him about the ocean.
  • She says it's just nonsense, and he tells her she has got to go there; he asks her to promise him she will.
  • She says she wants him more than her stupid ocean, and again he asks her to promise him. His voice is just barely scraping out now.
  • She says she loves him, but he's dead, and Harry yanks her away from her ex-loverboy.
  • Jed waits like the Grim Reaper, complete with a scythe.
  • Mary fights him for the weapon because the Travster is her man and he's dead because of her. She screams her head off as she swings the scythe at Travis, right after she sees his green zombie eyes open and glare at her.
  • He's now 100% dead.
  • Jed picks her up because she's now a ball of mush. She feels like she's losing everything, and she realizes what an idiot she was.
  • She knows Jed is crying as he carries her. He's thinking of Beth, and she of Travis, and how their world is a mess of horrible.