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Marblehead Board of Selectmen

The Marblehead Board of Selectmen is the town's governing council, which in the world of The Summer Service is an eleven-seat board bound to the Sons of Adam church and led by the bloated mayor.
Type Organization (town government)
Aliases The council; town leadership; town leaders
Affiliation Sons of Adam
Seat Second-floor meeting room, Marblehead town hall
Status Intact, with one empty seat (as of Summer Service 05)
First appearance Mentioned in Summer Service 01; met in Summer Service 04

Overview

Andre notes that the group of selectmen is not his invention: it is how real Marblehead is run. Here the board is a church-linked body. Its meeting room on the second floor of the town hall has eleven chairs with name plaques arranged in a circle, and a huge seal on the rear wall reads "Sons of Adam" and shows Jesus standing in the midst of parted waters (Summer Service 04). The board believes the second coming is imminent, blames Satan for the town's illnesses and dead fish, and is outwardly polite but hostile. Andre tells the players that the members come across as fanatics but not necessarily insincere, except for one man at the back whom the party cannot read (Summer Service 04). See Second coming and eschaton.

Members

  • The Mayor of Marblehead: chairs the board and preaches in the priest's place.
  • The priest, Amos Shaw: attends the meeting with early bloating, although his house has been found wrecked and bloodied.
  • The Chief of Police, called "Jimmy."
  • Jester: his plaque reads "J. Evans, businessman." He is also the hotel's front-desk clerk.
  • Horace Cromwell: the banker, a large silent man at the back, more bloated than most and visibly tense.
  • Arnold Weathers: his plaque marks the empty seat.
  • Several others, unnamed. Ten of the eleven seats are occupied (Summer Service 04).

History

The Summer Service

Before the meeting. The task force's first lead in Summer Service 01 is that the missing scientists went to meet "town leaders" (Summer Service 01). The EPA field journal later says that the mayor and senior officials threatened the survey team (Summer Service 03).

The 6:30 meeting. Jester offers to take the party to the board, which meets at 6:30. Everyone in the room has the glow, including the party. The mayor, the chief and others are bloated with near-translucent skin. Asked about the scientists, the mayor says the board was "given to understand that the scientists left town pretty suddenly": they had come to see the board, said they were making little progress and "might return to Washington, D.C." for more resources, and were not heard from again, so the board assumed they had gone. People glance nervously at Arnold Weathers's empty chair. The session ends with the party debating arrests: Andre says they have grounds to arrest the priest, Amos Shaw, on suspicion of murder and the chief for concealing evidence of a crime (Summer Service 04).

The missing seat. Summer Service 05 opens at the end of the same meeting, with the hostile atmosphere in the room increasingly clear. Andrew Howard excuses himself when his radio clicks, and the team leaves (Summer Service 05). The team then finds Weathers in a tub of black liquid in his own house, a hairless worm host who is destroyed in the struggle. In his bedroom they find two sets of the town's financial books and a shoebox full of clear marbles, which suggests he was tied into town finances and secrets; see Two sets of financial books and Crystal marbles. Kurt Larson tells the FBI he suspects a conspiracy by the town's leadership behind the outbreak, and the FBI reports an intercepted shipment of illegal M16s bound for a Marblehead citizen (Summer Service 05).

Aftermath. The National Guard takes command of the town in Summer Service 06. What happens to the selectmen is never stated.

Appearances