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Sons of Adam

The Sons of Adam are the millenarian, ocean-obsessed church that dominates Marblehead, Massachusetts, with its own Bible, a worm-filled communion wine and a congregation that includes the town's selectmen, its police chief and its hotel clerk.
Type Organization (church; the task force calls it a cult)
Aliases The church; Shaw's church; the Marblehead church; the cult; the worm cult
Leader Amos Shaw at first; later the Mayor of Marblehead preaches in his place
Base The colonial church; the seal also hangs in Marblehead town hall
Status The National Guard takes control of the town in Summer Service 06
First appearance Radford Horror 08 (the Bible); Summer Service 01 (the congregation)

Overview

The name "Sons of Adam" is not spoken as the church's name in the early sessions. It first appears on the self-published Bible offered at the Ram and Arms Inn (Radford Horror 08), and later on the huge seal on the rear wall of the selectmen's meeting room, which shows Jesus standing amid parted waters (Summer Service 04).

The church's Bible is thick with additional material. It places the Garden of Eden on a sunken land bridge between India and Madagascar (see Lemuria), insists that continental drift is false, and teaches that on Judgment Day everyone will physically return to Eden (Summer Service 01). Shaw preaches on the seven-headed beast from the sea and tells his congregation that angels are terrifying monsters constructed by God to wipe out sin, and that good things are not the same as nice things. He argues that Noah's "floodgates of heaven" imply a source of holy water, that the world comes from water and returns to water, and asks, "Was Christ not himself a fisherman?" (Summer Service 01). At the selectmen's meeting, the board speaks of the second coming as imminent and describes the sickness in town as the devil being forced into the open as "game day" approaches (Summer Service 04); see Second coming and eschaton.

Practices

  • Services. The church holds three services a day. The team attends one at nine in the evening in the first session and one at 7 a.m. in the third (Summer Service 01, Summer Service 03). The fisherman Briggs says the congregation baptizes about forty white-clad people and babies in the sea, speaks in tongues and disapproves of alcohol (Summer Service 01).
  • Communion. Communion is wine only, called the "Blood of the Lamb" (the replacement priest in Summer Service 03 says "Blood of Christ"). It tastes fishy, and Shaw calls it "a local variety". Under McManley's microscope it is swimming with worms, and the congregation drinks it three times a day (Summer Service 01, Summer Service 03). See Communion wine and The worms.
  • The glow. Regular churchgoers gain a healthy glow. In an advanced form the skin turns pale, translucent and bloated (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04); see The glow.
  • Reach into private life. Esteban complains that his uncle, a church member who volunteers to take the family laundry to the laundromat, has been putting bean juice in it (Summer Service 04).
  • Arms. Armed congregants turn out during the storm. Separately, the team is told that a shipment of illegal M16s bound for a Marblehead citizen has been intercepted (Summer Service 05).

Members

History

Radford Horror 08

The innkeeper at the Ram and Arms offers the team a King James Bible, a Gideon's Bible or "the local flavor", the Sons of Adam Bible, which he highly recommends (Radford Horror 08).

Summer Service 01

The team attends the evening service. Huell drinks all of the wine, Kurt only pretends to finish his, and afterward Shaw gently scolds the Biz for swearing ("God's house"). When Kurt asks about the wine, Shaw answers that it is a local variety, and a flicker of reaction crosses his face (Summer Service 01).

Summer Service 03

Shaw is missing from the 7 a.m. service. A new priest, whose skin has gone translucent and slightly swollen, preaches against doubt and the secular world, watches Andrew as he takes communion, and says "Blood of Christ." Andrew holds the wine in his mouth and spits it into a bottle outside; the priest does not believe she swallowed it (Summer Service 03).

Summer Service 04

The team attends the selectmen's meeting and learns that the board is the church in civic dress. The new priest from the previous session turns out to be the mayor, and Shaw sits at the table too. The mayor insists that the scientists left on their own and that Satan causes the sickness (Summer Service 04).

Summer Service 05

After the meeting a silent man in a suit watches the team from the parking lot in the rain. At about 4 a.m. armed congregants and the police surround the hotel, and the team escapes with the Davy Crockett and the RV. Madeline Weathers vows to "burn that fucking church to the ground", and Kurt asks her to wait until any surviving scientists are accounted for. Kurt also tells a contact that the church is infecting people with the worms intentionally and en masse (Summer Service 05).

Summer Service 06

A convoy of infected locals, with Jester at the wheel of one vehicle, heads for the nuclear plant. In the debriefing the team tells the Guard that a religious terrorist group is responsible, citing the murals in City Hall and literature about returning to the ocean, and says the group seeded the local food supply with a parasite (Summer Service 06). See Terrorist cover story.

Trivia

  • The episodes never establish whether the congregation knowingly spread the worms or was itself infected and led by them, or where the worms came from. The team's terrorist account in Summer Service 06 is a simplified story told to the military.

Appearances