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St. Isidore City Council meetings were usually worse than annoying; they were insanely irritating.
First one department administrator then another, one city employee after another city official, spoke and read their reports; all justifying their existence on the city's payroll.
Nothing exciting ever happened. How could it ever be anything but sleepy in a town so mundane that it screamed average?
But, this meeting was different.
Scores of people, it didn't seem like there could be anyone left at home, were sitting on the edges of their seats, listening to homegrown, real life, horror stories.
Even though Adam had heard most of them before, there were tears in his eyes as he listened to the sad stories told by his friends and neighbors about their loved ones who had not survived their journeys into the Suicide Forest
These people are the reason we have to close the Forest, Adam thought to himself.
Fuck the money, Anne and Adam had decided when they began this quest.
"We have to shut down the Forest to prevent anyone else from getting sucked into that freak show," Adam had said to a cheering audience as he launched his mayoral campaign.
“Must be two-hundred people here,” Anne wrote on a note she passed to Adam. “This is your chance to get the average person on your side.”
“Don’t fuck it up,” Anne almost wrote but knew there was no need. Adam realized how much was riding on this.
They both wanted the Suicide Forest closed, and every single tree bulldozed to the ground, chewed up into mulch and burned.
But there were those who disagreed. Those who wanted the Forest to stay did not have to speak their minds too loudly.
“Look at them over there,” Bradford Glasscock said,“the Dutch Mafia and the Neighborhood Association. They run the town, and they know it.”
“They did until Adam won the election,” Anne said. “From now on it will be different.”
However, she, Adam, Bradford, and the rest of Swingin’ Izzy knew tonight’s City Council vote would be tight.
Adam had done a quick headcount.
“I might not have to vote to break a tie,” Adam said.
Anne just looked at him. Both of them, especially after their adventure in the Suicide Forest with Bree and Beth, knew there were no guarantees in this city.
Finally, the stories ended. There had been no debate. Anyone from out of town who had wandered into City Hall would have assumed it would be unanimous.
The Suicide Forest would be closed, right?
Anne closed her eyes and crossed her fingers as Susan Paine, the city clerk, began to ask the city council members to vote.
The crowd, which had spent two hours listening to at dozens of ten-minute speeches from their neighbors, held its collective breath.
“Mr. Holmes?”
“No.”
“Expected,” Anne muttered.
“Ms. Penny?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl,” Anne said loud enough to draw applause.
“Mr. Fall?”
“Yes.”
More than half the people in the room began to applaud. Only a few seemed worried. And there were a couple of people, two of the richest in town, who smirked.
Anne saw them. Her heart sank.
“Mr. Eschenberger?”
No response.
Again, “Mr. Eschenberger?”
"No."
Anne nearly passed out.
There was a gasp.
The vote was tied. It was 2-2. Ralph Eschenberger had surprised everyone and voted against Adam’s proposal.
“I can’t believe it,” one woman said to her husband.
“Ralph’s wife and kids died in the Forest,” said a man two rows back of Anne’s seat.
Oh, God, Anne thought.
Now it was up to Adam.
He was going to have to cast his vote to close the Suicide Forest.
Bradford reached to his left and held Anne’s hand.
She glanced back at the man whose family name graced the busiest (and only) funeral home in town.
Then she looked at the man she loved.
“Don’t choke, baby,” Anne whispered.