Friday afternoon. One last visit and then home for the weekend. Geraldine rarely visited this part of the county as it was covered by one of her colleagues so she pulled over to the side of the road and checked her map. These rural roads all looked the same: ruler straight ruts between the corn fields. A plume of white dust marked her trail and she swallowed some water gratefully. It was so quiet here, eerily so, the only thing she heard was corn growing. She mopped her brow and set off, turning right.
The Swaffield's farm must be along here, Geraldine thought. She wished there was somebody she could ask for directions, but looking at the idlers dotted around the town square she'd passed thirty minutes ago, she doubted if they'd know. There seemed to be something wrong with them all. Slumped was the word that came to mind. Too much alcohol and too little work. No wonder the Swaffields wanted to homeschool their son.
A rusting mailbox pointed the way up a track. Turning, Geraldine winced as rocks bounced off her bodywork and she hoped she wouldn't have to return soon. She prayed she wouldn't have a breakdown out here as her cell had a patchy signal and it would be ages before she could get help.
A sprawling wooden farmhouse loomed up over the corntops. It seemed run down with gaps in the shingles. Geraldine pulled up in front next to a rusting, blunted harrow.
She picked up her briefcase and rapped on the warped front door. "County Family Services," she called. There was no reply. She knocked again and was about to push on the door when Geraldine heard shuffling steps approaching. The door creaked open and a malodorous smell hit her, like shellfish rotting in the sun.
The pallid woman before Geraldine wore a filthy purple housecoat pulled tight over her bloated body. She stood barely five foot and must have weighed 250lbs. It was only Geraldine's years of training that stopped the scream leaving her throat. The woman's blotchy face looked barely human with straggly grey hair framing a face dominated by bulging eyes and a too-wide mouth.
Geraldine took a step backwards before recovering. "I made an appointment. T...to see Lee," she stammered.
The woman said nothing but stepped aside letting Geraldine enter. It took all her courage to step over the threshold and follow the woman down the cluttered hallway. The stench got worse, making Geraldine feel nauseous. The woman unlocked a padlock and opened a heavy door at the far end. Geraldine wasn't happy about this. How could Lee get a decent education in this environment? The schoolroom was explosively hot and the fishy stench was unbearable. It was in near darkness with one dim bulb the only light.
"Weak eyes, dearie," the woman croaked by way of explanation. As Geraldine's vision adjusted to the gloom, she saw a figure at the far end of the room, hunched over a laptop. Despite the heat, it wore an oversized hooded sweatshirt covering its face and hands. Somehow, Geraldine was glad of that.
"Lee?" Geraldine said crossing the room. She hesitated. The laptop's cover was decorated with hieroglyphs that unsettled her. They didn't look like logos for bands. She walked around the desk and on the screen spotted complex, mathematical formulae and symbols. They looked post-grad in complexity. At the top she saw, "Callynge Ye Father From Ye Abyss..." before Lee closed the tab.
"How are you?" Geraldine started. There was a scrape of a chair as Lee stood; no crouched before her. She grimaced. "I'm here to check how..."
The foetid smell was worse. Geraldine couldn't take any more. Only a supreme effort of will kept her in this room. "That looks advanced. What are you studying?" she gasped.
There was a chuckle; wet, sluggish like polluted water drowning a grave. Knowing she shouldn't, that nothing sane was in this chamber, her hand stretched out to the laptop. It was hot and she felt a static charge, as if the machine was warning her off. She touched the keyboard, feeling a sticky, repellent texture sliming the keys. She opened a tab at random and the cover page of an e-book titled De Vermis Mysteriis, popped up. This was so wrong. Geraldine frowned. There was no way this was on the approved curriculum.
"No!" Mrs. Swaffield said. But she said it to her son.
Lee lifted his arm to pull away Geraldine's hand. As he did so, his sleeve fell away. Geraldine screamed, her mind tottering with this fresh horror. A tentacle snaked out, its mouth-like suckers gripping her wrist. She screamed again.
Snatching her wrist away, Geraldine staggered back. She tripped over her purse and fell.
"No," commanded Mrs. Swaffield. She spoke a sentence or two in a language that sounded like Latin whilst gesturing. Her son stopped his approach and snarled. No human throat could make that sound.
"Get out. Now," Mrs. Swaffield said. She hauled Geraldine to her feet and shoved her out of the classroom. Outside, she bolted the door and fitted a heavy padlock into the hasp.
"Who? How?" Geraldine eventually gasped.
Mrs. Swaffield fixed Geraldine with a fishy eye. She smiled at the memory. "Lee is my son." Chuckling, "You should have seen his father – the thing that was called from the watery depths."
"I... I... must report this."
"Report, what, dearie?" Mrs. Swaffield made another complicated, twisting hand sign before Geraldine's eyes. Gradually, Geraldine's memory grayed out and the afternoon's horrors faded away. Mrs. Swaffield led Geraldine to her car and watched her complete a satisfactory report on Lee's progress.
Geraldine engaged drive and drove away. It was unlike her to faint and there was a residue of unease as she could barely recall that last visit. Also she was terrified at the thought of visiting this isolated place again.