How many times must you people be told? Do not, do not, do not drink from the fountain at the park at Federal and Armitage. I’m telling you, that’s not actually water!

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.


I was listening to the radio this morning, and the news fellow was giving a weather report. He said, and I wrote this down so it’s a direct quote, “There is no unseasonable cold. In fact, there is no weather at all. Why? Because there is no you. You are not. And being a not, you can’t have weather. Weather is for is’s, not nots. I am an is, and you’ll pry my unseasonable weather out of my cold dead hands! Back! Back into your netherworld of nonexistence, you parasitical nots! It’s not my fault your parents didn’t give birth to an is!” End quote. This was followed by the sound of gunfire and the faint voices of screaming. So... I guess I’ll have to look out my window to get the weather. Oh, bother.


I passed the public tennis courts on my way to a house call. An elderly couple was playing, their feet slipping on the sheet of ice. They wore athletic wear, I suspect in an effort to defy the cold. Back and forth went the bright green ball, back and forth, every volley and return an act of defiance, a breath of moving life in the still, nearly frozen air.

As a doctor, I felt compelled to try to get them to stop, to clothe themselves properly against the elements. Their elderly forms were in dire danger of succumbing to inclement exposure. Please, I thought, don’t die on this hill. Don’t throw away your lives in this ultimately fruitless display.

But I did nothing. I was glued to my spot by my fascination. 

Other passers-by also stopped, transfixed, their eyes locked on the game as mine were, taking in this flurry of athletic activity that I suspect many of us thought we might never see the likes of again.

Still the ball journeyed over the net. To the lady, then the man. Over and over again. It was not a competition, but an act of desperate cooperation. The act of a loving couple that had long ago fused to become one entity, a single creature of love that would lead us out of the cold to stand in the warmth of a springtime sun once again!

Finally, the volleying came to an end, and the man and women slid their way towards the exit of the court, sweaty and winded. I rushed to them, taking off my coat to offer it to the lady, tears in my eyes and words of gratitude pouring forth from my heart. “Thank you!” I told them. “Yes, thank you for reminding us that we are not all dead yet! That where there is life, there is hope for a better tomorrow!”

It was then that they told me that they were actually on their way to Florida to escape this ridiculous cold, and they just wanted to make sure their tennis skills hadn’t grown too rusty over the winter. It wasn’t an act of defiance, they just wanted to make sure they looked halfway competent on the tennis courts down under the Florida sun.

Needless to say, I withdrew the offer of my coat. 


Sitting at home now, alone, in my study, I reflect on that elderly couple, how they had rekindled hope in my heart, and how they had snuffed that hope out. But I realize that I don’t need them, because I have had another source of hope, a promise of a better tomorrow all along – Miss Weetamoo.

She has borrowed my automobile and has gone out to the resort to scout it out while there is still daylight. I did not realize until today that once I learned of her efforts to curtail the evil in this city, I had been holding onto her in the way a drowning man holds onto a life preservation jacket.

Yes, she can be acerbic at times. True, she has a tongue that cuts deep. Yes, she’s stubborn. Does she delight in insulting me? Oh, you bet your boots, mister.

But that’s beyond the point. The point is that she has been going out and fighting the evils of this beleaguered city on her own, perhaps for years. And I, of course, am a citizen of this city. Now that I think on it, I simply have no idea how many evils she has kept from my doorstep.

I shall have to thank her for all this when she returns.


Nevermind! That harpy returned, looked me up and down as she returned my car keys, and told me that I have been dressing like a shiny gigolo ever since I started dating Miss Commonprance.

Ug, I could just strangle her!


How do the roads into your future look, Dear Listeners? Are they free of life-threatening ice patches? Are they straight as an arrow, or do they twist and turn like a snake with a broken back? Are you constantly being taunted by your ex-housekeeper from the passenger seat of your car, but you can’t do anything about it because she’s physically stronger than you? If so, let’s commiserate together.


Despite my disappointment in that elderly tennis couple from a couple of days ago, I am heartened to hear that the people of Arkham are trying to make the best of the brutal weather. Or, to be more precise, they’re trying to make good times happen in spite of the weather.

I’ve seen children gleefully sliding around the neighbourhood, with their little red noses peeking out from under hats and over scarves, making forts and snowmen by the dozens in the gigantic snowbanks.

Tobogganing and sledding and cross-country skiing is everywhere.

I myself have taken part in outdoor hockey games held on improvised skating rinks.

Hooded figures have openly gathered and started a sun-cult, making sacrifices in an effort to encourage the sun to finally bring a spring thaw to the city.

While the sacrifices are somewhat bloody, and the screaming can be off-putting, especially around mealtimes, it’s nice to see members of the community coming together in such trying times.

Oh! Those hooded figures are also going about and finding frozen birds and gently breathing warm air on them until they become unstuck from whatever wire or fence-post they’re frozen to. So that’s nice.


This weather reminds me of my time in Europe during the war. I don’t recall the European weather ever becoming this aggressively cold, but then again, Europeans probably have more sense than to call upon a cruel cold-driven entity just to end a gang war. On the other hand, I own a house and an office now, so I can just dart inside one or the other to warm myself. Back during the war, I technically didn’t even own the clothes on my back since they were all a part of my uniform, so in many ways I’m better off today.

Back in the war, during the winter months we’d set small fires in metal barrels, and sometimes even in overturned helmets. Of course, the longer you’re encamped in one place, the further you have to go to find things to burn, so the fires would get smaller and smaller as the winter dragged on.

Even then, while enduring the cold and the snow and the screaming artillery shells and the constant threat of poisonous gases, we’d find things to laugh at. We’d make up dirty songs, play cards for ration biscuits, or tease Johnny Miscombe about having his nose chewed off by a rat while he had been asleep. Ha ha ha, good old No-nose Johnny, I wonder how he’s doing these days.

I suppose my point is, the human spirit seems determined to make the best of any situation. That’s just what the people of Arkham are doing right now, during this deadly never-ending winter. And I feel moved to say that I am incredibly proud of them.  That makes me more determined than ever to do right by them. I will help put an end to the Riverside Boys and restore Arkham to normal.

Normal for Arkham anyway.


Tonight is the night. Miss Weetamoo and I are off to the resort to free the archaeologist from the Middle East that has been the captive of the Riverside Boys for some months now.

As I drove in the direction of the resort where the Riverside Boys were holed up, Miss Weetamoo insisted that I have to realize the situation that we’re in – if it’s impossible for us to rescue the man, then we will have to, as she put it, make sure he can no longer aide the bootleggers in their activities involving the entity known as B'gnu-Thun.

We became rather heated on the subject, as I refuse to harm that poor man who has already been through enough as it is. He is a victim in all this. Miss Weetamoo agreed up to that point, but deemed it fit to remind me that Arkham, and perhaps the whole world, was at stake. She asked, did I really think that the Riverside Boys, with such a power at their beck and call, would be satisfied with taking a small city in Massachusetts when they could potentially take so much more?

It didn’t matter to me. I would have nothing to do with harming that man. Plus he must already have just the worst impression of Arkham, without having his potential rescuers suddenly trying to snuff him out like a candle. A fellow can only take so much before he sours on a city.

We parked my car off the road and hid it with tree branches, and in an echo of our earlier attempt to find the Middle Eastern man, Miss Weetamoo took me by the hand and guided me unerringly through the forest even though it was pitch black between the trees. The woman must have the eyes of a cat to see in such dim light.

I believe I’ve described the Chateau In The Woodlands resort to you before in a previous phonographic roll, so I won’t go into too much detail. Suffice to say, during the summer months it must have been quite a charming family getaway with its cabins and its access to Wenham Lake for swimming and sailing activities.

The wind was howling, flinging snow at us hard enough to make it feel like hail. It made it difficult to see, but on the plus side it also masked our approach.

The resort was made up of a number of cabins to both our left and right, all facing the shore of this section of the lake. Down at the lake itself were a number of buildings that likely housed sailing boats and other water gear. There was also some kind of snack stand and a dock extending out into the frozen water. Closer by were a number of buildings that, at a guess, housed landscaping or maintenance tools. 

More or less directly ahead of us was the main building, where there was a dining room, a reception, the kitchens, and I believe activity rooms for a pool table and tables for board games and the like. Branching off on either side were more guest rooms, in case visitors preferred a hotel-room like setting as opposed to a cabin.

This main building was lit up, lights shining behind curtains in several of the rooms. If there were guards patrolling outside, I for one could not see them. It was hard to hear over the cutting wind, but I thought I heard laughter and music spilling out from inside.

Once again, Miss Weetamoo insisted that I wait outside while she went in. I told her I could be of more help this time, and showed her my wartime pistol. She grimaced and said now she was worried that I might shoot her, accidentally of course, and would have preferred it if I hadn’t brought the thing. But I had, and I was determined to go in with her.

We had a bit of an argument here, which she ended by grabbing the waistband of my trousers and hefting me into the air with one hand. She then set me back down, and while I was recovering from the shock of what had just happened, she told me that if she fell while inside, it was my job to get the Middle Eastern man away from this place. Or, failing that, to put an end to his ability to help the gang.

Without another word, she turned and went through the main doors. I’m pretty sure they were locked, but she just pulled on the door to break it open, leaving splinters around the lock.

For a moment, there was nothing. Aside from that deafening wind, the cutting snow, and a great deal of shivering on my part.  

Then all hell broke loose. Gunfire erupted on the ground floor. A lot of it. Loud enough to be heard over the wind. It was unbelievable that Miss Weetamoo could survive such a hail of bullets and buckshot, yet I could track her progress by the light from the various gun’s muzzle flares through the curtains as she worked her way from the ground floor up to the second floor.

Then, in the midst of all that racket, I heard something else. A voice, beseeching, panicked. And chanting. Casting strange words into the wind, words that hadn’t been heard spoken out loud in possibly thousands of years. The words sounded foul, and so strangled that they didn’t seem designed to come from a human mouth. I only recognized one phrase, two words to be precise – “B'gnu-Thun.” Even now, hearing the name spoken out loud, I still couldn’t swear to you how it was supposed to be pronounced.

The skies answered. A green light glowed sickly-bright, like a high fever, up in the clouds, reminiscent of the Aurora Borealis we had witnessed earlier this year. A sound like thunder cracked, though there was no lightening, and the sound itself sounded more like a door of enormous proportions being kicked open to slam against a wall.

A window on the second floor of the main building smashed out in a shower of glass, startling me. I fumbled to pull the pistol from my pocket as a body came flying out after the glass to land in the snow some twenty feet from me. I thought Miss Weetamoo had sent one of the bootleggers flying out of her way, and I nearly shot the poor devil in the face in my fear. But then he picked himself up and shook himself off and I saw that it was the mystery man, the man from the Middle East. I also saw that he was hurt, with blood darkening the upper chest of his sweater.

He started upon seeing me, but I raised the gun so it was no longer aimed at him and rushed over, throwing my coat around his shoulders. He was pale under his dusky foreign skin, and he had lost quite a bit of blood, judging from the state of his soggy sweater. He needed attention...

...but Miss Weetamoo was still inside. Gunfire was still blazing within the main building of the resort. I didn’t want to leave her behind.

And then, the footsteps. But not the footsteps of violent gangsters running to reclaim their prize. Oh no, these footsteps were gigantic, each footfall making the ground shake. The man beside me cried out, “B'gnu-Thun! B'gnu-Thun! He has come!”

I looked past the resort’s rooftop and saw... something. Perhaps just waves of snow being blown about by the storm. But I don’t think so. I think it was something else. Something gigantic, towering well above the resort’s rooftop. Something that was roughly the shape of a man.

My nerve left me. I descended into a part of my brain that was below my lizard instincts to fight or flee. I was in awe, and I had no choice but to remain rooted to the spot and pay homage to that magnificent figure.

Until a snowball hit me in the face. Really hard. I snapped out of my rapture and saw Miss Weetamoo racing towards us, laughing like she was having fun. She was shouting at us to make tracks, but I pointed out that our new companion was hurt and in no state to run.

Without stopping, Miss Weetamoo scooped the man up on her shoulder like he weighed the same as a small child and ran into the woods. Behind her, multiple flashlights snapped on as the gangsters geared up to give chase.

Miss Weetamoo led the way through the woods, unerring as she raced back to the car. Even carrying a full-grown man on her shoulder, she went faster than me through the snow, in the blackness, as bullets whined around us and smacked into trees. And behind it all, those thunderous footsteps lumbered ever nearer, making snow fall from tree branches and trunks creak with every impact.

We made it back to my car. I climbed into the back to tend to the man’s wound as I handed the ignition key to Miss Weetamoo. She cleared off the camouflage branches and had us on the icy road in minutes, the rear end of the car fishtailing back and forth before she got it under control.

Despite the precarious conditions of the road, at my insistence we raced back into the city to my offices. We didn’t dare take the man to the hospital, he would be too easy to find there. We would have to chance it that I could perform surgery well enough with my own resources. I think, for just a moment there, that Miss Weetamoo hesitated, and perhaps even slowed down, thinking that perhaps some of our problems would be solved if the man simply died. He would no longer be able to aid the gangsters if he was dead. I reminded her that they had called forth B'gnu-Thun without his help, and we made it back to my offices in record time.

We parked around back and hurried in, carrying the man between us.

And it was there that we found Miss Commonprance going through my stores of morphine.

Overnight For Observation was created by Daniel Fox. Daniel is the creator of the historical horror novella “Fertilizer.”