The grips of winter have Arkham by the throat. But it is not only the wind that is howling out there in the January nights.

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.

Welcome to a new year, listeners. A crisp and unblemished calendar full of 365 days’ worth of promise stretches before us. New days can make for new finds and explorations! Of course, here in Arkham, those new days can potentially all be filled with fighting off ancient horrors... Ah well. At least my calendar features drawings of adorable kittens, so that’s nice.

Speaking of new, my housekeeper, Miss Weetamoo, had heard some of my previous phonographs and declared that it sounded like I was recording them from the moon via cupping my hands and shouting back down at the Earth. Really, the woman is astonishingly forward towards me. However, as a Christmas present, she had my recording machine rewired with a new microphone. I personally don’t know what all the fuss was about. The point is to record the goings-on of our strange town, not wow the world with my auditory prowess. Still, she must have put up quite a bit of money to pay for the new microphone, so if these recordings sound at all better, do be sure and thank her for it.

Some nights ago, I was awoken by kitchen cupboards being open and closed, and at first thought I had been invaded by a prowler of the human variety. However, as I went down I heard skitterings and scratchings quite unlike the noises made by any human being I know. I proceeded downstairs with caution, carrying a heavy candlestick as my protection. I came up to the entryway to the kitchen, then burst in, snapping on the lights and brandishing my ferocious light fixture. It was no man that had made an uninvited entrance into my home in the middle of the night! Oh no! It was the guinea pig that had escaped from the library. Except... more so. There was more of it, I mean, since I had last seen it in its box in the children’s section of the local bibliothèque. It had mutated. Its skull had quite literally cracked open at the top, and a much-enlarged brain bulged from the cavity. It pulsed wetly like a lung in the dim kitchen lights. It whirled about, interrupted in its ransacking, and I do believe the little monster began to chide me for giving it a fright. But then it saw the candlestick in my raised hand and reconsidered its tiny but rather arrogant mouthings and about-faced, dashing not back out the way it had come, through the kitchen door which I assumed it had picked open, but through the other door that leads to my cellar. I gave a lusty battle-cry and gave chase. This rodent had violated the sanctity of my home, my castle, and I would deliver due justice! Down we went, into the cold damp smell of the cellar. There were no lights down here, in fact the entire cellar is quite unfinished due to the fact that the house had manifested it on its own, and had not considered its human master. No matter! There are things that scare me much worse than the dark. We crashed about in the dark, that giant-brained guinea pig and I, two warriors meeting in a battlefield that neither one of us could see. And that’s when it happened. The door above us slammed shut on its own, and for the very first time, my house transported itself away with me in it. Me and the guinea pig, that is. The pair of us stopped our warfare and gaped up at the door. A bizarre kaleidoscope of colours rippled and sliced around the door, so bright that they hurt the eyes, but so new to our combined experience that neither one of us could look away. And then something banged on the other side of the door. No, allow me to correct myself. Something banged on the other side of the house, something so large that the entire structure shook, threatening to fly apart at the seams, either to crush us or leave us exposed to the gigantic... whatever it was that had slammed into us. A second slam followed the first, followed by a noise that I did not so much hear as feel in my molars and sinuses. My eyes watered at the vibrations. My guinea pig companion seemed to feel it all the more, and squealed and squirmed around by my feet. I couldn’t help wondering what would possess my house to make such a wondrous and horrible journey only to have it result in such abuse! Perhaps it enjoyed it. Or perhaps this was the price that had to be paid to get on this supernatural ride. The colours around the door spun again, and this time I had to close my eyes, because it was too much for me to take in all at once. There was one final thump, but this did not come from an outside source. I cracked open my eyes and realized that we were back home. The house had returned to its lot, cellar and all. I staggered up the stairs and opened the door. Nothing was out of place. It was like nothing had happened at all. The cold winter wind blew in through the open kitchen door. The guinea pig, which had followed me up the stairs as best he could, sniffed at the air and shivered. It was no weather for such a creature to venture out in. I spoke to it, making it a deal. It could spend the night. I would build it a small fire in the living room, but it would have to go in the morning, before my housekeeper Miss Weetamoo saw it. The little beast seemed to agree, and walked itself into the parlour to await the fire. It may be a morphine-pushing mutant, but no creature from the tropics should have to face such a cold night alone. I returned to my bed to ponder just why my house had decided to take that trip. I was at a loss. Unless... was it all done just to bring the guinea pig and I together? A question for another day.

Never mind. I found out why my house made the trip. There’s a new washing machine in the utility room. Where exactly it picked the machine up from, I do not know. But it does a rum job of washing my particulars. Miss Weetamoo gives it her full approval.

The Miskatonic River has frozen over. It took longer than usual this year thanks to some flooding that occurred around New Years, that kept the waters flowing in a stronger fashion than is the usual at this time of the year. But now local folks are out, enjoying the ice, skating and ice-fishing. Some even ice-skate to and from work while they have the chance. It had been quite some time since I was out on skates, and I thought I would see if I still had the knack. I fished out my old skates, went down to the river, and pulled them on. Off I went. At first I was a bit wobbly, but just like with my bicycle, my body remembered the movements from years gone by and soon enough I was gliding along, carving graceful long lines into the surface of the ice. I had my head up, keeping my attention focused on not barrelling down any toddlers that might get in my way. That was why it took me some time to notice the dark shape not just below me, but below the ice. I skidded to a stop, and so did the dark shape... some seconds later. Clearly, it was not just my shadow. It carried on, under the ice, heading further downstream, presumably pushed along by the under-ice currents. I would have written it off to a log or perhaps a restless and especially large catfish... but that shadow was unmistakably man-shaped.

I went down to the train station. If you’ll recall, a couple of weeks back I saw a black train at the station, one without any sort of insignia, and full of screams. My curiosity got the better of me, and I inquired at the station about the train. Where had it come from? Where was it going? Who was it run by? Why did it not appear on the schedule posted by the station’s door? The moustached man in the ticket booth turned quite pale during my questioning. He denied that any such train existed. He then declared that it was his lunch time, despite the fact that it was barely past ten in the morning. He shut up the booth and scurried off through a door marked “Employees Only”. 

I am beginning to suspect that Miss Weetamoo, my housekeeper, is avoiding me. Usually our paths cross at least once or twice a day, since she has taken it upon herself to clean my office as well as my home, and the two lie quite close to each other. But it has just occurred to me that I have not laid eyes on her in three or four days. I know she is not avoiding her duties, because both home and office sparkle with their usual post-Miss Weetamoo deep-cleaned luster. But I have not seen or spoken to her, and she has not brought me lunch. It was never required of her to bring me a lunch, only to fix a dinner left warm for me for when I got home at the end of the day, but I must admit I enjoyed the additional treats. But now... nothing. I even miss being glared at. I suppose I shall have to look into this.

But never mind me, for the moment, dear listeners. It’s time to talk about you. How is your life progressing? Are you trying to learn how to pronounce foreign names? Have you taken up boxing? I do hope nothing is making you too sad. How about your housekeepers? Are they keeping secrets from you?

This particular entry will have to be kept secret for quite some time. So, dear listener, I hope it is quite some time into the future when you are listening to this recording. I think the mystery about the shape from under the ice in the Miskatonic River might have been solved. I was called upon by a member of the Arkham Police Department in the middle of the night, his heavy-handed knocking at my front door waking me from a deep sleep. I didn’t quite understand what he was asking of me, because the Department has a habit of staffing itself with gentlemen who communicate mainly in grunts. However, I got the gist of it – my services were required. I grabbed up my medical bag and followed him to the basement of the hospital. Specifically, to the morgue. I was instructed, if you can call it that, to perform an autopsy on a body lying under a sheet. After signing a nondisclosure form, I pulled back the sheet. Revealed was a man... sort of. He was certainly man-shaped, but he had no nipples or male genitalia as such, and gills down the sides of his neck. I had seen the gills before, on the necks of the dock workers that had disappeared. It took very little work to find that his gills were crammed full of red clay-ish mud. In other words, he suffocated to death, the gills being so full of the gunk that they did not wash clear even in the River. That leaves us with new questions – are his fellow dock workers in a similar danger? Have they too suffocated? Where are they? They are unusual fellows to be sure, but that does not mean that they do not deserve our help in a time of crisis.

Driving home from the hospital, there was a brilliant display of the Aurora Borealis. At least for a moment. Then it disappeared, but not all at once. Instead, it was rolled away by darkness, like a giant broom or arm had swiped it off a gigantic cosmic table, from south to north. Some people, or entities, just don’t appreciate the finer things in life.

Returning home, I was unable to sleep. I didn’t feel like reading. Likewise, I didn’t feel like catching up on paperwork. I was restless. I remembered Miss Hooty Commonprance’s invitation to come see her show at the Knees Up Dance Hall. However, I was unable to find the institution of jubilation, despite driving around in the cold for over an hour. Is this another of Arkham’s strange mysteries, or am I just too old now to know where one can find a good time? [removed] No, it must be Arkham. Right?

I’m not the type to believe in New Year’s resolutions, I find them too easily dismissed. Except here in Arkham, where, if you do make a New Year’s resolution, you must sign a binding contract down at Town Hall. And yes, I mean the real Town Hall, not the one that gives guided tours. Apparently, you are watched around the clock by officials to make sure you keep that resolution. I’m not sure what happens if you fail your resolution... but I do know people only fail once. 

Apparently I was not the only one out and about last night. Word is that a gunfight broke out near the park at Armitage and Federal. Yes, the park that you’re thinking of. The one with the mysterious growing patch of dead earth near the swing-set. Rumours are flying about town on furiously-beating wings. If the gossip is correct, at least two, and possibly more, bootlegging gangs had it out with pistols, shotguns, and even machine-gun fire. 

Now I am certain that Miss Weetamoo is avoiding me. This morning I lingered at home before setting out for work, just so that I might see her. Usually, I have been at my office at least an hour before she arrives at my house. But not today. Today, I waited, and watched. And waited. Finally, my phone rang and it was none other than the tardy housekeeper, telling me she had been detained while shopping for household cleaners. She reported she would be in promptly. Now, I ask you, dear listeners, do you believe her story? Or had she been watching the house waiting for me to leave before she made her entrance, in an effort to avoid me?

I made a house call to Bishop Tantrum. He tries to come to my office, but screaming the entire way through the streets tends to disturb the citizenry, so I go to him instead. As you can imagine, chronic screaming can make one’s throat quite raw. Things have come to the point where I offered the Bishop an opiate to try and calm his full-throated yells. It was a tincture which he managed to drink down with some effort. It worked... sort of. The Bishop did not stop screaming completely, but the screams did slow down and drop in pitch. I’m afraid to say, it sounded absolutely ridiculous. The poor man sounded like an anxious female moose in heat. I burst out laughing. As did the Bishop. So now the poor man is blowing out a ridiculous noise and can’t stop laughing on top of it. I’d feel bad for making things so much worse for him, but I can’t stop snickering.

Usually I attempt to wrap up these phonographic rolls with a bit of wisdom, or a nugget of foolishness from my grandfather. However, I am consumed with worry about Miss Weetamoo. I’d hate to lose her, she has been a most excellent employee. But I am beginning to feel that she cannot be trusted. Perhaps, this time, you can offer me a word of advice. Good-bye for now.