I went for a walk in the woods today. So did the trees.

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.

I found myself tempted to go to Water Street once again, to check upon the ladies of the night, they of the remarkable beauty and possible temple made of the bones of men that only appears during a flash of lightning. Since I don’t have to endure Miss Weetamoo’s stern frowns of disapproval, on account of her avoiding me, I’ve made up my mind to go and see them. To check on their health and well-being, of course.

Have any of you on my phone line noticed a series of whispers in the background? The voices are very faint, I can’t even tell if they come from men or women. But what I can make out seems like a series of orders that I bring the blood of my neighbours to the real Town Hall on the first Tuesday of every month. I’ll do no such thing, of course. It will take more than some hushed sentences to make me draw blood for anything other than medical purposes. That being said, it does get maddening sometimes, just how insistent those voices can get...

Well, it’s that time, dear listeners, where we talk about you instead of yours truly. How was your holiday season? Did you give someone a present that lit up their face with a smile? Did you eat a special food that tastes of the holiday spirit to you? Do you have any ideas about how a town can destroy a house that simply refuses to die? I’m sure the Town Council would love to hear your suggestions.

I feel I should make something clear. I mentioned earlier in this phonographic roll that I was going to visit the women along Water Street. It is possible that I made it sound like the reason I didn’t check up on them on a regular basis was because Miss Weetamoo disagreed with the notion. Just so we’re all clear, that woman’s approval or disapproval of me is a moot point. I am the king of my own castle, thank you very much.

My house vanished again, just as I was getting home from work yesterday. It was quite late, and I had forgotten to get lunch, so I was famished. But oh no, off went my house, taking my larder with it. Luckily, Mister Baek Hyeon’s hot-dog stand was open, over by the real Town Hall. That man is out in any and all kinds of weather, God bless him. I had two with mustard, relish, and onions. Delicious! Unfortunately, my house had not returned by the time I was done, so I had to spend yet another night in a hotel. My house is costing me a small fortune. And the gigantic pit full of razor-sharp teeth that occasionally takes its place is really driving down local housing prices.

Voila! I’ve just finished the final draft of my latest paper, “Amphetamines: Medicine and a Hilarious Treat!”. I bet multiple medical journals are going to fight over who gets to publish this little beauty.

That’s it! That is absolutely it. Miss Weetamoo has been avoiding me again. Not to hide any bruising this time, (not that I can tell, anyway), but because she has the temerity to act miffed at me. As if it shouldn’t be the other way around! While she no longer comes in late, she gives me a curt nod as a greeting then immediately flies into her work, dusting my mantle like she’s trying to ground it down to dust with the ostrich feathers of the duster. Bringing lunch to my office is now apparently out of the question. But this evening, she thumped down my dinner in front of me as if serving me is an unbearable burden. The butternut squash soup leapt gleefully from its bowl and splashed across my tie and shirtfront. And did Miss Weetamoo apologize? She most certainly did not. In fact, she told me that I ought to be more careful! I have had enough of her grumbling and scowling and misplaced blame. She is not the mistress here, I am the master! I make the rules, and I make my way in the world as I see fit. I do not take or seek suggestions or approval from the hired help. I have decided, tonight is the night. I am taking up Miss Hooty Commonprance’s invitation to the Knees Up Dance Hall. 

I’m about to head out for a night on the town. I’m pleased to report that my tie and tails still all fit me just right. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had occasion to wear them. Do I have the card with Miss Commonprance’s written invitation? I do. Good. Good good good... I’m not quite sure why I stopped to make this recording. I could have told you all about my outing tomorrow morning. I probably will. Am I... stalling? Am I nervous? I’ve had my hands literally inside of patients during life-and-death medical situations. I have faced down lines of charging Huns across battlegrounds strewn with bodies of fallen comrades I could not help. I’ve dealt with Town Hall, the real Town Hall, on more than one occasion. Not to mention the fact that I live in the town of Arkham, where fear and terror sings at you from every rooftop and sewer. This is ridiculous. I am going out. I am going to have a wonderful, stress-relieving time, at the invitation of an attractive young woman. Here I go. [removed] I should probably turn this off.

I’m back from the Knees Up Dance Hall. Dawn is breaking. I’m exhausted, but I felt that I should make this recording before going to bed, while it was all still fresh in my mind.

You will perhaps recall that I searched for the Knees Up once before, and met with no success. This time, I found it with no trouble at all. I don’t quite understand how I missed it before. It stands bright and three stories tall down by the wharves, well-lit and with a line-up that snakes three blocks down. I could have sworn I drove along its street on that previous search, but it had been late and I was tired, so perhaps I am misremembering the attempt. 

The line-up consisted of quite the mixed crowd. All were well-dressed, in their party best, but aside from that it was quite the melting pot. I recognized town clerks, bankers, a high-ranking police official, and various well-to-do citizens from around town. The Knees Up is more than a spot for the locals though, as there were numerous faces that I did not recognize. One merry gentleman in the line-up behind me, attended by his “niece”, said that he had come all the way from Boston because he had heard of the Knees Up’s “enticements”. At the time, I presumed he meant that the Knees Up served alcohol despite the prohibition, but I was dead wrong.

I do believe I spent about an hour in that line-up. It was bitterly cold, but nobody seemed to mind. Various members of the line were openly drinking from flasks. At one point a patrolling police officer walked by... and nobody hid their drinking. In fact, they tipped their flasks and took a drink in honour of the heavy-browed officer. I found out why a moment later – another hunchbacked officer was acting as a bouncer at the door. He was even in uniform! He took my invitation with a thick hand, taking more than a minute to read Miss Commonprance’s signature on the back. Finally he handed it back to me with a grunt, then whisked aside the chain barring the door and bowed me inside. Well, he actually shoved me inside, but I expect that was his version of courtesy.

I was in. A wall of lively big band music crashed against me as I checked my coat and hat. I pushed my way through thick double doors into the main showroom.

The word “spectacle” does the Knees Up a disservice. Every sense was barraged at once with the tumult of Bacchanalian proportions. A band on the wide stage was at full blast, hammering away at their instruments. They were playing some of what I believe was that big band swing jazz stuff. I’m not entirely sure I’m sold on the genre, but the crowd jammed onto the dance floor certainly seemed to be enjoying it.

A woman of truly stunning beauty greeted me. I must admit, she left me actually speechless, and it was all I could do to hand her the card with Miss Commonprance’s invitation. She gave me a wide smile that gave me vertigo, as if I was falling into its beauty, and led me to a small table set for two on the upper left-hand floor. Once seated, I was presented with a marvellous view of the dance floor and the stage down below. I was not entirely surprised to see that the hostess had pearlescent gills behind her ears, swooping down the length of her sculpted neck. She was a sister of one of the women that worked the streets. I flattered myself that I might impress her by telling her that I was a doctor who was looking into the health and welfare of those other gilled women. But I restrained myself. I was, after all, there at the invitation of another woman.

I enjoyed champagne and caviar. Decadent for me, I know, but I was out to have fun, by God. I was greeted by various Arkham residents who came to give me drunken but good-natured handshakes and slaps on the back. More than one of them commented that they were surprised to see me there, that they hadn’t figured on the Knees Up being my kind of “scene”. In fact, quite a few of my visitors said something along those lines. Am I... stuffy?

Never mind that. About an hour after I got there, the band finished off a set with a flourish and to much applause. Exhausted and happy dancers left the dance floor to refresh themselves at their tables. Stage crew hands darted out to start assembling a set for some kind of show. The stage hands resembled Arkham’s rank-and-file police officers, in that they were all thick-limbed, with protruding brows over deep-set eyes, and shoulders so big that they resulted in hunched backs. Perhaps they were in fact police officers, seeing as how the police clearly had some connection to the dance hall.

The band returned to the bandstand. The lights dimmed. A show began. A show unlike anything I had ever seen before. The band, now mostly in darkness, played... something. I’m at a loss to explain the music’s genre. The notes held elements of classical compositions, but the percussion and rhythm sections introduced something darker, more savage. It wasn’t something I would think to equate with native music, be it the Indian here or the tribes of the dark continent. It was all just so very... primal, is the word. There was this use of the minor notes that acted almost as a hypnotic call to abandon one’s civility in this temple to indulgence... Well, what do I know about music? It was catchy, let’s leave it at that.

Hooded dancers came out and formed a circle, lithe toned bodies moving slowly in a synchronized fashion at first. But as the music increased its tempo, so too did those dancers, and they broke into their own frantic gyrations that seemed a bit more, well, promiscuous in nature than I for one think is permissible in public. Judging from the roar of approval from the rest of the audience though, I was clearly in the minority.

The crescendo of the piece came as four more hooded figures, all large men by the looks of them, carried out a struggling man. They carried him into the middle of the circle. Three of the hooded men held him in place while the fourth produced a curved blade that he held up high... and then plunged into the struggling man’s belly. I don’t know what stage trickery they employed, but speaking as a man of medicine, and one who has seen hundreds of casualties of war to boot, the act looked incredibly real. Perhaps it was the shrieks of the man playing the victim. He played his role to the hilt.

But I hadn’t seen anything yet. For out of the new cavity that had been cut into the man rose a towering figure, barely human in configuration, and covered in eyeballs. It seemed something drawn directly from the realm of nightmares. I squinted and found that each eyeball on the costume was moving independently, and blinking its reptilian eyelids at different times. My hat is off to the designer.

The audience around me was on its feet, howling its approval of the gruesome display. I had certainly been impressed by the effects I had seen, and the music had drawn me in, and I had been titillated by the long flashing limbs of the female dancers, but for the life of me I don’t know why anyone would have been given a charge by the subject matter. I saw neither the point nor the pleasure to be gained from it.

The room resumed its former party environment, and dancers returned to the dance floor. It was then that I saw him, seated at one of the tables on the far side of the room, sat back from the dance floor, in the shadows cast by the balcony. The man, the gangster, who had been brought to my office with bizarre circular sucker marks across his body.

When last I had seen him, the plate-sized marks on his body had become more pronounced, more sickly and painful-looking, instead of healing, as if they had been infected with something. That was months ago. I had wanted to follow up, but he had not returned to my office. And, considering the ramping up of the gang warfare around town, I was fine with not becoming more involved.

But seeing him there, I became consumed by curiosity. I saw him remain at the table as his chums took their ladies out to the dance floor. He mopped his brow with a napkin. Was that from illness, or just the heat generated by this immense party?

I suppose the champagne had given me a dose of Dutch courage. Normally, I was not the type to approach a table of violent gangsters, even if I had lent them aid in the past. But now I was determined to talk with the young man, and examine his wounds if he would permit it.

But it was then that two slim hands clapped themselves down over my eyes from behind, and a familiar voice said, “Hey war hero, guess who!” It was of course Miss Hooty Commonprance. She was looking up at me with a cheeky grin, her skin flushed. She asked if I saw her, and I realized she was asking if I had seen the bizarre dance number. I said I had seen the number, but I hadn’t known if she was one of the dancers, considering they were all hooded.

She replied that, “These weren’t hooded” and twitched up the already short hem of her dress to show off her legs. She gave me what I am sure is a practised pout and asked how I couldn’t recognize her “gams” considering I’d had my hands all over them in my office. I of course knew she meant when I was attending to her injured ankle, but the laughing patrons at the tables around us took a different meaning from Miss Commonprance’s declaration.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve, uh, practised my dating skills, but I did at least remember to ask if Miss Commonprance would care to sit, and I held her chair out for her. I ordered another bottle of champagne, and I must admit that in Miss Commonprance’s charming company, I forgot about the gangster down on the floor.

I didn’t know quite how to have a conversation with a woman a considerable bit younger than myself. It became quite clear early on that we were not similar in personalities. I am a retiring sort, not given to drawing attention to myself. But Miss Commonprance fully admitted that she adored showing off her body to all the men, and a fair number of the women, that frequented the Knees Up. She loved that she could wrap them all around her finger, or other comely bodily parts, through the dances.

I fear I was blushing horribly at that point in the conversation. Worse still, the young lady seemed to thoroughly enjoy that I was rudderless in the company of such a forward young woman. I didn’t say it out loud, but I wondered if women this abrupt in personality were a strange byproduct of the war. If so, I think I am for the change. It is nice to know a woman’s mind immediately, instead of having to constantly guess the mental state of... well, of a woman of a more reserved nature.

Speaking of abrupt, Miss Commonprance was very open about her fascination with the Great War. She wanted to hear all about my experiences, and the violence. These are both subjects that I am reluctant to talk about. And they seemed a very sad topic for such a jovial environment.

But her questions about the war steered me to ask about about how they had accomplished such a realistic scene down on the stage. She grinned and wagged her eyebrows and asked if I really wanted to know how they made the sausage around here. I was puzzling that one through when it happened.

The violence, I mean.

Since you’re listening to this phonograph in the future, I’m going to assume that you’ve heard about the shoot-out. Goodness knows, it was certainly bloody enough to make the papers. I think they’ll be talking about this one in Boston, and perhaps even beyond.

Simply put, they came for the gangster I had been watching earlier. Another gang, one assumes, armed to the teeth with pistols and Tommy guns. One moment, the party was in full swing. The next, gunfire was ripping across the dance floor, indiscriminately cutting down dancers and gang members alike.

The sounds, the smells, the screams, the cries for mothers by dying men... it immediately sent me back to those damned trenches in Europe.

The gangsters that had already been in the dance hall were unable to fire back. They had no weapons. They broke for the stage, running through the band, presumably making for a back exit.

The gunfire went wild as panicked party-goers surged in every direction, some right into the firing gunmen, knocking their weapons askew. Bullets raked the balcony. I was able to knock Miss Commonprance down and cover her. When I let her up I was worried I might have hurt her, or that she had been shot despite my best efforts. I at least expected her to be upset. But when I climbed off of her, she was anything but upset. Instead, she was wide-eyed, gasping... and smiling. She asked me in an excited voice, and I’ll never forget this, “Is this what it’s like?” And then she kissed me. Hard.

The rest of the night was taken up by blood. The gangsters with the guns chased the others out the back and disappeared. I raced down and did my best to help those that had been wounded. To her credit, Miss Commonprance stayed by my side the whole time, acting as a nurse, completely unafraid to get her hands bloody. On the contrary, she seemed excited to be close to the worst of the wounds.

She kept touching me throughout those hours. Her leg brushing against mine, pressing her hip into me... I don’t know what to make of all that. Women, you know.

After all that, I had to give a statement to the police. I have no idea if the officer actually understood a word I said. He just grunted and nodded his heavy head. He did have a notepad, but it looked like he was drawing circles on it rather than taking notes.

So now I am home. Quite exhausted. In desperate need of a steaming hot bath. And most desperately confused.

Confused by Miss Commonprance, certainly. Confused by what kind of desperation would cause a gang to shoot up a room full of people in that manner.

But the most confusing bit of all came at the end of it, as I left the Knees Up. I was on my way back to my car, passing alleyways, when I just happened to glance to my right down one of those laneways and saw the last thing I expected to see on such a night.

I swear I saw Miss Weetamoo rounding the corner to head out of sight.

Overnight For Observation was created by Daniel Fox. Daniel is the author of the light fantasy novel, “The Wizard, the Farmer, and the Very Petty Princess.”