colours—blue, yellow, red, and green—four keys to the hallway. An attempt to offer Karen some measure of control, or at least sense of control, over the horror beyond the door.

It is impossible to interpret her thanks as anything but heartfelt. Tom offers a clownish salute, winning a smile from both Chad and Daisy who are still somewhat disoriented from having been awakened at five in the morning and dragged out into the storm. Only when they have disappeared upstairs does Tom lift up the basinet and pull out a bottle of bourbon.

A few minutes later, Navidson enters the living room carrying a load of video tape and film. In all the commotion following his return, he has not yet had a spare moment to spend with his brother. That all changes, however, when he finds Tom on the floor, his head propped up against the couch, enjoying his drink.

"Knock it off," Navidson says swiftly, grabbing the alcohol from his brother. "Now is not the time to go on a binge."

"I'm not drunk."

"Tom, you're lying on the floor."

Tom takes a quick glance at himself, then shakes his head: "Navy, you know what Dean Martin said?"

"Sure. You're not drunk if you can lie down without holding on."

"Well look," Tom mutters, lifting his arms in the air. "No hands."

Setting down the box he is carrying, Navidson helps his twin up.

"Here, let me make you some coffee."

Tom gives a noticeable sigh as he at last leans on his brother. Not till now has he been able to really face the crippling grief Navidson's absence had caused him or for that matter address the enormous relief he now feels knowing his twin did indeed survive. We watch as tears well in his eyes.

Navidson puts his arm around him: "Come on."

"At least when you're drunk," Tom adds, quickly wiping the wet from his face. "You've always got the floor for your best friend. Know why?"

"It's always there for you," Navidson answers, his own cheeks suddenly flushing with emotion as he helps his weaving brother to the kitchen.

"That's right," Tom whispers. "Just like you."

Reston is the one who hears it first. He is alone in the living room packing up all the radios, when from behind the hallway door comes a faint grinding. It sounds miles away, though still powerful enough to cause the basinet on the bureau to tremble. Slowly the noise gathers itself, growing louder and louder, getting closer and closer, something unheralded and unfamiliar contained in its gain, evolving into a new and already misconstrued sort of menace. Reston's hands instinctively grab the wheels of his chair, perhaps expecting this new evolution within the chambers of the house to shatter the hallway door. Instead it just dies, momentarily relinquishing its threat to silence.

Reston exhales.

And then from behind the door comes a knock. Followed by another

one.

Navidson is outside loading a box of Hi 8 cassettes into the car when he sees the upstairs lights in the house go out one by one. A second later Karen screams. The pelting rain and occasional crack of thunder

muffles the sound, but Navidson instinctively recognizes the notes of her distress. As Billy described the scene in The Reston Interview:

Navidson's dehydrated, hasn't eaten shit for two days, and now he's dragging supplies out to the car in the middle of a thunderstorm. Every step he takes hurts. He's dead on his feet, in total survival mode, and all it takes is her voice. He drops everything. Lost some rolls of fdm to water damage too. Just tears through the house to get her.

Due to the absence of any exterior cameras, all experiences outside the house rely on personal accounts. Inside, however, the wall mounted Hi 8s continue to function.

Karen is upstairs placing her hair brushes, perfume, and jewelry box in a bag, when the bedroom begins to collapse. We watch the ceiling turn from white to ash-black and drop. Then the walls close in with enough force to splinter the dresser, snap the frame of the bed, and hurl lamps from their nightstands, bulbs popping, light executed.

Right before the bed is sheared in half, Karen succeeds in scrambling into the strange closet space intervening between parent and child. Conceptual artist Martin Quoirez observes that this is the first time the house has "physically acted" upon inhabitants and objects:

Initially, distance, dark, and cold were the only modes of violence. Now suddenly, the house offers a new one. It is impossible to conclude that Holloway's actions altered the physics of that space. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that its nature seems to have changed. [143]

Karen avoids the threat in her bedroom only to find herself in a space rapidly enlarging, the size swallowing up all light as well as Daisy's barely audible cries for help.

The darkness almost immediately crushes Karen. She collapses. Of course, there are no cameras at this point to show her lost in seizure. That history relies once again on The Reston Interview:

Navy said it felt like he was running into the jaws of some big beast about to chomp down . . . and as you saw later on, that's— that's exactly what that ugly fucker finally did. [Reston chokes back tears] Sorry . . . I'm sorry . . . Awww fuck it still gets me.

Anyway, Navy finds her hyperventilating on the floor. He scoops her up—supposedly she calmed down as soon as she was in his

arms—and then all of a sudden that growl starts up again, rolling in like bad thunder.

[Reston shifts in his wheelchair; takes a sip of water]

Well, he runs out of there. Back through their bedroom. Barely makes it through. The door frame came down like a guillotine. Hammered Navy's shoulder and grazed Karen in the head with enough force she lost consciousness.

I tell you Navy's one tough fucker. He kept going, down the stairs, and finally outside. And then Daisy stopped screaming.

The next clip of Hi 8 shows Navidson reentering the house, shouting for Daisy and Chad as he sprints down the hall, heading toward the stairs in order to get back up to the children's bedroom. Then suddenly the floor drops away and he is sliding straight into the living room where he would have died had he not succeeded with one desperate flail to grab hold of the handle to one of the doors.

The Reston Interview:

Me, I had been trying to get the hell out of there. The knock had turned into this heavy awful pounding. The hallway door was still bolted shut and barricaded but I just knew all hell was about to break lose.

In fact, my first thought was that it was Holloway, though that hammering was awful hard. I mean the whole wall shuddered with every hit, and I'm thinking if that is Holloway he's changed and I don't need to reacquaint myself with this new and improved version. Especially not now.

[Reston repositions his wheelchair slightly]

My chair was still pretty messed up so I couldn't move as fast as I normally do. Then all of a sudden, the pounding stops. Just like that. Silence. No banging, no growl, nothing. And boy, I don't know how to describe it but that silence was more powerful than any sound, any call. I had to answer it, that silence, I mean, I had to respond. I had to look.

So I turn around—you can see some of this on the video—the door's still closed and the stuff Tom put together is still in front, though the-what-you-call-it, the helmet, has already fallen to the floor. Then the china cabinet and bureau start to sink. Slowly at first, inch by inch, and then a little faster. My