Nian Liu

Chapters IV-VIII

Chapters 4 through 8 brings us deeper into the book allowing more mysterious pathways and climatic events to happen. As Karen forbids Navidson to enter the dark frightening hallway, it only fed Navidson's curiosity even more. Navidson eventually enters the hallway and finds himself walking in circles and is chased by the echo of a monsterous growl. He escapes with the help of his daughter Daisy's cries and brings her back upstairs where Karen awaits him. The couples make up and that night was the one of the rare nights where the couples show apathy and Karen apologizes to Navidson for being so uptight about going into the hallway. Navidson seeing this perfect opportunity to bring their relationship to the way it was in the past he resists in telling Karen that he broke his promise in going into the hallway. The story continues with different fluxes of climatic events where Navidson calls for his team of "explorers", Tom and Reston after his strange encounterment inside the dark realm of his hallway. After Karen finds out Navidson backed out on her terms in not exploring the house their relation sinks back to neglect and distaste. The team of explorers go into the dark realm many times and find themselves stuck as they lose themselves to a maze of staircases. Will they ever make it out? We'll find out in the next couple of chapters.
As for the footnotes, Johnny Traunt fantasizes about "Thumper" the stripper that he met at the shop. He goes on about predicting on the outfit the woman is going to wear and actually comes to work early which surprises his boss. Not seeing the girl, Traunts boss asks him to go upstairs and pick up some materials. As he goes upstairs he is surrounded by the same darkness that was discribed by Navidson's Records and he starts seeing a "shape of a shape of a shape of a face." He then falls down the stairs and feels a clawing on the back of his head. We learn that as the text goes deeper into the book, Johnny seems to be extremely into the old man's writings and everything he sees start to connect to the writings.
Questions:
1) Question for Johnny Traunt is that what was it that clawed him? Was it the materials that clawed him or actually something from the shadows upstairs?
2)Is the whole ramble about "echos" in the story and getting lost in a dark hallway describing a dimension the Old man created to relate to his blindness?
3) Question for Navidson is, if he went into the hallway and almost found himself lost in the darkness, why didn't he stop and called up the New York Times for a professional exploration team to solve the mystery?