The Hol[ ]y Tape
“I’m lost. Out of food. Low on water. No sense of direction. Oh god… [ ]
So be[ ]ins the Holloway Tape—Holloway leering into the camera, a backdrop of a wall, final moments in a man’s life. These are jarring pieces, coherent only in the way they trace a de[ ]line…
Who can forget Holloway’s grizzled features as he [ ]urns the camera on hi[ ]self?
No comfort now. No hope of rescue or return.
“I deserve this. I brought this all on me. But I’m s[ ] sorry. I’m so[ ]rry,” he says in Part 2. “But what does that matter? I shot them. I shot both of [ ]em. [Long pause] Half a canteen of water’s all I’ve left. [Another pause] Shouldn’t have let them get []way then I [ ]have returned, told everyone they g[ ]lost … lost.” And with that last utterance, Holloway’s eyes reveal who here is real[]y lost… “I’m Holloway Roberts.” he insists. “Born in Menomonie, Wi[ ]n. Bachelor’s from U. Mass. Explorer, professional hunter, [ ]eth. [Long pause] This is not right. It’s not fair. I don’t [ ]serve to die.”
Parts 4[ ]6,[ ]10, & 1[] centre on Holloway’s reiteration of his identity. Part 3, however, is different. It only lasts four seconds. With eyes wide open, voice hoarse, lips split and bleeding, Hol[ ]y barks “I’m not alone.” Part 5 fo[]lows up with, “There’s something here. I’m sure of it now.” Part 8 with: “It’s following me. No, it’s stalking me.” And Part 9: “But it won’t strike. It’s just out there waiting. I don’t know what for. But it’s near now, waiting for me, waiting for something. I don’t know why it doesn’t [ ] Oh god … Holloway Roberts. Menomonie, Wisconsin. [chambering a round in his rifle] Oh god[ ].”(292)…
Of course, Part 13 or rather “Last” of The Holloway Tape initiates the largest and perhaps most popular debate surrounding The Navidson Record. Latern C. Pitch a[]d Kadina Ashbeckie stand on opposite ends of the spectrum, one favoring an actual monster, the other opting for a ratio[]al explan[]tion. Neither one, however, succeeds in [ ] a definitive interpretation.
Last spring, Pitch in the Pelias Lecture Ser[]es announced: “Of course there’s a beast! And I assure you our belief or disbelief makes very littled difference to that thing!”(293) In American Photo (May 1996, p. 154) Kadina Ashbeckie wr[]te: “Death of light gives birth to a creature-darkness few can accept as pure[]absence. Thus despite rational object[]ons, technology’s failure is over[]un by the onslaught of myth.”(294)
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And in Navidson’s house that faceless black i[] many myths incarnate.
“Ce ne peut etre que la fin du monde, en avancant,” Rimbaud dryly remarked. Suffice it to say, Holloway does not [ ]French for his end. Instead he props up his []i[]eo camera, ignites a magnesium flare, and crosses the room to the far end, where he slumps in the corner to wait. Sometimes he mumbles [ ]hi[]self, sometimes he screams obscenities [ ] to the void: “Bullshit! Bullshit! Just try and get me you motherfucker!” And then as the minutes creak by, his energy dips. “[ ] I don’t want to die, this [ ]” words coming out like a sigh—sad and lost. He lights another flare, tosses it toward the camera, then pushes the rifle against his chest and shoots himself. [ ]Jill Ramsey Pelterlock wrote, “In that place, the absence of an end finally became his own end.”(300)
Unfortunately, Holloway is not entire[ ] s[ ]ssful. For exactly two minutes and 28 seconds he groans and twitches in his own blood, until fin[ ] he slip[] into shock and presumably death. (301) Then for 46 seconds the []am[ ]reveals nothing else but his still body. Nearly a minute of s[ ]ence. In fact, the length is so absurd that it alm[]st appears as if Navidson forgot to trim this section. After all there is nothing more to [ ] gained from this scene. Holloway is dead. Which is [ ]act[ ] when it happ[]ns.
The whole thing clocks in under tw[] seconds. Fingers of blackness slash across the lighted wall and consume Holloway. And even if [ ] loses sight of everything, the tape still records that terrible growl, this time without a doubt, insi[]e the room.
Was it an actual cr[ ]t[ ]e?(303) Or just the flare sputtering out? And what about the sound? Was it made by a be[ ] or jus[] a[]other reconfig[]ration of that absurd space; like the Khumbu Icefall; product of []ome peculiar physics?
It seems erronous to assert, like Pitch, that this creat[ ]e had actual teeth and claws of b[ ]e (which myth for some reason [ ] requires). [ ]t d[]d have claws, they were made of shadow and if it did have te[]th, they were made of darkness. Yet even as such the [ ] still stalked Holl[]way at every corner until at last it did strike, devouring him, even roaring, the last thing heard, the sound []f Holloway ripped out of existence.:|
Mark Z. Danielewski / House of Leaves
