As he reads the story, he becomes less interested in the outside world.

Although, throughout the story Johnny shows us bits and pieces of his life with crazy woman and loads of drugs, bar scenes and sexual activities, he still returns to his apartment and the sordid tale of the Navidson Record. Johnny puts the pieces of scrap paper (the story) together day after day and as each day passes, he becomes more obsessed with the story. The story was actually called the Navidson Record about a family who bought a house in Virginia and eventually runs for their lives from a presence that occupied the internal walls of the house. The scraps of paper contained a story, which Johnny slowly put together. He takes the trunk home to his apartment and decides to read them. Johnny sees the trunk and opens it noticing all of the scraps of paper within. The old man had no scratches on his body anywhere, which Lude and Johnny found to be strange considering these scratches were just beyond where his body laid dead. These marks were deep and looked to be some kind of animal scratches. Lude and Johnny enter the old man's apartment after the police and ambulance leave and Johnny finds deep scratch marks around where the old man's body had been.

The old man died alone in his apartment and no one really noticed until Lude mentioned that he hadn't been around for a few days. Once he arrives, he notices the police cars and ambulance that surround the property. Johnny, out of morbid curiosity, gets in his car and meets Lude at the apartment. It is unusual for the old man to just disappear as he had. Johnny gets a call from Lude one day and says that the old man hasn't been seen in days. Lude and the other occupants of the apartment building noticed that Zampano was very punctual with his walks and of feeding the birds. Day after day Zampano held his daily ritual of walking around the apartment grounds, feeding the birds and enjoying a peaceful and quiet life. Johnny's friend, Lude lived in the same apartment building as Zampano. The chest belonged to an old man named Zampano.

It is the year 1997 and a young man by the name of Johnny Truant has stumbled upon a chest full of papers (scraps of papers).

Mark z danielewski