Phantoms by Dean Koontz
Before we start it’s important to make it clear that this book is not for the faint hearted. It’s a horror story in the likes of Stephen King – and the two authors even resemble each other physically. Their resemblance goes beyond appearance, though – Phantoms has many similarities with King’s book ‘IT’.
Although this is by no means a relaxing book, Koontz's writing style is amazing and one will easily get hooked at this page-turner. Phantoms is extremely interesting and gives much food for thought.
It tells us the story of Jenny, a young doctor whose mother’s recent death made her bring her teenage-sister to live with her in the small town in the mountains where she established her medical office. Upon their arrival to their new life together, the sisters come to a town strangely deserted and with only a few bodies left behind in a weird state of horror in their faces.
As the story develops, ‘IT’ continues to strike police officers and military staff who try to explain what is happening in ‘human’ terms. Even two secret agents responsible for investigating 'alien' activity, are brought to the deserted town. The similarities with Stephen Kings ‘IT’ are not only the way the characters refer to the killing demon, but also the fact that this ‘IT’ seems to make its victims vanish with only their voices coming out of draining pipes.
The possible explanation as to what is happening comes from an obscure writer who wrote a piece called ‘The Ancient Enemy’, who apparently was the responsible for several mass disappearances throughout history. And although the book is fictional, all the mass disappearances mentioned in the book are very much real.
Towards the end of the story, a scientist saves the day (oh, science lovers, rejoice!) thinking about a petroleum-eating substance that would dissolve the ancient enemy and ‘millions’ of years of destruction were over. Yes, it was that easy.
A few comments on why this book that can make us reflect on the spiritual side of things:
- Jenny, the doctor, is a ‘science believer’ who refuses to consider the supernatural elements of what was happening, even after witnessing the disappearance of a whole city, hideous looking corpses which did not follow cadaveric characteristics, evil moving shadows (‘even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’ Psalms 23), a gigantic moth sucking the blood and brains out of the face holes of a police officer, blackouts, church bells ringing by themselves, etc. Don’t we all know these types?
- The blackouts and mysterious snapping of people have been represented in many ancient cultures as the works of monstrous 'reptilians' such as Quetzalcoatl, aliens and even in the Bible with the Leviathan, so the author’s creativity is (as usual) mixed with occult knowledge. This phenomena could also be a representation of the cyclical apocalypse that happens when the magnetic fields around our realm invert. It could have the appearance of an amorphous creature and it could strike a specific place (e.g. the Mayan tribes) instead of the whole earth.
- The 'Ancient Enemy' as called in the book, could absorb not only the life energy of its victims, but also all their knowledge and memories, meaning this creature had an impressive collective intelligence of 'millions' of years of accumulated history. The theory of 'memory absorption' is also one of the things Jay DreamerZ' speculates can happen during the 'plasma apocalypse', as he calls it.
- All the characters had either very weak faith, spiritual ignorance, or atheistic views. One of the characters was a police officer with catholic faith (spoiler alert: it didn’t help him) and he was the only one with a little (very little) knowledge of the Bible and realized that they were fighting against an evil creature. In his realization that he was probably going to die in that town, he decided that if he escaped he would change his career and use the gift Yahuah gave him and be a veterinarian, like his parents had suggested. He realized two things: that he wasted his gift and that he did not honor his parents, by rebelling against their wish. Wow! That was a strong (and truthful) message. He died, but at least he repented.
Although the book shows several characters whose weak faith could not protect them from the ‘IT’, the author still brings us to an unavoidable conclusion that if evil exists, we can’t deny the existence of the One who creates all, or what most call ‘God’, who protected the survivors in mysterious ways.
In the final page, our main character, a smart sheriff, has a dream with his comatose son where he comes out of his coma and says: ‘But daddy, if there is a Devil, then there’s got to be a God, too. Didn’t you already figure that out when you met the Devil? God wouldn’t let me sleep my whole life away’. It is not evident if his kid woke up from the coma, but it was a nice way to make us all reflect on the epiphany of the mystery of YHWH. In a way, even though King and Koontz do share their horror writing style, the later definitely differs from King by shedding a light on our Father.
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