Phantoms

by Dean Koontz

But Billy was a Catholic. Modern Catholicism tended to downplay the sulphurous-pits-of-Hell stories in favor of emphasizing God’s great mercy and infinite compassion. Extremist Protestant fundamentalists saw the hand of the Devil in everything from television programming to the novels of R. L. Stine to the invention of the push-up bra. But Catholicism struck a quieter, more light-hearted note than that. The Church of Rome now gave the world such things as singing nuns, Wednesday Night Bingo, and priests with degrees in psychology. Therefore, Billy Velazquez, raised a Catholic, did not immediately associate supernatural Satanic forces with the chilling cry of this unknown beast—not even though he so vividly remembered that old road-to-Hell comic book story. Billy just knew that the bellowing creature approaching through the bowels of the earth was a bad thing. A very bad thing.