Peter, Egon, Winston and Ray found themselves at Louis' moderately-decorated apartment. As nervous as Louis normally was, he was always happy to have guests. Egon felt more than a little awkward wearing his full ghostbuster outfit while being a guest in another person's small apartment, although his heavy proton pack was resting beside the kitchen chair where he was sitting. He knew that he wasn't going to be dressed this way for the entire time. After all, it was a sleepover and he would eventually be in pajamas with freshly-brushed teeth.

But as comfortable as he wanted to be, he also wanted to ensure that the dreams they would have that night wouldn't be sweet ones. Their intention was to attract and trap the nighttime demons, whatever it took.

"Welcome to Chez Tully!" said Louis, "Or Casa de Tully. Or whatever bilingual name you want to call this place.

The Ghostbusters didn't say anything. They just looked at him. They didn't need to say anything since their raised eyebrows by themselves just said "okay."

"Can I get you guys any snacks? Anything to drink? I've got crackers, I've got little cheese squares, I've got mineral water, all store-brand, of course!"

"That's it?" asked Peter. "That's all you have for snacks? I say we need to take one of those crackers, soften it, stretch it to twelves inches diameter and then slap some sauce, cheese and pepperoni on that sucker because this is a SLEEPOVER."

"Uh… yeah. Please don't slap any of my foodstuffs or call them suckers, thank you."

"Peter may be onto something," said Egon, "I've compiled a list of foods that are likely to give people nightmares and cheese is on there. So is spicy food, chocolate, pasta and potato chips."

"Yeah!" said Ray, "We're going to have a delicious dinner tonight!"

A meow was heard. A decently-sized Maine Coon cat strutted into the kitchen.

"Where are my manners?" asked Louis, "This is my cat, Maurice."

"I kinda figured that you would be allergic to cats," said Winston.

"Why would you assume that?"

"I dunno… just look at you."

Maurice rubbed himself against Egon's leg. Egon couldn't help but pet the welcoming cat.

"Maurice…" he said, "That's a rather dignified name."

"We could also rent some horror movies to let those bad dreams in," said Winston.

"I sure hope this plan works," said Louis, "The demons came to my place at the same time that I started having bad dreams. Just the other night, I dreamt about debt. Piles and piles of debt. I have no idea how it's even possible to have piles of negative money, and yet there they were." Louis sat down and sulked.

Ray patted the man's shoulder.

"There, there," said Ray. "You're good with your money. That fake debt won't hurt you when you're awake."

Louis got up and walked over to a wooden bowl on his counter. He brought it over to the table. Brochures from all sorts of restaurants were piled into this bowl in a haphazard way.

"These are all the restaurants that I've gotten menus from in the mail," said Louis.

Ray dug through the bowl, merely glossing over the names and numbers of the places.

"It's like a world tour of food," he said, "Egon, if you give me that list, I can get an idea of where we could order from."

Later on, the guys were firmly parked in Louis' living room. Egon came back from the video store with rented VHS cassettes in a plastic bag.

"Okay," he said, "I rented three scary movies for us to watch. I got Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist and that Carl Sagan movie about nuclear war for good measure."

"You didn't get Gremlins?" asked Peter.

"That movie isn't scary all the way through," said Winston, "Those things start out cute, after all."

"Also, that's more of a Christmas movie," said Ray.

"What are we waiting for?" asked Peter as he clapped his hand once, "It's showtime!"

During the first movie, the guys pressed pause and ordered takeout to eat. Based on Egon's suggestions, they ordered a smorgasbord of Italian, Indian and American with some candy bars and potato chips from the convenience store thrown in for good measure. The guys used their imagination and mixed the foods together in their own ways. Winston dipped his French fries into the marinara sauce. Ray put chicken tikka masala on his pizza. The possibilities were endless. Best of all, it was written off as a business expense.

Once the third movie was finished, it was time to move on to the next part of the experiment. They were all gathered in Louis' room. Egon was eager to get to this part even though his stomach was bloated and his indigestion was getting progressively worse from the rich and spicy food.

"Now, all we (burp) need to do is (burp) have one of us fall asleep so that we can (burp) use him as a trap for the demons," said Egon. He lightly punched his chest a few times in the hopes that it would do something for his self-imposed malady.

"You all right, Egon?" asked Louis, "I've got Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol if you need it."

"Thank you for the offer but I think this (burp) negative reaction to the food will help with the nightmares." His next burp brought up acid that singed his throat. "It's for science, Egon. It's for science…"

"So which person should fall asleep first?" asked Winston.

"I vote on Ray," said Peter.

"Hey, why am I the canary in the coal mine here?" asked Ray.

"I think it's pretty flattering to be a canary, Ray. They're cute, they sing well and the ladies love them."

"Well, those are great things to strive for. I guess I'm headed to bed, then."

Ray got into his pajamas and slid under the covers, making sure NOT to have his favorite stuffed animals or any nightlight.

Peter came into the room with a glass of milk that was pink in color, which Ray happily gulped down.

"Thanks for the milk, Peter," said Ray, "But people who are trying to fall asleep tend to drink warm milk, not milk that's fresh from the fridge."

"Yeah… about that," said Peter, "I didn't feel like heating it up, so I mixed it with half a bottle of cough syrup."

"What?! That's what you did? Well, no wonder it was pink and… tasted like…" Ray yawned and slowly lay down on the bed. "Synthetic… cherry… flavor…" Before he knew it, he was unconscious and snoring.

"Night night, Ray," said Peter, "Don't let the bed bugs bite. I mean, let the demons attack all they want but tell the bed bugs to scram."

The four of them patiently waited in the room by the door and watched Ray sleep. As far as boring activities went, it was slightly more exciting than watching paint dry. After all, it wasn't like a painted wall could twitch, snore or occasionally fart. Egon kept a keen eye on the PKE meter. The pains in his stomach and chest were doing an excellent job at preventing him from falling asleep.

"Ray should be in REM sleep by now," whispered Egon, "The demons should be coming soon."

Louis sat cross-legged on the floor while Maurice was perched on his lap. He pet the cat as he watched his bedroom closely.

Everybody remained quiet in case these demons were attracted by silence.

And then the PKE started sensing activity.

"This is it," said Egon, "I'm getting something."

And like that, it appeared. The being was the size of a medium-sized dog and yet Ray didn't stir in his sleep when it turned his body and stood on his chest. The demon was gargoyle-like; its head had a stout lizard snout, ears pointed like needles, curled horns and a grey mane that went down its neck. Its arms ended in hawk-like talons. Its legs were like those of a dog and also ended in talons. The tail that completed its svelte torso was reptilian with small, rounded spikes. Finally, it had large vulture wings that were impossible to miss even if the creature was fully silhouetted.

Louis froze in fright but his cat was more willing to take action. Maurice hopped off of his lap and growled at the creature with stiffened fur.

The group waited a few moments to see what the creature would do.

It bore its claws into Ray's chest, licked its chops and started sucking at the air. From Ray's head came a stream of little, red dots that the demon greedily slurped. Its throat pulsated from the dots making their way to its stomach.

"We have him right where we want him," said Egon. He had his proton pack at the ready. When he grabbed the gun, he fired it up and aimed it at the demon. "Come to papa…"

"We need to find a way to move it away from Ray so that the proton stream won't hurt him," said Winston.

Maurice the cat, still in his defensive pose, had moved closer to the bed, getting ready to pounce on the demon.

"I don't think we need to worry about that," said Peter.

The demon stopped feeding and turned its head at the angry feline. It took its claws off of Rays chest and bore its teeth at the cat while staring at him with its glowing red eyes. Once enough eye contact was established, the cat jumped toward the demon with a screeching meow.

The demon flew into the air and the cat ended up landing on Ray's belly instead. Despite this, Ray remained asleep. Maurice continued to growl and hiss at the demon as it flapped its wings.

"Now is the time to trap him!" said Egon. He aimed the gun and fired the proton stream at the demon.

Unfortunately, the demon had quick reflexes and disappeared into black mist before the stream could hit it. Instead, the stream hit the ceiling, resulting in loud cracks and pieces of wood falling toward the bed.

"Damn it!" shouted Egon.

Ray still continued to sleep as if nothing was happening around him.

"That guy is dead to the world," said Winston.

"Well, Peter did give him milk laced with cough syrup," said Egon.

Meanwhile, Louis was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, except his entire body stiffened and his shoulders shrugged at the events that happened in that room. He slowly turned his head towards Egon, looking as white as a traditional ghost (not the dark demon that he just saw).

"We'll get that fixed," said Egon as he pointed to the damaged part of the ceiling.

A little later, Egon was pacing in the kitchen, wondering what he would do next.

"Damn!" said Peter, "Did you see that thing?!"

"We all did, Peter," said Egon.

"It was like… it was like… it was like a lizard-sheep-monkey!"

"Well, the good news is that we now have a better idea of what kind of demon it is. Bad new is, it's far too quick for us to catch. I'm starting to think that maybe I need to invent a new kind of proton pack, one that can shoot a stream with lightning-fast speed. From the looks of it, its physical nature is ghost-like enough that we could sufficiently trap it."

"So, what you're saying is that we're not going to trap one tonight," said Winston.

"That's good," said Louis, "I don't want any more of this apartment's foundation to get damaged."

"There is one thing that I would like to do tonight," said Egon.

"What is that?"

"Become the next target. All I can do right now is get some first-hand experience as a victim of these beings. At first I didn't know what order to go in when it came to being a trap for this demon but I'm so hungry for any sort of information that I want to go next."

Peter and Winston looked at each other and then back at Egon.

"Fine by us," said Peter.

Egon felt a painful burp coming up from his throat, which he concealed with a clenched fist covering his mouth.

"First thing's first," he said, "If I'm going to go to sleep, I need to ensure that I'm comfortable. Louis, please get me that Alka-Seltzer."

"Right away!" said Louis.