While you sleep, p.1
While You Sleep, page 1
CAILLOU PETTIS
While You Sleep
First published by Falcon Publishing 2022
Copyright © 2022 by Caillou Pettis
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters
and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Caillou Pettis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Content Warning: This collection features a number of scenes, scenarios, and descriptions that could potentially cause emotional distress.
First edition
Cover art by Donnie Goodman
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy.
Find out more at reedsy.com
Contents
WHILE YOU SLEEP
1
PRAISE FOR CAILLOU PETTIS
2
DEDICATION
3
WHILE YOU SLEEP
4
BIRTHDAY BUMPS
13
HE’LL BE BACK
24
THE FACE
31
THE ANTIQUE STORE
38
103.9 NEWRYST FM
86
HIVES
95
LAST SHIFT
103
WEBS
115
WHERE AM I?
122
STORY NOTES
127
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
140
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
145
WHILE YOU SLEEP
Stories by
Caillou Pettis
PRAISE FOR CAILLOU PETTIS
“An anthology meticulously curated by Pettis, WHILE YOU SLEEP is a genuinely disturbing assortment of tales. With no shortage of blood, nightmares, and haunted objects, Newryst is one place you won’t be leaving alive. At least not with your sanity intact…”
-Patrick Delaney, author of The House That Fell From The Sky
“Pettis’s WHILE YOU SLEEP is a horror collection with bite. For anyone who has ever been tempted to sleep with the lights on, these stories are sure to get under your skin in the most delicious way. Don’t miss this one.”
-Briana Morgan, author of The Tricker-Treater and Other Stories
DEDICATION
For Korynn. Thank you for always being my number one supporter.
I love you to the moon and to Saturn.
WHILE YOU SLEEP
D o you ever stop and wonder exactly what happens while you sleep? Sure, we as humans understand that, while we sleep, we don’t have any full recollection of
what exactly happens because, after all, that’s the whole point of sleep. Sleeping is an everyday regimen that allows our bodies to shut down for about eight hours in order for our brain to be refueled and ready for the next day to come.
Dreams can obviously occur while we are sleeping, but what about the real world? When we sleep, what goes on in the world around us? Do you ever worry that you are being watched by an unwanted visitor? Maybe somebody has managed to creep into your house and they are now hiding in your closet, peeking at you while you lay in bed completely oblivious.
So, I ask again - do you ever worry that you are being watched by an unwanted visitor? If not…
You should be.
This is exactly what happened to a thirty-year-old man named Everett Campbell. Everett had an ordinary job working as a
WHILE YOU SLEEP
retail manager at a local clothing store that paid a decent yearly salary. He had a couple of friends from work that he enjoyed spending some time with on the weekends and lived in a nice, spacious home in his hometown of Newryst.
But things could be more than a little lonely for Everett most of the time, mainly because he didn’t have a lady friend to keep him company. Everett had tried dating many times but he always managed to screw things up. Sometimes he was unable to commit fully to the relationship or other times, he found that he and his new love interest were looking for two completely different things.
Everett felt like a loser because all of his friends who were his age either had girlfriends of five years or wives. And yet here he was with absolutely nobody to go home to. But it’s okay because at least he has one visitor to keep him company.
Albeit, one that Everett does not wish to be around.
Ever since he was a young boy, Everett has had problems sleeping properly. No matter how long he lays in his bed, he simply cannot manage to fall asleep without taking some sort of a sleeping pill. Of course, when he was a lot younger, his dad would always blame it on him watching too much television.
“Well, maybe if you would turn off that god-damned TV once in a while, your brain wouldn’t be so malformed!”, Mr. Campbell would yell. But even as a kid, Everett knew that was just a bunch of bullshit. All of his friends from school watched television just as much as he did and yet they all managed to get to bed
WHILE YOU SLEEP
on time and had eight full hours of rest every night.
Everett was overweight ever since the age of thirteen. Even back then, he weighed 250 lbs and always did his best to exercise and get in shape, but it often failed after he promised to eat just one donut, but it eventually turned into a full dozen. In his thirties, Everett weighs a total of 318 lbs. Despite wanting to lose weight and better his health, the thing he wanted to do more than anything else was to fix his sleep problems.
At night, Everett would turn on the television in his room, watching some dumb soap opera he didn’t know the name of, hoping it would act as some sort of a faux sleeping pill for him but it never worked. Did he find the show boring? Absolutely. But even watching the overly dramatic lives of some twenty-something couple was not enough to make him snooze off. Even still, he decided he had better turn the television off to save some electricity money.
As he stared off into seemingly nowhere specific, Everett thought I’m never gonna fucking fall asleep. I’m just gonna sit here with my eyes wide open all night even though he didn’t want that at all. He had hoped that perhaps his brain would eventually grow tired of being awake and would simply force Everett to get the fuck to sleep but he knew that was wishful thinking.
Or was it?
Everett lay in his bed completely silent with his eyes shut, but he knew that somehow, somewhere throughout the course of the night, he had done the impossible. He had fallen asleep,
WHILE YOU SLEEP
and he didn’t feel quite so tired at the moment. He had wanted to leap out of bed and kiss the floor. He wanted to thank the Heavens that God had finally done him a favor and allowed him to get some fucking sleep.
The only problem was that Everett could not move. Literally. Upon opening his eyes, and rubbing the sleep from the corners of his pupils, he had felt an extreme twinge of absolute terror course through his neck, eyes, heart, stomach, legs, and arms.
He was staring directly at a demon.
But this wasn’t just any old demon. It certainly wasn’t one that he would expect to see when entering the gates of Hell. This demon was different than anything anybody could ever imagine. The entity was almost entirely dark with piercing white eyes, long limber arms and legs, and red cracks in its skin.
Not only was the demon absolutely terrifying to look at, but it was quite literally crushing Everett’s windpipe by being perched on his chest, its clawed, pointy legs digging deep into the poor man’s chest.
But no matter how much pain, shock, and awe Everett was in, he couldn’t scream. He had tried with all his might, and yet not a single sound would come out of his mouth. Not even a little whimper could creep out of his throat. To make matters worse, his body was rendered totally immobile.
Even though the demon was not pinning down Everett’s arms or legs, he found that he couldn’t move even a single finger
WHILE YOU SLEEP
muscle. The only thing in the world that Everett was capable of doing at that moment was staring directly into the fierce white eyes of the creature, its claws, and legs digging deep into his skin.
He felt more pain at that moment than he had ever felt before in his entire life. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to scream SOMEONE HELP ME! SOMEONE GET THIS FUCKING THING OFF OF ME! HELP! HELP!
But his mouth wouldn’t even move. His arms, legs, toes, and fingers might as well have been severed off because he couldn’t use them either way. As Everett stared deep into the eyes of the demon perching atop his chest, he had a strange thought.
Does this thing know that I’m scared of it? He didn’t really think it mattered, anyway. He was confident that this demon wanted Everett to be absolutely horrified, but even if he wasn’t scared one bit (which he was), the demon wouldn’t simply let him go. Everett was now his prisoner. As for how long, that was anybody’s guess.
The only thing Everett knew was that he was probably going to die any m oment now. He swore he could feel his entire soul drain from his body with each passing second the demon stayed atop his body.
What was strange to Everett, as well, was that this demon didn’t have any sort of facial expression while this was happening. Everett had already taken notice of the creature’s burning white eyes and its mouth, but never once did it open wide to show
WHILE YOU SLEEP
a large set of grizzled, pointy teeth. It simply sat on top of the man’s chest, both parties locking eyes with each other as if taking part in some sick and twisted staring contest.
Although Everett could not even move his head left or right, he could ever-so-slightly make out things in his room out of his peripheral vision. His window curtains had been pulled aside, allowing for him to get a view of the city outside.
Everything outside was still shrouded in darkness, and Everett wondered what everybody else was doing at this time of the night. Whatever it was the rest of the citizens of this once peaceful city were doing, he was willing to bet that nobody was going through the same thing he was at this moment.
A couple of minutes had gone by since awakening, and Everett was shocked to find that no matter how much pain and suffering he was in, he was not dead yet. He was confident that he would’ve died by now because of just how much soul-crushing agony he was in.
But here he was, still looking into the face of his tormentor, and the tormentor looking right back at him as if he or rather it, was doing absolutely nothing wrong. Was this just part of this demon’s life? Did this demon not know anything to do other than perch on Everett’s chest?
And how in the world had he even gotten into Everett’s bedroom in the first place? It was a thought that coursed all throughout the man’s mind and yet no matter how deeply he thought about it, he could not come up with a logical
WHILE YOU SLEEP
explanation.
He figured that if this was indeed a demon, it didn’t really need a logical entryway to get inside. After all, it is a demon. The laws of the real world don’t necessarily apply to these types of entities. The world is their oyster, and they’ll do whatever the hell they want inside of it.
All of a sudden, Everett started to feel the entire world around him vibrate. He felt his brain matter getting sucked down his body. It wasn’t painful per se, but it was a feeling that Everett knew he definitely did not like experiencing.
While this was happening, Everett noticed the entire room was being engulfed by an ever-growing red light, soaking up the entire room. And rather than finally getting off of Everett’s chest, the demon proceeded to grow about six feet taller than it already was.
It proceeded to outstretch its long, gangling arms toward Everett’s neck where it made a strike, causing a trickle of blood to go splatter against the walls, but miraculously, Everett was still alive.
He found that was also able to close his eyes for ten seconds before they involuntarily opened once again. The room was still cloaked in an all-encompassing red light that devoured everything else in the room.
But much to Everett’s pleasure, his tormentor was nowhere to be found. He was no longer on his chest, and he felt like
10
WHILE YOU SLEEP
he could finally breathe as best as he could, despite having a massive, gaping portion of his neck sliced open.
Even though the demon was nowhere to be seen, Everett found that he was still unable to move any part of his body. His eyes were unblinking, his arms and legs were rendered totally useless. He had no idea what he should be doing. He tried to scream once again, but his mouth wouldn’t even form the words that he wanted so desperately to fly out.
Then, he felt it again. The soul-sucking sensation. He felt as if his life was just about to end, and he didn’t know how it was possible. The demon wasn’t even there.
Out of nowhere, the room all around Everett was set ablaze, with all of the objects in his room slowly burning and crumbling to nothing but ash and dust. The sound of fire engulfing the room around Everett was utterly terrifying as it quickly began to get closer and closer to where he lay.
He knew at this moment that this was it. There was simply no getting out of this no matter how hard he tried. Even if he was somehow able to get out of bed at that very moment, it would simply be much too late for him to try to make a daring escape out of the building.
Panic was bubbling to the surface of Everett’s face. He didn’t know what else to do but simply stare and watch as the world around him crumbled to nothing but fire and dust. All of a sudden, Everett heard the loudest voice he had ever heard speak directly into his ears, causing his eardrums to immediately
11
WHILE YOU SLEEP
shatter after hearing what this voice had to say.
WELCOME TO HELL!
Finally, Everett could move his body, but he was no longer in his room in the city of Newryst. He was in the last place he wanted to be. Surrounded by flames. Demons. Agony. Torture.
Everett took a look at his arms and legs and noticed that his skin had turned bright red and appeared cracked and scaly. But, now, Everett no longer felt scared or worried. He no longer felt like his whole world was gone. He felt like he was home, and a smile slowly started to form on his face. He looked up and saw the unmistakable face of the Devil himself sitting on a throne directly in front of him, surrounded by flames.
Out of all the possible questions Everett could have asked the Devil, he only asked one - one that took even the Devil by surprise.
“Is there such thing as sleep here?”, he asked.
The Devil merely glanced at Everett for a few passing moments before eventually answering, “You are never going to have to sleep again. You are mine now”.
Everett should have felt petrified. He was in Hell, and he was a servant of the Devil. But against all odds, he replied to the Devil with just two words - “Thank you”.
12
BIRTHDAY BUMPS
G avin doesn’t remember anything from the past few days. The only reason he knows that he hasn’t seen the outside world in that long is that he can feel
extreme hunger and thirst bubbling inside of him, his body telling him to put any sort of fuel inside because it can’t go on much longer.
His memory is foggy and his head feels like it’s been clouded up to the point where even thinking about something as simple as the clothes he was currently wearing was too much for his brain to comprehend.
