"This is a terrible idea," Josie said to Patrick and Shawna.

The three were bored on their third Saturday in college. None had connected with their roommates and had found each other walking the halls in their dorms with a shared apathetic gaze. While freshmen around them were dressing for parties, talking about the big game Saturday, or last week's concert, Josie, Patrick, and Shawna individually - and, collectively - rolled their eyes at all of it.

Shawna and Josie shared a few classes together. Patrick was in the common room often, usually kicked out by his roommate when he brought home a girl he had met while out. Shawna and Josie took pity on him one night, and the three had gotten together regularly since then.

They shared the same interests in movies, books, and music. Patrick was more interested in the occult and horror and started talking about ways to summon spirits to torture his roommate.

"We could totally do it," he said. "There are three of us. All we need is the next full moon, some paint, a few words of incantation, and - boom - we've opened the door."

"Then what?" Shawna asked.

"Well, as the doorkeepers, we control the access, so they have to listen to us," Patrick said.

Josie shook her head and rolled her eyes in disbelief. "We're not doing that," she said. "It's dumb."

"What's dumb is your lack of imagination," Patrick said. "There's a whole world behind the world. And this will open the door for us."

"How do you know this?" Shawna asked.

"Because I read. Duh," Patrick said. "It's in books. Haven't you seen the shelf in my room?"

"The one that's constantly covered?" Jose asked.

"Jake makes me cover it," Patrick said of his roommate. "He told me if I didn't he'd toss them while I was at class. Jerk."

"He can't do that. It's your property," Josie said.

"Yeah. You need to get a new roommate," Shawna agreed.

"Thanks for telling me the obvious," Patrick said. "I can't swap roommates now. There's a backlog. Which means I'm stuck with the turd until winter break at the earliest."

"So the next best thing is ...." Shawna led.

"Demonic possession!" Patrick ended her sentence. "We do it Saturday. Full moon. Everybody will be out, except us, of course. We can do it in my room and surprise the crap out of turd Jake when he shows up."

Josie and Shawna shrugged in agreement. What else were they going to do?

Patrick finished painting the pentagram on the floor. He had lifted the carpet that Jake had put down during move-in. The carpet resembled a football field and was a fixture in Jake's room when he was growing up. Patrick knew this because Jake had told him that fact whenever Patrick asked that it be rolled up. He preferred the bare floor to a tacky green rug with football hash marks. But - like everything else in the room - Patrick had lost that argument.

Tonight would be his revenge. He rubbed his hands together in satisfaction at the perfectly painit ted pentagram in the center of the room.

"Now we wait until the moonlight enters the window," he said. "I chose the side of the dorm purposefully because it captures more of the moon in early night than the other side. I've got a whole list of spells and summonses I want to try."

Josie and Shawna tried to share Patrick's enthusiasm, but both were regretting the steps they took to befriend him.

Patrick looked at his watch. "By my calculations, the first beam of moonlight will hit the room in approximately two minutes. Josie, kill the lights. Shawna, light the candle and place it in the center. I'll start the incantation."

Both Josie and Shawna obeyed. Might as well humor him, they thought.

Patrick opened the thickest book on his shelf and turned about a third of the way through. He held it near the window so the moonlight would shine on the pages. He began speaking in a language neither girl recognized.

The full moon's beam and the candle in the pentagram's center provided the only light source in the room. The candle cast odd shadows on the wall. Josie thought she could see movement in the shadows as Patrick continued to speak. But she discounted it as impressionable thought. She was always the gullible one, her mom would say.

Patrick finished what he was saying with a loud yell and moved to blow the candle out.

"Patrick, what the hell?" Shawna said. "Josie get the light!"

Josie turned on the room light. Patrick stood in the pentagram's center. But he also stood near the window.

"Why are there two of you?" Shawna asked Patrick. "That's messed up. You screwed up."

Near-window Patrick said, "No. I didn't. I said the right spell. This must be wrong, though. It wasn't for duplication."

Pentagram-center Patrick said, "No you got me. You called and I came. What do you need?"

"Who are you?" Josie asked.

"The one you called. The dark one," Pentagram-center Patrick said.

"Why do you look like me?" Near-window Patrick said.

"You know how in the Bible God said man is in his image? Well, it was my image he was talking about," Pentagram-center Patrick said.

"I'm the devil?" Near-window Patrick asked. "This is way cooler than I thought."

"Don't flatter yourself," the devil Patrick said. "I take the form of the one who summons me. I learned that if I showed as my regular self, those who summon me freak out. I've been burned, shot, poked at with sticks, and stabbed. This is way better. So. What do you want?"

Patrick explained his plan for the devil to possess Jake, his roommate. "Just scare him a bit. I want him to ease off and stop being such a jerk."

"No can do," the devil as Patrick said. "When I assume the form of the one who called me, I assume all of their characteristics. I have no powers. I just look like you. Only cooler, I think."

"That sucks," Shawna said.

"Tell me about it," the devil as Patrick said. "This guy .... Jake, is it? He's on my radar. I've been watching him since his middle school days. I'd say he's a prime candidate for my kingdom."

"At least he's going to hell," Patrick said. "That's something."

"Rule 1 in my presence," the devil as Patrick said. "Don't call it hell. Hades, maybe. Sheol, OK. Hell, no way. That's my home. Now. Can I go back there?"

"You really can't do anything?" Patrick asked. "Not even, like, cause him pain?"

"I'm useless. Consider it part of the curse."

"So disappointing," Patrick said.

"Get used to it," the devil said. "There's more where that came from."