Four hundred thousand dollars each, 16 near strangers, it sounded like perfect recipe for a reality television. Or a social experiment, and in truth it would likely be more of the latter.

We hadn’t planned it that way; we weren’t competing for the money. It was what each of us had fronted to purchase the large house we’d live in together. It was an exact replica of the Winchester mystery house, but located in the middle of Montana, and with working modern appliances. It had been a spur of the moment sort of thing.

I’m the mastermind, you could call it. Thinking of living in an un haunted haunted house with total strangers. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve been hoping for, maybe enough fodder for my next novel and a new cast of interesting characters. Who knew how long we would last here. A while if we were going to get our money’s worth, and I’d had the contract arrange so that you could only get out of it by dying, no renting to other people to make up the money.

We weren’t a bunch of crazy cooks, or maybe we were, but we’d had to do something for our money. Novelists, all of us. I’d researched and collected 15 other novelists close enough to my age who I’d figure be interested. We were fairly young, early thirties, late twenties. Young enough to still do this adventure and appreciate the experience.

Of course, I wanted to make it interesting. So I found people from all different genres, none of the other people knew the guest list before hand. Just me, and that was enough to trust.

You’ve likely seen my books displayed at your local bookstore. You may think I’m a horrific writer who doesn’t deserve a penny, or else an inspiring force who should be a lasting name in fiction. Either way, it doesn’t matter, because I’m here, standing in front of the door, waiting for everyone to arrive.

Maybe you’re wondering who the heck these other people are. Doesn’t matter, I’m not going to tell you. Clever enough and you’ll figure it out, but I don’t want prejudice interfering with this experiment. That’s why I didn’t tell them either, a condition most balked out.

It was then they started arriving, each pulled up in a separate taxi (I was surprised they all found one out in this desolate area) and got out. One by one. None were let in through the front door yet, I don’t think any had really researched the house and I didn’t want to scare them off quite yet.

Hands were shaken, awkward smiles exchanged. At least they all knew me, but being the one familiar face in a crowd could put a burden on me as well. Still, I wasn’t going to have my enthusiasm diluted quite yet.

When everyone had arrived, I dolled out the keys. Shiny metal lying in glistening palms as each wished they were out of the heat. So I used the handle, fake gold colored metal pull, and waited till they were all in the lobby. Seemed to me like I was a game show host, ready to get them all revved up to betray each other and form false friendships. For this show though, the only recorder would be our pens.

I let Sid take the lead here, she stepped up, dressed in a suit reminiscent of earlier eras. Her hair was brushed back, its brown reflecting the sunlight in a glossy air.

“As the mystery writer of the house, I’ve felt obligated to do a little research. The original owner was heir to the Winchester Rifle wealth, and when everyone around her died early a sidekick told her to continually expand the house and the spirits would never mind. We have stair ways leading to ceilings, to nothings. Doors and windows that go to solid walls, and other oddities. Each of you has room for three bedrooms each, if I recall correctly, our lovely host and organizer has made one a bedroom, one a writing studio, and the third a personal library. The house was never finished, but our version is. Are the spirits still here? What happened to the construction workers wasn’t recorded, and why were the people around her killed anyways?”

She stepped down, realizing that she was starting to sound like one of her novels, only more ominous. Her slight speech was nodded at, and people started to look around and examine the oddities of the house from where they were standing.

“You all have different values and beliefs, you all have different genres, but you all write. I’ll show you to your rooms, and our meeting room. Each of you have a map on the table of your study, and the floor plan was altered a bit so your rooms were all connected, all three of them. I don’t mean to be strict, but we just need to layout some ground rules so a murder mystery doesn’t happen here.”

It was then that I started showing them to their places, the group dwindling as we went along until we were in the farthest wing of our house from the entrance. It was just me and Drake, I had spent a little extra time with her room. A fantasy writer deserved to sleep in the wings of a dragon, and so I opened the door to her elaborate new place and then hurried off to the ballroom.

Fantasy, mystery, romance, young adults, kid, horror, and many other genres that seemed to swirl together like the perfumes of the woman (and one man, poor Nathan, he was so young but as a horror writer I’m sure he imagined a similar situation before). This was the meeting room, or rather the second ballroom turned into a meeting room. Bookshelves lined the back wall, and with them were copies of all the books the people of the house had written, in as many editions and even languages as I could find to fill up the space. This was our new heaven, or hell maybe. Depends on how you looked at it.

I’m not sure exactly what would be going on, but I had ideas. Ideas I was sure that would get shot down, you couldn’t really be a writer without having an opinion.

This would be the start of one of the greatest social experiments ever, and here I was, leader of it all.

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Author’s Note: This story will feature characters drawn from the Red Pen guild in a replica of the Winchester Mystery House, which I suggest you look up. Odd chapters will be from unnamed narrator, even from the POV of a houseguest. This chapter was written by Tev.