We were all alike in one way: we'd been stupid, and we'd been stupid at the wrong time. My little idiocy took the form of using a glock with a grip. When I pointed the gun at Scott's forehead, I'd held it so tight and so long the stripes of my fingerprints had lodged inside the ridges. I'd mopped up every spot of the blood, spackled the hole in the kitchen wall, and vacuumed so many times I'd practically left grooves in the floor, but I missed those three little lashes of identity. Ten years ago, with the CSI technology of the time, I would have gotten away Scott-free. Ha.

When I heard the others' stories, I felt like I was a different cast of murderer. Though I'd never killed anyone before I shot my fiancée, Scott Ashby, I'd known what I was going to do ahead of time. Hell, I'd told him, and it took a man as thick as Scott to think I wasn't dead serious. He'd been sleeping around, and I was raised in a good Christian household where that behavior was strictly impermissible. So I shot the bastard. Cause and effect. Real simple.

But my MO made me look like some sort of psychopath in comparison to the others. Marcus had backed over his brother-in-law when he'd had a few too many. Beers, that is, not brother in laws. Tasha had gotten into a cat fight with a friend and rammed her head into a brick wall. Brad had tried to slowly poison a lingering wife, but ended up giving her enough rat poison to kill a baseball team, which he did since the wine was served to the local Senior Sunshine league.

That's not to say I'd been the only one to make a plan. Charlie had already disposed of five girlfriends by the time they caught him with the sixth in his trunk. The guy was practically a one-man factory line. And Robert… well suffice to say, if it hadn't been for a neighbor with a metal detector, Boy Scouts of America would be facing a serious population depletion. And there was Jenna, cute as a button, who liked it rough. Unfortunately, her customers were not always able to keep up with the treatment.

It was an odd mix, but as strange as it sounds, I never fit in. I wasn't an idiot with an invincibility complex or a violent fetish. I hadn't even committed a "crime of passion," no matter what the viewing guide says. I'd simple done what needed doing. I didn't even mind getting caught that much because honestly, I'd loved the son-of-a-bitch, and putting him down had hurt me more than it had him. Well, sort of. But when the sirens came wailing, I stood my ground and planned on accepting however many years or volts they chose to give me, with dignity and good grace.

What I hadn't bargained for was becoming part of a reality TV show.

Oh, the idea had been thrown around for a century by would-be Orwells, steeped in their own sense of pathos. What better way to herald the end of morality than a reintroduction of Rome's most lasting legacy, the gladiator games? Only, the idea stopped being an aspect of dystopian novels and horror films after a while. After the fifth revolution, people started thinking, hey, those emperors weren't half bad. They knew how to satisfy the masses with "justice" and "heroism." And hey, if there was a bit of brain-bashing, all the better! It had been a certain pizzazz that had been lost with the end of the guillotine.

So I imagine men in suits with law degrees and only a basic conception of morality as being something they saw on a spreadsheet once, sat down and got to work renewing the American dream in the form of a show called "Murderer's Row." It was snazzy, it was just, and it would reap profits, which could be turned around and put into the law enforcement budget.

I knew something was up when on the fifth day of my trial, instead of being put into my normal van to go to court, they put me on an airport shuttle with two armed guards, one named Sharon, with whom I'd had a couple of conversations. She was a large black woman who originated from a small Louisiana town not far from my home, and she once admitted that she'd come close to knocking off her no-good ex, but finally decided divorce would be cheaper in the long run. I asked her where I was going, and though it seemed like she would say, the first guard shot her a remonstrating look. She stayed silent for the rest of the trip. My only clue was when we landed, and she put me into another cop car (Vermont, I noticed), she leaned down and quickly whispered in my ear.

"My babies and I are gonna be rooting for you."

But then I was whisked off again, my only entertainment the increasingly unpunctuated wilderness. The terrain became a little hillier, and though the cop car's heater was on full blast, I fancied I felt a chill through the window. I pressed my cheek against it, enjoying the coolness, and tried to get some sleep.

"Murderer's Row," which I think was marketed as taking place on an island somewhere in New England, was actually a castle situated near the Canadian border. It was a ghastly old Victorian folly, and while I never lived in anything classier than a double-wide, I know bad taste when I saw it. It was like something out of a gothic novel, which was exactly what they were going for. Appealing to all those mystery paperback readers, and all that. I thought it was interesting that while viewers could stand to watch intensely violent deaths, they still needed a setting that was straight out of an illustration. I don't think America would have had the stomach of "Murderer's McMansion." Perhaps some parents, with lingering genetic coding for shame, told their kids it was all fictional. I saw the promotional posters, which they plastered over some of the filming vans. It was undistinguishable from any other series promo, with the catchy subtitle "where the mystery is not who dies—it's who survives."

I think they went through our old albums to find the photos of smiling faces and mischievously cocked brows, superimposed on new, hot, outfits. I've thought about how they choose us many times, but I think we were the most interesting characters they could find, the easiest to narrate into archetypes.

I saw some of this, the first day, when we were all gathered in the main hall. The other prisoners were easy to pick out, though they were wearing everyday clothing, because they did not carry guns or cameras, both of which inundated the room. There was the aging hippie, Robert, in his plaid shirt and jeans. Marcus the college drop-out and Tasha the diva. Henrietta was a pig-faced butch, easily a head taller than anyone else in the room. She stood next to shy little Jenna, and not so far from Brad, who was as wide as Henrietta was tall, and equally unattractive, with a boyish face that had long been lost in puffy fat. Marissa was just insane, everyone's conception of a crazy cat lady.

I didn't see Charlie immediately because he had shifted to my side.

"Hey, my name is Charlie" he introduced himself with a sure smile.

I took his hand and shook it, noting the firm grip.

"Julia," I offered.

"Julia," he repeated to himself, internalizing. "A pleasure."

"Same to you."

"Hey, I don't suppose you've killed someone? Not a pretty young thing like you,"

There was a certain ironic undertone beneath his Carolinian drawl.

"An old flame," I summarized. "You?"

"Ah, same," he nodded. "I've been told I have a temper problem. I think my choices are just fine, it's others that just keep making mistakes."

I decided, against all odds, that I like Charlie. I'm sure the producers were delighted to catch our conversation, the gentleman wife-beater and the redneck black widow. To this day, I haven't run into anyone who's understood me in quite the same way as Charlie. Course, that doesn't mean he had it all down.

There wasn't much mingling besides me and Charlie, so when the face appeared on the screen, it didn't take long for the room to snap to attention.

It was an older gentleman, I think the mayor of some city, but a former cop. He wore the old uniform now.

"Hi kids," he greeted. "My name is Warren Dufort, and I am the Warden of Murder Row, your new home. You have been chosen, you lucky felons, to appear on the "Murder Row" television series, Mondays at nine on CWC. Your trials delivered guilty verdicts, but no punishment was ruled. I'm about to fix that."

He pulled out a gavel.

"Tasha Marner, Bradley Humphrey, Julia Brown, Charles Towson, Marissa Shelling, Henrietta Broad, Jenny Kai, Robert Hailey, and Marcus Christianson, I sentence you to life, and perhaps death in Murder Row."

He brought the gavel down with a satisfactory whack on the maple desk in front of him. There was a pause, and I imagined that a clip of the sentencing would be cut and used in the trailers.

"The rules are as follows: anything goes. If there is only one survivor in one month's time, they will be declared the winner and rewarded their freedom. You will all be provided with "tools," assigned to you at random, by which you can achieve this end however you choose."

"However," he paused for dramatic effect. "if there are multiple survivors, they will face prison time, ten years for each person left alive. In the manor, you will find various puzzles that require the cooperation of two or more felons. You have been handed a card. On the cards is the location of your tool. I would run, kids, because once this message terminates, the games have begun. And one last thing: you will meet back here for every meal. Dinner is at 5:00 tonight. Have fun, kids, and try not to get hurt."

The message cut out in a single flash of white light. My eyes readjusted quickly, and I ran, guided by the card to the library. It was a simple message: "Dr. Plum, in the library, with the…" It had been well-stocked. I still had trouble registering the dire circumstance I was in, and the childish clue wasn't much help. Perhaps this was all a joke? I heard the sound of doors slamming, and strode to the window. I looked down and watched as one by one, the police cars left, followed by various news crews that had covered the grand premier. I looked up, around the corners of the room. The cameras were well hidden in the wood paneling, the shelves, even the light fixtures, but a moment's search revealed quite a few. No, I didn't think it was a joke.

With renewed energy, I began to rack my brains for all I remembered about the Clue board game. Weapons had included…. A lead pipe! I spotted one sitting on the mantle, and felt relief wash over me, shortly followed by annoyance. I'd need something better than a piece of metal to take the murderers I was trapped with. But when I reached for it, my hand passed straight through to the marble. A hologram. Fantastic. They were going to play mind games as well. I'm sure the cutting-edge technology would bedazzle the audiences at home, probably followed by a subtle ad for the maker.

The next weapon to come to mind was a noose. One of the curtain ties had been tied in a noose-like fashion, but it too was an illusion. I found and gave up on the knife, the wrench, and most disappointingly, the revolver. That only left the candlestick. Only, there wasn't a single candelabrum in the whole damn room. I felt like I'd wasted an hour looking. I was about to leave the library and try my luck elsewhere, when it clicked.

"A, B, Ca," I read aloud as I skimmed the shelves. There, sure enough, was a book by "Candlemaker." I pulled it out, half-expecting a secret passageway to open, but none did. The book itself was hollow. Inside the carved-out niche was a single vial of a gray-green liquid. "Drink Me" read the page across from it. "Shaw's Life Restorer."

If this was a joke, it wasn't particularly funny. I was tempted to throw the vial at the nearest camera, but I'd always been taught not to waste. I wondered if it was actually poison, swishing it about in the light.

"Julia," said a familiar voice behind me, all soft velvet.

I turned, carefully hiding the vial in my closed palm. It was Charlie, and he had a crossbow, casually pointing past me, but nonetheless distracting from his handsome features. I was going to be pissed if I got knocked out this early in the game.

"What did Santa bring you?" he asked.

You don't try and hide anything from a man with a crossbow, so I held up the vial.

"Poison," he assumed, nodding. "Could come in handy. You in for an alliance?"

"Sure Charlie, if you don't plan on shooting me anytime soon."

"Won't be any need for shooting if me and you figure out their puzzles. Put together, I imagine we have half a brain over any other pair," he commented, slinging the crossbow over his back. It even came with a harness. I had to hand it to Santa, he'd thought of everything.

"Ready for dinner?" he asked.

"Reckon so."