The Murder Ticket

The prisons were overwhelmed and overcrowded and recruitment was at an all time low. So the government proposed a lottery: eligible prisoners – non-violent, non-sexual, non-career criminals – could win rewards and dispensations, including the chance to leave the prison forever.

Ray watched the others spend their meagre credits on lottery tickets: scratching off the foil grids with their bare nails to expose the obscure symbols beneath: chickens, buckets, wheels, walls...

He recorded the symbols and each prisoner's reward.

Most of the 'prizes' were a month off their sentence in exchange for some additional duty: four chickens meant cleaning the hen shed. Four buckets meant emptying cell potties. Four wheels meant portering in the laundry...

But there was one final combo – a row of four walls – which those prisoners who won it, they were taken to see the Warden.

And they didn't come back.

That's the one! Leave jail. Leave these four walls.

Ray had no chance of release, not on a murder ticket.

Six years earlier, he'd come home and found his girlfriend dead in their kitchen. He'd been drinking. He couldn't remember anything. But he was the only one there, the only prints, the only suspect... The verdict was unanimous and he was sent down.

He knew he was innocent. But he was out of appeals and out of money. My life has been taken too, he thought. It wasn't fair.

Ray was watching Wally scratch a ticket, when the old man's eyes grew wide then immediately narrow. Winners were easy to spot.

Old Wally unfolded from his seat and shambled over to a guard, who scrutinised the ticket and told Wally to wait.

Wally was at least 80, crippled and half-deaf. What's the point of him getting out? Why waste freedom on someone with a few years left to live?

After a couple of minutes, Ray slipped over and said, "Hey Wally, some screw wants to see you in the Admin wing. Something about the Warden."

Wally's eyes filled with hope and he stumbled into the corridor.

Ray followed.

As Wally turned the corner, Ray bounced the old man's head against the brickwork. Wally landed, heavy and silent. Ray dragged him into a closet, and plucked the scratch card from his pocket.

Four walls!

Ray didn't hesitate, rushing up to the Admin block door just as the guard came out.

"Where you going?"

"I'm a winner too!" Ray replied, holding up the card.

The guard snatched it and looked at it. "Get in there then."

Ray walked in and the door closed behind him.

The townsfolk used to gather at the prison walls for executions.

Now, since the lottery, they gather for each winner's release.

They squinted up towards a group of guards on the parapet carrying a strapped-up leather bodybag. The guards hooked it to a buttress then shoved it off. It dropped ten feet and jolted at the chain's end.

Then they watched the moaning, squirming bodybag twist and spin against the wall.