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Written for the 6/30 Flash Fiction Contest
Theme: must use the words headache, popcorn, drink
Word Count: 300

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MysteryBox42

Noah Barker plucked a kernel of popcorn into his mouth and reclined his head. The theater seat was as comfortable as a box-spring stuffed with dead chicken feet. The film wasn’t exactly taking the edge off his headache, which was Herculean. He’d had plenty of good benders before - plenty of bad ones too - but this was something new altogether. The name of the film was Deadly Assailant. It was about the unsolved Highway 34 murders that plagued Kansas City just a few years ago. Hollywood sure doesn’t wait long. It was all done up in typical Hollywood fashion and was 95% bullshit. Noah Barker had the best evidence for this assurance, for he was the Highway 34 killer.

His head was pounding. He took a sip of his drink, but it didn’t cool. A few rouge glances around the darkened theater added gasoline to his belly, which was on fire. Pigs, Noah thought, bitterly, eating up this shit like glop on a trough. On-screen victim #3 had just escaped her attacker after smashing the back of his head in with a tire-iron. That never happened. Oh, she had gotten away. He had allowed her to get away. Allowed her, so that she may tell stories of his conquests. She had not beaten him over the head with his own damn tire-iron! Hollywood, Noah grimaced, has to give everyone a hero.

At the end of the film people clapped. Noah did not. He stood to rise but suddenly found that he was handcuffed to the theater chair. The hand of the person sitting next to him forced him back down into his seat. He glanced over. The devil was sitting in the chair beside him with a TV remote in hand.

“Again?” the devil asked.

Noah was in hell.

AUTHOR QUESTION: I've been thinking lately about turning some of my flash fiction pieces into full short stories. If anyone would be interested in reading this as a full short story, let me know in a review! Thanks :)