The banging on Tom Wiley’s front door wasn’t going away this time. It was making his headaches worsen with each pound. It was part of the reason why he had all the blinds kept closed, apart from preventing anyone from knowing he was there. The light hurt his eyes, so he grew to hate it, like how he grew to hate water for how it stung him nowadays. The voices that bounced off the walls inside his skull didn’t help one bit. ‘How did my life get to this point?’ he wondered in between the throbbing pangs plaguing his brain, draining what remained of his sanity.
Tom used to be part of a family that entertained audiences on the road with mental acts. He, his mother, and father were called the Wonderous Wileys, and they were the real thing. Well, he was the real thing. His parents were more the assistants, narrators, managers, and directors rolled into a single pair. According to them, he had psychic abilities ever since he was a baby, when he was able to get what he needed from his parents without having to cry by using telepathy. The telekinesis and clairvoyance came later when he was around four years old. His parents secretly helped hone his powers enough that by the age of six, they formed the Wonderous Wileys.
They first started off locally on the weekends with performances in the park and the local farmers’ market. Tom could sense specific belongings in the audiences’ pockets and bags, read hidden symbols on cards presented by his mother, and move items like pens and small ball bearings on a table with his mind. Despite the inevitable skepticism of his abilities, the act made some decent money from tips.
As he grew, his powers grew, and so did the elaborateness of the bits with the number of tips to match. By the age of eight, the family took their act to neighboring cities and counties during the summers. When he reached the age of ten, the Wileys were beginning to attract the attention of people actively searching out their performances. They were being booked at the community theaters of their destinations and profiting from actual ticket sales. Audiences watched Tom preform feats using his mind including, the guidance of objects to their targets, the projection of simple images out of thin air, and the controlling of any small animal. The more fans and attention the Wileys garnered, the more accusations of chicanery and child exploitation increased. It, however, didn’t stop the talent agencies from eventually reaching out to them.
Their chance for a big break finally came when Tom turned eleven. They were booked to perform a bit on a nationally televised primetime talk show, yet hours before their scheduled appearance, Tom suddenly contracted a mysterious illness, fainted, and fell into a coma for a couple days. When he came to in the hospital, all his abilities, the telekinesis, the telepathy, etc, were inexplicably gone. Mr. and Mrs. Wiley tried pushing Tom into regaining his mental powers during his recovery period, but after some intense arguments between the parents, they eventually conceded that their son was just a normal boy and ended the run. The Wonderous Wileys were no more.
Fans were broken hearted and quickly abandoned them. Skeptics felt vindicated, calling it an excuse to close a long-running scam that was under the threat of Child Protective Services. The Wileys themselves, though disappointed at first, were relieved to finally be a normal family; except for Tom, who missed those days as time marched on. This was only reinforced during the first years of living without mental powers. Many children mocked and bullied him, random strangers would attempt to accost him and his family for retiring, and a few local conspiracy theorists would stalk them. It eventually got to the point where the Wileys moved to a different state, far away from their hometown. Things were much better for the family overall, but while Tom grew, graduated, got hired and the like, every so often he would test himself to see if any of his abilities returned in some form or another by chance. ‘It would be a welcome miracle to have them return.’ he would think wishfully to himself during those times.
One night after a long day at work, while biking back home to the trailer park down a lonely stretch of road, some animal darted out of the darkness and knocked him off his bike. They both tumbled down a ditch on the road’s shoulder, and by the time he realized what had just occurred, the creature disappeared back into the surrounding woods. It looked to be a coyote, a dog, or maybe even a fox. Tom got back onto his bike and made it back home.
Upon entering his home, Tom checked on himself in the bathroom. He was bloodied and bruised but he seemed okay. He at first was considering visiting a hospital for a professional opinion, but he was suddenly struck with a wave of anxiety. What if it wasn’t considered an emergency room situation? He couldn’t afford to pay for an urgent care medical bill, even with the medical insurance he currently had. Then he worried about missing work the next day. He was completely out of what little sick days he had available. He was already in hot water with the head manager due to a spate of late clock-ins, which started when his car broke down and the car insurance company dropped him to weasel out of their obligations. Tom couldn’t risk losing his job now with the rent and utilities being due soon. Knowing how the guy who runs the park seemed to always have a bug up his rear, the upcoming check was needed, or Tom would be out on the street toot sweet. He was already trying to stick to a strict budget plan and time schedule, which meant eating a lot of cheap fast food on the way back home. Deciding to risk it, he patched himself up and went to bed so he could try and get up within enough time to leave for work in the morning.
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Tom woke up to his phone ringing the next day, but he couldn’t move from the bed to answer it. The sun’s rays bothered his overly sensitive eyes and exacerbated the aching his head already experienced. His throat was sore and yet itched to the point that he viciously coughed. He was wet and sticky with sweat, which he hoped was the puddle he was laying in. He felt as if he was melting while an elephant repeatedly stomped atop of him. As the phone began ringing again for what seemed to be the second time, he was instantaneously bombarded by a deluge of voices and various other noises he could hear all around him but could not see. It all became so much that he pushed himself out of bed and onto the floor in a feeble and futile attempt to flee the noises attacking him. Tom covered his ears, but it all continued unabated. It got to the point where he couldn’t bare the sounds anymore, making him scream at the top of his lungs. His surroundings shook and became bathed in a bright light before he blacked out.
When Tom came to sprawled out on the floor, the voices and noises were still there but it wasn’t as loud as before. It was more as if someone left a TV playing in the background. He still felt sick, but that too had subsided. Looking around, much of his surroundings were in a disarray with objects flipped over or broken, but he had no recollection of how they got that way. As a matter of fact, all the blinds were closed, and every electronic and source of artificial light had either burned or blown out. Then, Tom happened to notice one of the voices rumbling in his brain, forcing him to focus in on it. Its volume grew until it was almost like the speaker was in the same room. He recognized the voice as one of the neighbors of the trailer park but couldn’t exactly think of their name at the moment. Tom’s concentration was suddenly broken by a strong thirst, so he got off the floor and headed for the kitchen area.
Stumbling through the dark home, he reached the kitchen sink and filled a glass with water. Tom tried to drink, only to be met with an extreme pain in his mouth and throat as the liquid pass through. He spat out what he could and gagged before tossing the glass away with an uncharacteristically aggressive spontaneity. It shattered against the wall, but the shards didn’t fall to the floor and instead floated in midair. Upon approaching closer to investigate the peculiarity, the pieces fell to the floor. The discomfort faded as he thought and hoped to himself, ‘What if?’ Concentrating on the shattered glass, Tom raised a hand towards its direction. The shards levitating off the ground, a tear and a smile crept onto his face.
The banging on Tom Wiley’s front door wasn’t going to just go away this time. Mr. Starsky, the owner of the trailer park, not only didn’t get the overdue rent owed but the noise and smell complaints from the neighbors reached a fevered pitch. These same neighbors watched what was currently going on from a safe distance. No one has seen Mr. Wiley leave the house for nearly a couple of weeks now. He wasn’t dead. There were times when curiosity urged folks to sneak a peek through whatever gaps they could find in the windows. They saw movement in the darkness, and there were occasions early on when Mr. Wiley would yell something incomprehensible and angry at whoever was outside the front door. Nobody knew what caused a seemingly normal mild-mannered guy to change for the worse, but Starsky didn’t care. He wanted whatever he was owed, and for the tenant to vacate the lot. If any trouble was given, the sheriff’s deputies waiting close by would handle this situation swiftly.
“Wiley! I have the cops with me! You better open the door right now!” demanded Starsky to no avail.
The owner stormed away from the porch, letting one of the deputies take charge. The deputy banged on the front door extra hard before announcing himself.
“Mr. Wiley, this is the sheriff’s department! We’ve got an eviction order to get you to leave the premises! Let us in, so we can end this whole ordeal peacefully!” the deputy said with no one answering once again.
Another deputy came up from behind with a battering ram, prompting the first deputy to step aside on the porch.
“Last chance, Mr. Wiley! Open the door now!”
For a moment, they thought they heard a noise on the other side, but after a moment of silence with no activity, the first deputy gave a nod to confirm the go ahead. The battering ram was pulled back for the swing. The door flew outward and off its hinges, smashing into the ram operator. It sent him flying into one of the squad cars blocking off the curious bystanders. The other sheriff’s deputies and Mr. Starsky near the blowout were knocked off their feet.
The sound of heavy footsteps under a stiff gait approached the porch, soon revealing what was supposed to be a man stumbling out into the sunlight. His bulging, bloodshot, dilated eyes, and the frothy mouth expelling flecks and streams of thick saliva, accentuated the veiny, pulsating, misshapen head topped by large amounts of hair loss. Tom was hyperventilating as he looked around wildly for whoever thought it was a good day to disturb him.
The first deputy pulled out his gun and aimed, but the slide of the pistol launched itself through his eye socket with the flick of Tom’s fingers. The other deputies nearby were trying to regain their footing when Tom waved his arms and hands wildly, cutting each one down was if armed with invisible, long-reaching blades. The remaining deputies controlling the crowd could only call reinforcements on their radios as they watched from a distance.
Mr. Starsky tried crawling away, but Tom seized the park owner and lifted him into the air using the formerly long-dormant, now active and amplified, psychic energies. As he held Starsky suspended in the air, Tom turned to the shocked onlooking crowd and said with a crazed smile, “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome back the Wonderous Wiley!”
On that note, the Wonderous Wiley then moved his hands as if wringing out a wet towel, making Starsky’s screaming top half twist counterclockwise and the bottom half twist clockwise, before wrenching his hands apart to bifurcate and send the two halves flying off in opposite directions for the finale. He drank in the screams of the traumatized crowd.