Boy + Bot: The Later Years

A story inspired by a children's book written by the wonderful Ame Dyckman.

The phone rang.

“Boy & Bot Paranormal Detective Agency,” Boy answered.

“Yeah, is this Boy & Bot Paranormal Detective Agency,” a voice asked, clearly elderly.

Boy sighed. “Yes, ma’am. How can I help you?”

“I need help,” the old woman said.

“I understand that ma’am,” Boy said, gritting his teeth. “What kind of help do you need?”

“My house,” the old woman said. She raised her voice as if it would help Boy understand what she was saying any better.

Boy, feeling his nerves start to wear, decided to change tack. “Why don’t we start with your name, ma’am?”

“Mrs. Tallmadge,” answered the old woman without lowering the volume of her voice.

Boy jotted down the name on a nearby steno pad. “Okay, Mrs. Tallmadge, how can we be of service to you?”

“I’ve got a poltergeist in here something fierce, sonny.”

Boy made another note. “How long has this been going on?”

“Oh,” Mrs. Tallmadge said, thinking, “I’d say going on thirty-five years.”

Boy paused, somewhat taken aback. He thought about writing it down, but he’d never heard of anyone dealing with a poltergeist for thirty-five years. He wasn’t likely to forget such a thing any time soon. “Why haven’t you called someone about it sooner?”

A racket came from the other end of the phone. Whether it was Mrs. Tallmadge or the poltergeist, he didn’t know. “My husband used to deal with the thing so it wasn’t too much of a worry. He passed a few months back and I’m just getting around to calling.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Tallmadge,” Boy said. He was very sincere. Mr. Tallmadge had to be one hard sack of rocks to tangle with a poltergeist for three decades. They were nasty creatures at the best of time. At the worst…well, Boy hated thinking about that. He’d only seen it once and the nightmares still haunted him. “Give me your address and Bot and I will be over as soon as we can.”

“1558 Oak Avenue,” Mrs. Tallmadge shouted though the phone.

Boy wrote down the address, tore the sheet from the pad, and slipped it into his front pocket. “We’ll leave now.”

Boy hung up the phone and looked across the office to Bot who was standing motionless in the corner as he was apt to do when they weren’t on a case. At first, it kind of freaked Boy out, but eventually it became a soothing presence in the small, dimly lit office. It’d been fifteen years since Boy had found Bot in the woods while he was out playing. They’d been fast friends ever since. He was by Boy’s side all through high school and college. He was, in fact, the only reason Boy passed his physics class in college. Boy refused to call it cheating; it was more of a ‘helping hand’.

“We’ve got a poltergeist over on Oak Ave, Bot,” Boy announced to the currently inanimate robot in the corner. Bot’s eyes immediately lit up; the dull white light of life that meant Bot was ready to rumble. “You ready to roll?”

AFFIRMATIVE, Bot responded.

At one point, Boy would have had to gather his equipment and toss it in the car. He had always done it himself, never wanting to take advantage of Bot and his never-tiring mechanical body. After they had begun turning a profit, Boy had retrofitted Bot with most of the gadgets necessary to do their job effectively. After that, getting everything from place to place was as easy as Bot getting in the car. Boy had even spent the extra money to make each device as compact and hidden as possible so Bot didn’t even look that much different before the work was done.

Boy and Bot left their office through the front door that opened out below street level. They hopped up a small flight of stairs to the sidewalk where a 1979 Ford station wagon with wood paneling and sky blue paint sat at the curb. Boy opened the rear door to let Bot climb in, and closed it behind him. Boy had nothing against Bot riding in the front seat, but Bot appeared to prefer the back of the wagon. Probably so he could stretch his legs or watch dogs chase the car, Boy figured. Bot did so love watching dogs chase things. Boy climbed into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine with a flick of the wrist.

Oak Avenue was on the other side of town from Boy and Bot’s office, but it only took them ten minutes to make the trip. Boy didn’t have to speed. It was just that small of a town. Small town though it was, it seemed to be lousy with ghosts, specters, vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, and any other paranormal creature that the universe could conceive. Boy had often wondered how someone didn’t think of opening up a business just like his long before he had the chance. Not that he was going to argue. Once people finally realized that he could do everything he said he could do and more, he’d been putting out fires left and right.

Mrs. Tallmadge’s house was a large cape cod with a magnificent picture window on one side and a quaint little porch decorated with lawn gnomes and plastic birds on the other. The second story windows looked down over the yard, each with their own ceramic cat statue sitting on the inside sill. A tall oak stood in the front yard, shading the slightly overgrown front yard almost entirely. As Boy opened the back door of the station wagon to let Bot out, he couldn’t help but feel like it was a warm and happy home at some point in time. Then he remembered the poltergeist haunting the home and quickly changed his mind.

Before Boy and Bot could get more than halfway up the front walk, Mrs. Tallmadge emerged from the home looking more than a little befuddled. She was wearing a yellow house-dress bedecked with white daisies and a pair of slippers that looked way past their prime. Her stark white curls hung in disarray around her wrinkled face. A pair of beleaguered eyes gazed out at them from behind a pair of glass that made her look vaguely bug-like. She was smoking a cigarette that was nearly three-quarters ash, but still somehow held together.

“You Boy and Bot?” she asked curtly as she let curls of smoke stream out her nostrils.

Boy looked at the robot standing next to him briefly, wondering what other human/robot combinations that had come to see Mrs. Tallmadge. “We are,” Boy answered.

AFFIRMATIVE, Bot added.

“Well come in before you catch cold,” Mrs. Tallmadge ordered them. It hadn’t dropped below seventy in weeks.

Boy and Bot obliged her, climbing the small wooden stairs up to the porch. The smell that greeted boy as he entered the home was part cinnamon babka, part cigarette smoke, and part Bengay. Something was a little off though. Boy could sense it immediately. He took a deep breath, letting all the various scents circulating the home waft into his nostrils. He could barely smell it with all the other odors assaulting his mind, but it was there alright. Just on the outskirts of nasal recognition, but it was there, unmistakable.

“Do you smell that Bot,” Boy asked his partner.

AFFIRMATIVE, answered Bot, after a brief whirring sound.

“That bucket of bolts can smell?” Mrs. Tallmadge asked rudely.

“Yes and no,” Boy told her. “He’s been outfitted with a sensory receptors and odor analyzers. He can’t smell like a human can smell, but he can take in the air and analyze with 100% accuracy what exists there.”

“Now I’ve seen everything,” Mrs. Tallmadge said with wonder.

Boy took a couple of quick sniffs just to confirm. “You smell what I smell, Bot?”

AFFIRMATIVE, Bot replied.

Boy turned back to Mrs. Tallmadge. “Ma’am, I’m going to have you to step outside for a moment while my partner and I handle the situation here.”

“And just what am I supposed to do?” Mrs. Tallmadge demanded.

Boy shrugged. “Go for a walk. Tend to your garden. It doesn’t really matter as long as you’re not inside. This could get very dangerous for someone who isn’t trained to deal with this kind of situation like ourselves.”

Mrs. Tallmadge harrumphed, but didn’t argue. She put on a light jacket and left the house. She walked to the end of her front walk and turned around to look at the house. Apparently she wasn’t apt to leave strangers alone in her home without at least keeping an eye on the house. Boy couldn’t blame her. There were a lot of nasty people out there that would do a lot of nasty things without a second thought. Luckily, Boy wasn’t one of them, and he took great pleasure in that fact.

“Do a quick scan of the house, Bot,” asked Boy of his partner. Bot must have been a few steps ahead, because before Boy had finished his sentence, Bot was handing over a readout that had came from an almost imperceptible output feed in his side. It was a scaled down blue print of the home with red X’s is six different locations, one in each bedroom, one in the kitchen, and one in the master bathroom. Boy folded up the paper and slid it in his back pocket. “Give me the mallet and the Skittles.”

There was a metallic click as a door swung open in Bot’s back. From it, the robot produced an almost comically large rubber mallet and the closed the door. He handed the mallet to Boy as a small drawer slowly slid open from his cheek. Bot reached in and pulled out a bag of tropical fruit Skittles which he also handed to Boy.

“Thanks, pal,” Boy said to him. “Ready to get to work?”

AFFIRMATIVE, Bot responded.

 

Mrs. Tallmadge had lived on Oak Avenue for nearly forty years. In that time, she’d raised three kids, spoiled six grandkids, and loved and buried more cats than she could count. It was the home her husband had bought for them as a wedding gift to his wife. There was an incalculable amount of sentimental value in that old house. Countless pictures, report cards, home movies, and vintage toys found sanctuary within those walls. Yes, it was as much a part of Mrs. Tallmadge as her legs or arms.

And now some guy and his robot were wrecking up the place.

When she first left the house, Mrs. Tallmadge had felt a bit of apprehension about the decision she’d made. They were strangers, after all. And what was that saying they taught kids nowadays, stranger danger? After a few moments of waiting patiently on the sidewalk, that apprehension started to wane. That’s when the ruckus began. It was shattering glass first, which she assumed was a broken picture frame or possibly a window. Then it was snapping wood followed by grinding metal. Soon a cacophony of noises was filling the quite afternoon air. With each break, crack, or smash Mrs. Tallmadge’s heart broke just a little bit.

She stood on the sidewalk, fighting the urge to walk back in the house and kick the guy and his robot to the curb. The only thing that stopped her was Boy’s warning of danger. In spite of that, Mrs. Tallmadge had made up her mind to put the madness and destruction to an end. She took one step toward the house, and a large object came crashing through the picture window in the front of the house, landing with a dull thud on the front lawn. Her heart seized up for a moment when she thought it was her favorite arm chair. It was only when the object stood up and dusted itself off that she relax, but only a little.

 

Boy was standing in the front yard surrounded by broken glass. He was holding a large rubber mallet in one hand and what appeared to be little naked people with pink hair in the other. He turned around to see Mrs. Tallmadge bearing down on him with a look of rage in her eyes, and a new cigarette in her mouth.

“What do you think you’re doing?” roared the old woman.

Boy looked sheepish. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Tallmadge. It appears you don’t have a poltergeist at all.”

She paused momentarily. “I don’t?” Boy shook his head. “Then what is it?”

Boy lifted the creatures in his left hand. He was holding them by their electric pink hair that was six inches long. Their faces were scrunched up in anger; their tiny eyes filled with malice. They were completely naked, but had no identifying anatomy to discern whether they were male or female. One of the creatures was wind milling its legs as if it was trying to run in mid air. The other was simply screeching in an unintelligible language, spitting from time to time to show its displeasure.

“What are those?” asked Mrs. Tallmadge in disgust.

“Trolls,” Boy answered her.

Mrs. Tallmadge looked closer and something clicked. “Like the toys?”

“Kind of,” Boy conceded. “Only these are much more real and much, much angrier.”

It was true that a line of toys had been developed some years ago using the race of creatures that the two monsters Boy held in his hand belonged to. They were cute and it was fun to play with their hair, but real trolls were mean little suckers that relished in causing mischief. They smelled like rotten bananas and cursed like sailors, albeit in their own language so you wouldn’t be able to tell. Boy could understand why Mrs. Tallmadge had confused the antics of trolls for that of a poltergeist, as they had similar M.O.s, but there was no mistaking a troll hovel when you found one.

“You’re not smashing them are you?” she asked, taking notice of the mallet again.

“They’re a lot tougher than they look,” Boy told her. “The most this could do is knock them out for a few hours. It’s kind of like smacking a rock, except that the rock can run around and bite your ankles.”

“And what are the Skittles for?” asked Mrs. Tallmadge, pointing at the electric blue bag of candy poking out of Boy’s front pocket.

Boy chuckled. “Bait. Trolls love tropical fruit Skittles.”

Mrs. Tallmadge stared at Boy blankly as if he’d said the most amazingly interesting, completely boring thing ever.

“Your infestation was a lot worse than I had anticipated,” Boy explained to her. “I think we’ve about got them all rounded up though. If you wouldn’t mind waiting out here for just a few moments more, I promise we’ll be out of your hair soon.”

The old woman looked at him angrily again. “What about my house? my window? You’re destroying the place!”

“I know,” admitted Boy sheepishly. “I’m very sorry, but I promise you will be more than satisfactorily compensated for the damage once we’re done.”

Before she could argue further, Boy spun on his heels and ran back into the house. They had managed to bag most of the trolls before a small contingent had appeared out of nowhere and tossed him out the front window. When he got back inside, Bot was stalking from room to room, scooping up trolls and tossing them into a burlap sack he had flung over his metallic shoulder.

“Almost clear, Bot?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

Boy ran into the kitchen where a small group of trolls were kneeling in a corner looking over something. They didn’t even see Boy enter the room.

“Hello, boys,” said Boy triumphantly.

The trolls whirled around in an instant. The one in the front shouted something, an order presumably. The other trolls threw themselves clear of a tiny catapult that was in the corner. One of the trolls released the lever and a two pound Idahoan spud came sailing across the kitchen. Boy was so shocked that he didn’t have time to react before the potato plunked him directly between the eyes. He crumpled to the floor, dazed.

The trolls were on him in an instant, tiny little hands clawing and tiny little teeth. Boy fought as best he could, but there’s little a human can do when they’re covered in angry trolls. He swiped carefully at them to make sure he didn’t hit himself with the mallet, because that was the last thing he needed. He managed to pull himself to his feet, and he threw himself against a nearby wall in an attempt to smash the little creatures into unconsciousness. The best it did was daze a couple of them and make him a little more wobbly on his feet.

Boy quickly surveyed the kitchen for a solution, but nothing presented itself. That’s when Bot entered. The robot was all action, deftly pulling the little monsters off of his friend without so much as pinching Boy’s already tender flesh. In no time, Boy was clear of trolls and Bot was tying the burlap sack shut, dropping it on the floor with a resounding thud of finality.

“Is that all of them?” Boy asked the metal man.

AFFIRMATIVE, Bot answered.

Boy sighed his relief. “Good. I hate those things. Do you have our payment?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

Boy could hear tiny little fists banging against a hollow panel in Bot’s chest. Two live trolls would be enough to feed them for a couple of weeks.

Boy and Bot made their way back through the house with the sack of trolls in tow. Mrs. Tallmadge stood expectantly on the walk as they exited the now destroyed house. She was tapping her foot in a mixture of anger and nervousness.

“All clear,” Boy said triumphantly.

“How much do I owe you?” the old lady asked in annoyance.

Boy waved her off. “We don’t want any of your money. We’ve got enough of a payment already.”

Not really caring what he meant by that, Mrs. Tallmadge pressed on. “What about the damage to the house?”

Boy pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it out to her. She took it and eyed is suspiciously.

“Jimmy Dean’s Supernatural Creature Elimination Service,” she read aloud, and then looked at Boy.

He pointed to the sack of trolls. “Bot will load these in your car for you. Take them to the address on the card. JD should pay you more than enough for them to fix your house and put you up in a hotel while it gets done.”

Mrs. Tallmadge nodded. She had no idea a sack full of trolls would be worth anything. “Well, come on then, tin man,” she said, motioning for Bot to follow her. He did so dutifully.

After Mrs. Tallmadge had pulled her car out of the garage and Bot had loaded the wiggly sack into the back seat, Boy and Bot waved her off joyfully as she trundled down Oak Avenue toward compensation. Once she was gone, Boy and Bot went about putting caution tape over the broken picture window and any other window that had been broken in the scuffle. To add the finishing touch, Boy stuck a small plastic sign in the front yard that read: GHOST GOT YOU DOWN? VAMPIRES AFTER YOUR BLOOD? CALL BOY + BOT [phone]

“That was hard work,” Boy commented to Bot as he climbed in the driver’s seat and started the car. “How about a strawberry milkshake, old buddy?”

AFFIRMATIVE, answered Bot. The old robot never turned down a strawberry milkshake.

Boy put the car in gear and slowly drove away from Mrs. Tallmadge’s home without looking back.