Page 92 of Love at First Fright

This patch of town had proper signal. Four bars. Glorious, functioning internet. I sent off Lily’s photo of the clawed foot, already imagining her baffled little face, then my thumb hovered over my other apps.

Yet I had no desire to doomscroll through whatever fresh hell social media was serving up today.

What I did have a strong desire to do was to google Bat’s Bats.

My thumb hovered over the search bar.

A flicker of doubt stopped me. This felt invasive, somehow. Like rifling through someone’s diary without permission. Or maybe I just didn’t want Bat to feel too real. Didn’t want to confront the reality of who he’d been. Who he’d never get to be again.

But I couldn’t resist.

I typed it in, heart thumping, and hit search.

Did you mean: bats bats

No, Google, I did not.

My heart sank as I scrolled through pages of results. Types of Bats in the UK. Adopt a Bat Today! Cricket Bats for Sale. A surprisingly comprehensive Wikipedia entry on the echolocation capabilities of the common pipistrellus.

Zero unfairly cute emo boys in sight.

I tried again: Bat’s Bats band

Somehow, even more cricket equipment. A forum discussing whether baseball bats counted as weapons.

I swapped to Spotify.

Nothing.

I stared at the blank screen, an unreasonable amount of disappointment sitting heavy in my gut. What had I expected? A verified artist page? A Greatest Hits album?

I almost gave up.

Almost.

I opened YouTube. It definitely hadn’t existed in the 90s. Even I knew that. But people uploaded old footage and such, right?

I typed in Bat’s Bats.

My heart stopped.

There.

Fourth result down.

A video. A grainy thumbnail showing three figures on a dimly lit stage. The title read: 10 years and we still miss you, dear mighty leader. Posted 2009. Eighty-nine views. Two likes.

I slammed my finger into my touchscreen.

The footage started shaky, someone’s camcorder wobbling as they tried to focus. Bass thrummed through tinny speakers. Drums crashed. Then the camera steadied, and—

There he was.

Bat.

It was unmistakably him. He looked exactly the same, down to the Bat’s Bats tee stretched across his narrow chest. Long black hair whipped wildly around his face while he screamed lyrics I couldn’t quite catch over the adrenaline roaring through my ears. An electric guitar hung from his shoulders, his fingers flying across the fretboard.

Bat was here. Alive on my screen.