BLIND DATE

A Short story by Terri A Hateley 1995 ©

(5 minute fiction.)

THE NIGHT was cold, dark and mysterious. The rain fell in droplets amid the eerie fog which crept slowly over the land from the turbulent ocean. Christine huddled under the shortest leafy tree her eyes had focused on in the darkness. Her only light source was a gas cigarette lighter she had found in the car, which had been abandoned for sometime in the bush. It felt old in her trembling fingers. Her own car, broken down approximately forty kilometers back up the road. She had planned to hitch a ride into Geraldton. With luck on her side a car sidled up beside her and a man opened the passenger door for her to slip soggily into the vacant seat. The driver was silent as she babbled on about her car and the miserable weather. Once her eyes had conditioned themselves to the semi-darkness and the light from the dash board she was able to focus her gaze on the good Samaritan behind the wheel of the slow moving vehicle. Christine sat stunned for a full ten seconds with mouth agape and eyes wide, for she could not believe what she was seeing. Her charitable saviour had no eyes. He was driving blind!!!!!!! With a blood curdling scream she managed to fumble with the door handle and hurl herself out onto the road, where she tumbled, bounced and scraped herself to safety into the overgrown bush-land beside the road.

She stumbled her way through the soggy ground and saturated leaves to a protruding object obstructing her path, which was the abandoned car. She opened the door which creaked with the movement. Christine felt her way around the interior until she found the glove compartment which was open. Feeling gingerly with short quick taps, she touched on the lighter, and to her surprise it worked, on the first flick. She noticed that the car was full of cobwebs and red-back spiders, the glow from the lighter shimmering over their backs as she glided the light around. Her body gave an involuntary shiver. Protection from the rain in there was out of the question, so she stumbled her way deeper into the overgrown bush.

How she wished she had never agreed to drive up from Perth alone to meet a blind date. How stupid she felt. She could have been tucked up in bed with a good horror story, not living in one. A thousand "what ifs" crowded her muddled mind as she relentlessly slumped under the shrubby tree. Then the rain suddenly ceased and from a near-by bush she heard an indescribable noise, nothing she could describe. Christine's heart began to hammer harder in her chest where she placed her hand as if to repel it from expulsion from her very being. Her breathing rasped in and out in quick short bursts and her eyes felt as large as twenty cent pieces.

The rustling in the bushes and the indescribable noise grew louder as it moved in closer to her location where she felt like live bait! For what ever it was, was heading in her direction fast. She had heard the car way off in the distance, so she knew it couldn't have been Mr. No Eyes returning. Christine looked beyond the tall trees and noticed that the fog and the sky was beginning to clear, if not for the low-lying fog, she would have been able to see the low branch to the right of her head, as she dashed away from the protecting tree. Turning suddenly, she experienced the sight of bright little yellow stars before her eyes for twenty seconds, until the noise brought her back to reality. Somehow, it now sounded like distorted purring.

All of a sudden she felt a hot sensation on the nape of her neck and an eerie coldness enfolded her. The stench of the hot substance was overpowering and it sent her reeling into unconsciousness. A slurping, sucking sensation with excruciating pain aroused her from the semi-coma she was withdrawing from. The sight of what she was confronted with, was the horror of all horrors!!!!

Christine, poor, poor Christine was undoubtedly being devoured alive!!! By nothing less than Dracular!!.... Her once loving pet cat, whom had been missing for ten years and as her life slowly ebbed away, she was besotted with something about the cat's eyes.

Something................ Human?

Terri A. Hateley
1995