Blind Date (Short story)

A  Short story by TeAnne 1995 © (Edited 2014)

(5 minute fiction.)

IN a cold, dark and mysterious moonless night, the rain fell in large droplets amid the eerie fog which crept slowly over the land from the turbulent ocean.
Christine huddled shivering, covered by a leafy shrub she had managed to crawl under in the darkness. Though she told herself, she must keep moving.

She stumbled and crawled her way through the soggy ground and saturated leaves to a protruding object obstructing her path. She asertained to be an abandoned car, which had been left for sometime in the bush. 
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 flame shimmering over their backs as she glided the light around. Her body gave an involuntary shiver. "I don't like spiders" she spoke in a whisper.
Protection from the rain in there was out of the question, so she stumbled her way deeper into the overgrown bush, not knowing which direction the road was in.

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. Her only light source was the gas cigarette lighter she had found in the car. Not a star in the sky nor the moon to give her comfort.  
Her own car, broken down approximately forty kilometers back up the road, she then wondered what had possessed her to leave the comfort and warmth of her vehicle. But the weather had been fine when she broke down.  
She set off again this time in the direction of the road. She told herself she would have to hitch a ride into Geraldton. After what felt like hours, Christine's fingers touched the bitumen texture of the road and she felt re-assured.
"Now, if only a car would come along" she though.
With luck on her side a car suddenly and silently sidled up beside her, 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 silent vehicle.
The man turned and faced her with his wide smile. Christine sat stunned for a full ten seconds with mouth agape and eyes wide. 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.

Then the rain suddenly ceased and from a near-by bush she heard an indescribable noise. Nothing she had ever heard before. 
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 horrifying 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 could hear a car way off in the distance, so she knew it couldn't have been Mr. No Eyes returning or was it? He had vanished as quickly as he had appeared. Maybe it was finally someone who could help her.

Christine looked beyond the tall trees and noticed that the fog and the sky were beginning to clear. Some low lying fog remained, if not for that bit of fog, she would have been able to see the low branch to the right of her head, as she dashed away from her protecting tree. Turning suddenly, banging her head, she experienced little bright yellow stars dancing before her eyes. Then, 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 her semi-coma. 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 Dracula!!.... Her once loving pet cat, whom had been missing for ten years. As Christine's life slowly ebbed away, she was hypnotized by something about the cat's eyes.
Something................ Human?