Norbert 3 By Strega It was alcohol that brought nocturnal visitors to Norbert once more. Alcohol, and youth, and stupidity, and the sort of adolescent mischief that booze fuels. He was stretched out on the concrete next to the biggest of the aquarium pools, the one with the floor to ceiling window into a viewing room one level down, when they arrived. As usual when he received this sort of visit it was the night of a nearly full moon. Like others who had crept in and weren't at once caught, they relied on natural light. His little ears twitched as he slept at the sound of muffled laughter, but he was still stretched out like a tapered blubbery torpedo when the first beer can bounced off his back. Norbert woke with a grunt and lay blinking, sensitive whiskers twitching, until a second can caromed off his head. Norbert craned his head as he heard muffled laughter from above, looking rather like a large inquisitive caterpillar. The cans hadn't actually hurt but they stank of beer and that reminded him of his last two nighttime visitors. One of them had been pleasant company indeed and the big sea lion wondered if she was up there. He did not normally welcome intruders but her he would tolerate, and more than tolerate, if she returned. He inchwormed his way into the corner between the rocks that mimicked a seashore and the curving wall, moving on his belly and propelling himself with front flippers and bent-forward hind ones, until he could crane his neck upward. He sniffed, his abundant whiskers quivering, to see if it was her. He was rewarded by having a metal mesh trash can bounce off his head. Norbert flinched, for though a thick layer of fat covered even his skull and shielded him from injury it still hurt. There was a bellow of laughter from above and two faces, male faces, popped over the guard rail at the top of the concrete wall. "Ha!" Jerome laughed, and winged another empty beer can at the fat sea lion. It bounced harmlessly off Norbert's well-padded back but he let out a grunt of irritation and craned his head upward to glare at the two of them from beady eyes. "You pissed him off, man," Raul said, and pulled another beer out of the backpack on the ground between them. "I'd piss -on- him if I hadn't just taken a leak," said his tall, thin friend. "These cans aren't hurting him, find something heavier." But there was only the bottle of gin, and it was still half full. Between the two of them they chugged that and Raul flung the empty at Norbert's head. It whizzed past the sea lion's cheek and bounced high in the air off his back, skipping off a rock miraculously unbroken and disappearing with a splash into the big aquarium. The sea lion showed his fangs. "Hah, hah, he's pissed! Hey, look." Jerome pointed over the safety railing. "There's another bottle in that crack. I wanna throw that at 'im. Hold my belt, man." "Hey, Jer, I dunno-" worried Raul as Jerome climbed over the safety rail, but alcohol has a way of making remarkably stupid actions seem the height of cleverness and he gripped the back of his friend's belt as Jerome leaned over to fish for the bottle. Some previous visitor too lazy to walk to the nearest trash can must have wedged it into that gap in the concrete facade. Cigarette butts floating in the half-full bottle showed it had been used as an illicit ashtray. Norbert, whose patience for intruders was short and who had every reason to like these two even less than usual, shuffled sideways until he was directly beneath the precariously balanced man. He stared upward bright-eyed in the exact manner of a spoiled pet waiting for a gobbet of food to be dropped, intentionally or otherwise, into its mouth. And sure enough, drink-addled fingers slipped as Jerome leaned over still further. "Shit!" Raul fell back on his ass and sat there for a moment, sore and dizzy. Then his eyes went wide as he realized what had happened and he scrambled back to the rail. There was no sign of his friend, just the sea lion shuffling back toward its fake beach. "Jerome? You okay, man?" Raul peered through the moonlight, trying to spot his friend. Was that Jerome stretched out among the rocks, or was that just a shadow? Jerome himself couldn't quite make out what had happened. He had slipped as he reached for the bottle, tumbled headfirst toward the sea lion below. There had been a flash of motion as Norbert reared up toward him, a wet thump, and now all was slimy darkness and heat and pressure. It had been all too easy for Norbert. He had simply stood up with his flippers against the wall and yawned as the tall, thin man fell, and with an impact he felt all the way to his tail the man disappeared into his maw. The force of the fall had driven Jerome to the ankles in his throat, and it had only taken one heavy gulp to send this annoyance sliding into his stomach. He had never eaten a man so quickly or so easily, or one still so full of energy. Usually they were exhausted and short of air by the time he finished swallowing them. This one was wriggly. Jerome was confused. A second before he'd been hanging from the rail grabbing at the stray battle and now he was stretched out in a sweltering rubbery pocket in utter darkness. The hot, slippery walls pressed in from all sides, squeezing him almost into immobility despite his struggles. When he got his hands against them in front of his chest and managed to push it away an inch or two it just sagged back against him. There was little to breathe and as the thick, flowing juices soaked through his clothes it stung his skin. Where was he? What had happened? His panic gave him strength and Norbert's long body bulged as his meal fought to escape. The sea lion's body was strange in ways that would make most zoologists shake their heads. No normal sea lion could gulp down an entire man and his stomach, rather than being large enough to accommodate a salmon or three, stretched almost the length of his torpedo body. An entire man lay stretched out whole in there and only his meal's persistent wriggling caused him any discomfort at all. Fortunately for the sea lion, Jerome was too drunk and confused to think of his pocket knife. Norbert let out a grunt that sounded a lot like a burp, or vice versa, but the frightened man atop the wall noticed neither that nor the struggle making the sea lion's flanks twitch. Norbert leaned down to suck in a drink of water, rather less happy about this meal than he was with most such. The struggle was diminishing as the weight of flesh pushing in against Jerome tired the man out but the internal movements were making the sea lion slightly queasy. Eventually they always stopped, but that didn't make him feel any better at the moment. Raul was in a panic. He thought he saw Jerome in the rocks but couldn't be sure. He considered running for the security guard they'd seen making his rounds but being caught breaking into the sea life center might get them expelled from the college. With Norbert stretched out next to the water and the rocks a not impossible distance below he did his third stupid thing of the evening and climbed over the rail. The sea lion let out a groan as his meal finally started to settle. Jerome was still wriggling in his slimy digestive tomb but there wasn't much fight left in him. Norbert didn't at first notice that the second man had lowered himself onto the rocks, but that changed when Raul tripped and skinned his knee. A burst of profanity made Norbert swing his head around but he lay there blinking, full and less annoyed than before, as the second man poked around the rocks. Raul was worried about several things. For one thing, the drop onto the rocks had been longer than he thought. He'd managed to not kill himself but it wasn't going to be easy to climb back out. It might not even be possible without Jerome helping. Worse, he couldn't find his friend. He'd been sure he saw Jerome stretched out in the rocks but there was nothing there but moss and the beer cans from earlier. Where the hell had Jerome gotten to? It was like he just disappeared! Then the sea lion belched and for the first time, Raul took a close look at the beast. With only the moon and reflected light from a walkway light a hundred feet away the blubbery beast was just a long smooth hump of meat...except for the bulges in its flanks that hadn't been there before. Raul's eyes went wide as one of the bulges moved, and he realized what had happened. The sea lion had swallowed Jerome whole! "Jesus, man," Raul muttered. "I didn't know they did that. What do I do?" He looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing. He didn't even have his phone to call for help, it was charging in the car. He couldn't just leave Jerome in there! He looked at the lofty concrete wall. If he jumped from the top of the rocks he might be able to climb out. Or he might split his head open. Norbert grunted and Raul realized that by the time he got back with help, it would be too late. Jerome was still alive but that couldn't last much longer. His friend would have suffocated, and worse, the guard might not believe him. If he ended up in jail the sea lion would have all the time it needed to digest his friend. Five minutes before he'd slugged down a quarter bottle of gin and it wasn't helping his reasoning ability. Under other circumstances he wouldn't run up to a thousand-plus pound sea lion and kick it in the ribs. Norbert grunted as the foot sank into his side, the blow largely absorbed by thick hide, fat and muscle. It surprised more than it hurt and there was even an inner support to help blunt the blow. In the long slimy pocket of his stomach Jerome jerked as something slammed into his side. All Norbert wanted was to sleep off his meal but as he shuffled toward the pool and escape the annoying short man danced around in front of him and punched him in the nose. That actually hurt! He snapped halfheartedly at his tormentor, full and slow, and got another kick to the chest for his efforts. "Cough him up, damn you," growled Raul, and kicked the sea lion again. It was like trying to punch a hole in a heavy boxing bag, almost impossible to do any real damage through all the fat and muscle. In the sloshing, tight-pressed confines of Norbert's stomach Jerome whimpered and kicked. The sea lion was practically bouncing around and half of the force of the blows was telegraphed through the flesh and into his much weaker body. Jerome let out an agonized grunt as the sea lion lunged forward. Raul skipped backward to avoid the snap but the booze wasn't helping his coordination and his heel caught on the rim around the big aquarium. With a startled shout he went over backwards into the water. He was only under for an instant before popping up again and as his face broke through the water Norbert reached down with wide-open jaws and neatly swallowed his head. Norbert was not a biter. He could have crunched down full force and sunk his fangs into Raul's flesh, or snapped the man's neck with a shake. Instead he tugged Raul upward and when the momentum had the man surging up out of the water too fast to stop himself the sea lion yawned again and engulfed him past the shoulders. Norbert was not a biter. He was a swallower. The sudden pain of the jaws wrapped around his face was replaced for an instant by a flash of water and moonlight only for the sea lion's maw to dart downward once more, and Raul went wide-eyed in shock as slick soft throat expanded over his face. He was yanked upward once more and the snap-and gulp was repeated, taking him to the elbows. Muscles beneath the soft slimy throatskin gripped down and Raul let out a muffled shriek as a powerful contraction in the walls of Norbert's throat pushed him still deeper. All too tardily he tried to push the sea lion away, but the strong jaws wrapped around his chest trapped his arms to his sides. All he could do was thrash the water with kicks as Norbert dragged him out of the pool. His knee struck the edge with a stunningly painful blow and it added to the deep fang-scrapes on his shoulders and upper body. He was scratched and oozing blood in a dozen spots but they were all superficial wounds, nothing compared to what would happen if the sea lion managed to swallow him down. Still half outside the fanged jaws Raul thrust one leg against the concrete for leverage, heedless of the pain of rough stone on scraped flesh, and bent his other heel back hard to kick Norbert in the head. The thick layer of fat over his skull protected the sea lion once again. Raul's heel bounced off Norbert's head as though he'd kicked a rubber ball. It didn't stop the sea lion from pulling Raul's wet legs out of the water and ramming his already bruised knees against the concrete. Norbert had until recently never swallowed a man on dry land, and that by hefting them into the air and letting gravity help them into his throat, but he was a clever beast. He jammed Raul's knees hard against the stone and pushed his muzzle down after them, leaving Raul's thighs nowhere to go but into his gullet. Bruised and battered Raul slid deeper, squeezing his way through the sea lion's rubbery neck and into the broader body. The slimy gullet offered little resistance as he slid deeper, but it took force to expand the thick blubbery walls between him and the outside air. Norbert provided that force without hesitation and Raul's face pushed through a tight muscular ring and promptly bumped into a set of mucus-covered shoes. One of them kicked him in the cheek as Norbert lifted his muzzle and swallowed, gulping Raul in to the ankles. There was no escape now. Thick walls of muscle and fat surrounded the long slippery void of the sea lion's throat and stomach. Even if he'd had a knife, there was just too much to cut through before the heat and the sheer weight of all the meat pressing in exhausted him. His face was pressed against Jerome's calves now and his friend stirred, kicking him once again in the face. Raul absorbed the blow without complaint despite the pain. He was bruised and battered from head to toe and a little more pain was nothing in the face of his slimy digestive fate. Toes slipped into each corner of Norbert's mouth as he lifted his head. Swallowing a man down into an already full belly was tiring and he felt a new tightness down below. He'd never eaten two humans in one meal before but he clamped his jaws down around Raul's feet, tensed, and swallowed. In moments the bulge slipped from his cheeks down into his thick neck, where it stopped. It took a second heavy gulp and another stretch of his neck to force that last bit into his already swollen belly. Two bodies bumped roughly into one another but his throat gave the second an authoritative shove and in Raul went to join his friend. Norbert groaned, almost unpleasantly full, and squirmed where lay, trying to get his midnight snacks arranged for easiest digestion. The first was wriggling again and the second was kicking too, and he burped and stretched out on his side to give the heavy bulge room to spread out. Even his thick hide was stretched around a double meal of human. "Raul? Is that you?" Weak and uncertain and still stinking of booze came Jerome's voice. The last contraction of the sea lion's throat had squeezed Raul into the long stomach, and he lay pressed up against his friend. He was coated with saliva that had lubricated him for swallowing but Jerome was layered with thick, clinging fluid from the walls of the stomach. Raul could smell the bile and knew that digestion had already begun. Jerome had started in on it a little before he did but they were both bound for the same trip through the sea lion's guts. "It's me, man," Raul said, pressed tight against his fellow victim, and with arms forced to wrap around Jerome by the inward-pressing walls he patted his friend's back. "It got me too. I tried to get you out and it got me." "What got you? What happened to me, Raul?" Jerome was drunk, starved of air, overcome with heat from the sweltering sea lion gut and exhausted. He couldn't stay awake much longer and Raul knew he would be right behind on the path to oblivion. "Norbert, man," Raul mumbled. "You fell in and I guess he just swallowed you in one gulp. I went into his pen looking for you and here I am." The thick, caustic fluids in the stomach were stinging his skin now, and his many scrapes burned as acid ate at them. Jerome's skin had an unnatural slippery feel as the enzymes began their work. They were jostled as the sea lion moved, forced to bend as it shuffled about on its flippers. Norbert wasn't quite ready to lie down and sleep off his meal but it was coming. Raul had already tried pushing against the thick walls but the chance for escape had come and gone. Their plan to sneak into the sea life center and bother the animals had ended with one very well fed and no longer annoyed sea lion. The belly twitched as Norbert burped, and as much of the air fled there was nothing to do but succumb to the inevitable. "Hey Norbert," said the security guard from the walkway above. "You okay down there? I heard a commotion over this way." He watched as the fat sea lion shuffled around to peer up at him bright-eyed. Norbert was a big, whiskery thing, big enough to be very dangerous if he wanted, but everyone knew he was a softy. Still, there were the "No swimming with Norbert" signs. Softy or not, it was best not to take chances. The big sea lion twitched, coughed, and let out a belch of heroic length and volume before laying his head down again. He looked uncomfortable and yet somehow smug and the security guard shook his head. "You should watch what you eat, whiskers. Seems like something disagreed with you." With only moonlight to see by the long bulge in Norbert's belly was not obvious but as regulation required the guard made a note in the log about the sounds he thought he'd heard. Then he noticed the backpack. “Huh.” He directed his flashlight into the open top, saw all the beer, and tilted his head. He looked around, looked down at Norbert snoozing away, looked once more at the backpack, and shrugged. Beer was beer, and what the sea life center staff didn't know wouldn't hurt them. "Oh, goodness," Kathy said, for her male counterpart Bob had summoned her the instant he got his first look at Norbert the next morning. To their trained eyes there was no missing the great long bulge that broadened the sea lion's torpedo profile. Without a doubt Norbert had eaten heavily, and recently. "Cans down in the rocks," Bob said. "And a whole trashbin. There's a note in the watchman's log about hearing something." “Screams?” “No, just splashing, he said. He must have gotten here just when it all ended.” "Well, call the vet," Kathy said, and fifteen minutes later, after luring Norbert, who was as always perfectly friendly and compliant, into the vet's office with squid-meat treats they were looking at X-rays. "Two of them!" There were two new sets of bone shadows on the screen, both stretched out in Norbert's long belly and pressed against one another. The shadows of flesh were largely gone and the whiter bones were tangled together, showing that digestion was well advanced. Some of the smaller bones, such as the finger- and toe bones, had the transparent look that showed they were on their way to crumbling. Fish or mammal, Norbert's stomach knew what to do with prey. There were bright white objects mixed in with the bones. Car keys, complete with a half digested key fob and ring. A few bright circles that must be coins. And – "Is that a knife?" "Folding pocket knife," the vet said. "Still folded. These two," he gestured at the screen, "Were swallowed headfirst and whole at close to the same time. There's no obvious difference in the degree of digestion. Notice that the heads and upper bodies are more dissolved than the lower. Norbert's like a snake that way, the back end of his stomach is more caustic than the front." "What about the knife?" It was too late to worry about the men, whoever they were. Kathy had to consider Norbert's well being. The big sea lion was stretched out not ten feet away, his long body rather wider and taller than usual in the middle. Even for an eleven hundred pound sea lion, two entire humans made quite a bulge. He must have digested and excreted a lot of the flesh by now, but the bones and harder to digest parts remained. Soon even they would be gone, the men rendered into sea lion fat and more waste. "It is already in his upper intestine. I suspect it will make its way through without incident, along with the clothes he doesn't cough up. Norbert...well, he's handled this sort of thing before," the vet said. "If you eat people whole, your digestive system adapts to,let's say, large quantities of output." Kathy sighed. "We really need to get those security cameras installed. That's three this year." "Maybe four," Bob said. "Remember those shoes and cell phone we found last month." "More college students," the vet said with certainty. "They sneak in here on bets or just to mess with the animals." "And this happens," Kathy said, looking from the fat and friendly sea lion to the X-rays of half digested men. "Bad Norbert." The sea lion just tilted his head at her. "Remember the cans and the trash bin," Bob said. "They were throwing stuff at him. I'd be mad too." "Well, Norbert showed them why that's a bad idea," Kathy said, and stepped over to pat the sea lion's head. He sniffed at her wrist, whiskers tickling. Big and friendly and harmless was Norbert, unless you got him mad. If you did, well, her meetings with Norbert always ended with a friendly grunt and even, recently, an affectionate lick on her wrist. For others, it seemed, the meetings ended with a belch.