Family breakfast By Strega It was a yappy little dog that found the skunk-snake first, curled up in the weeds behind the azaleas. Bug-eyed and nervous, the dog sniffed and growled uncertainly as it found the thigh-thick coil of black and white fur. Beady black eyes opened in the skunk-snake's ferrety face and the dog stayed in one place for an instant too long. The mouth that closed around the dog's face was soft as a gripping hand, loosely joined and wet, but it was lined with dozens of little inward-hooking teeth that dug into the dog's fur and kept it from pulling out. In just a few seconds the broad skunk muzzle worked forward, pushing one side of the upper jaw forward to take a new grip and then the other, and the dog was consumed. It was too confused to do more than whine and kick as the movements of the jaws forced it into the skunk-snake's gullet, and by the time it was truly afraid the muscles were rippling in the strange musteline predator's gullet. The little bulge moved down the thick neck and less than a minute after seeing it the confused canine slipped into the stomach. The little dog scrabbled at the slippery walls and barked, unaware of the slimy digestive fate that awaited it. The lump it made in the thickest part of the ten-plus foot length of skunk-snake body was barely noticeable. A dog the size of a house cat had not required it even to disjoint its jaws and was barely worthy of a burp, but the next thing that happened by was more filling. The skunk-snake was lying peacefully in the weeds, considering whether to slither off to its den and sleep off its small meal, when little hands parted the flowers and a bright little face looked down at it. "Ooo," the girl said, unaware the dog she'd been looking for was squirming in the stomach of the fuzzy skunk-snake she stared at, "Cute! Cute!" Alarmed, the skunk-snake hid its head behind its coils as the little girl, dressed head to toe in pink bunny pajamas, pushed past the flowers and felt its fur. It was not used to humans this small, or this inquisitive. A three year old girl wasn't much bigger than a big raccoon and to her the furry snake-thing resembled nothing more than a fat fuzzy toy. You could buy stuffed snakes as big as the skunk-snake and she'd wanted one, but her mother refused to buy it from the Goodwill. "We don't know where it has been," she'd said reasonably. The skunk-snake shifted its coils to retreat but the little girl gripped at its fur, and as she climbed innocently into the midst of the black and white furry thing the thick curls of body for a moment held her still. A broad skunky muzzle emerged from behind a coil and she looked up just as a pink maw gaped wide. Its confusion had passed as the plump little girl pulled at its fur and though she was small, she was still a human. Other humans had disappeared down its gullet and it saw no reason this one should not as well. Soft wet maw slipped down over the girl's shoulders and stuck, the many inward-hooking teeth digging into her pajamas, and it was the little girl's turn to be confused as the broad snake-skunky jaws began to work their way over her, one side of the mouth pushing forward to take a new grip only to have the opposite echo the movement and take in still more. This time it had to unhinge its jaws, but only barely. It did not take the creature long at all to swallow her. She was small and helpless and those were things a predator seeks out in prey. It did not know or care that it was a child that it ate. It simply worked its jaws forward until little bootied feet slipped into its maw, formed a kink in its neck, and pushed this new, larger lump down the length of its body until the child joined the dog in its stomach. There was a more substantial bulge in its middle now and the skunk-snake stretched where it lay, squeezing its breakfast between strong flank muscles. A bubble of air was just making its way up to be burped out when its third meal of the morning appeared. This time it heard it coming. The skunk-snake shifted its coils, sliding further into the brush at the edge of the yard and peering alertly past the flowers. "Katie? Katie, where are you hiding?" By the time the woman noticed an abandoned teddy bear, whose little owner had no further need of it, the creature was ready. The woman leaned over the azaleas and the skunk-snake struck. Its vision was poor but it aimed at the pale oval above it and connected, its broad jaws engulfing her face and its weight pulling her forward into its coils. The skunk-snake could have used its anesthetizing spray but its supply of that was limited, not to be wasted on easy prey. Instead it threw a heavy loop of its body atop her where she lay and rapidly worked its jaws over her face. Her first scream as small but sharp teeth dug into her scalp was muffled by the soft mouth and in seconds her head disappeared into the gullet of the still-hungry creature. This prey struggled, but under its fur and fat the skunk-snake was one long mass of muscle. It pinned her beneath its bulk and soon its jaws were tight around her shoulders. This was not the first human it had swallowed and it knew how to get past that obstacle. A twist of its head and its nose slid over one and its lower jaw past the other shoulder, its cheeks stretching thin as her upper arms slipped into its mouth. Panicked cries were lost in the dark of the skunk-snake's throat as it worked its jaws further, pinning her arms to her sides with its advancing maw. Without her arms to fend it off the woman could not save herself. It trapped her legs to the ground as it fed, swallowing up her breasts and belly, slowing only slightly as its jaws worked from side to side to slip past her hips. This meal was more substantial than the last two but it had eaten bigger humans. With no special effort it worked its jaws over her hips, and as its throat muscles finally got a grip the kicking legs vanished by inches. Twice the skunk-snake pulled its head toward its body, bending its thick neck into an ess and forcing the woman deeper, only to stretch out its muzzle once again to let knees and then calves slip into its maw. The long bulge in its body wriggled, but its throat had a firm grip even without its mouthful of little inward-pointing teeth. The skunk-snake worked its jaws the last few inches forward, closed them over the kicking feet, and stretched out its muzzle. Once more the bend formed in its neck as it forced its meal downward, and there was something like a purr of satisfaction as the whole length of its long belly finally filled. The bulge in its middle stirred violently as the swallowed woman realized who was in there with her, but the fleshy walls were thick and strong and the slime coating the walls of its stomach offered no purchase where she scratched. The skunk-snake's flanks rippled as it tensed its stomach around its meals, and it paused for a belch before turning its head toward the woods. Soon enough the struggle in its belly would end, and it was time to find a quiet place to digest its meals. It was interrupted by a shout. Beady black eyes turned to see the figure of a man charging across the lawn, hoe in hand and screaming for his wife. The skunk-snake shifted awkwardly, unable to move quickly with a great long bulge in its middle, and its brush of a skunk tail flipped up to expose its anus and the spray glands hidden within. The man ran face first into a cloud of musk and kept coming, and the skunk-snake shifted its coils as rapidly as it could to seek shelter in the undergrowth. Even at its best it would struggle to outrun a walking man and the hundred-plus pounds of meat in its middle made even that pace impossible. It was six feet and one swing of a hoe away from being brained when the man tripped and went sprawling. The weakening spray had taken effect just in time. Groaning, the muscular man pushed at the grass, unable to even lift his own weight. It wasn't paralysis, but a temporary weakening of his muscles as the anesthetic spray soaked into his skin. For a little while he was helpless as the child the skunk-snake had swallowed after the dog. Were it able to talk the skunk-snake could not have told you how long the effect lasted. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. It had never waited long enough to find out and it did not wait now. As the man cursed and swore he looked up at the skunk-snake and found the pink nosepad and broad muzzle inches from his face. He blinked, staring into the intent ink-dark eyes, and his shout of fear was muffled by the jaws that closed over his face. There was a long bulge in the skunk-snake's middle but there could be only one response when a helpless man lay stretched out face-first in front of it. It twisted its muzzle from side to side, ignoring the weak fingers that fumbled at its cheeks as its jaws advanced, and soon enough this largest prey was on its way down its throat. The bulge of a face stood out through black neckfur as it worked its way laboriously over the man's shoulders, and the trampled flowers were crushed again as its meal kicked at them in an effort to escape. But there would be no escape. Its jaws were firmly around the man's upper arms, trapping them to his sides, and inch by inch its advancing jaws forced more of him into the skunk-snake's gullet. When its jaws slipped past his rump and his hands were taken in it was well and truly too late. With no leverage and slippery skin backed by strong muscle pressing in from all sides the man was doomed. The skunk-snake was determined to send him down its throat and that was just where he was going to go. All he could do was kick feebly as the jaws worked their way down his legs. White shorts stained by grass, naked legs, white socks and finally black tennis shoes slipped into the broad muzzle. Only a few minutes after spraying him and fifteen after first seeing the dog, the skunk-snake tensed, bending its neck into a tight ess that it slowly forced down toward its midsection. Panting with effort, it let its muzzle settle to the grass. It was little more than ten feet long if you didn't count its fluffy skunk tail, and the bulge in its middle was two thirds that in length and a couple of feet wide. It had managed to slide the man in next to the woman, helped by the copious amount of mucus that had lubricated one for swallowing and which were making a start at digesting the other, but no amount of squeezing could change the fact that two entire humans who amounted to nearly double its own weight were stretched out in its belly. The dog alone would have been a snack, the child a bit more. One adult human was a satisfying meal. Two, plus their offspring and pet, stretched the pelt thin over a long and lumpy bulge. The skunk-snake belched and squirmed, trying to get its meal settled but unable to quite manage it. Its uncomfortable state of distention would only pass when the digestive process softened its prey. It did not help matters that its two most recent meals were still struggling. Its flanks bulged and twitched and rippled as the desperate couple sought to free themselves from the slick-walled stomach. It would soon weaken, as similar struggles had weakened before, but the jostling in its guts was nauseating. "Kerry? Andrea? What are you two playing at out there?". The skunk-snake blinked past the ruined flowerbed as yet another human approached. The gray-haired woman peered nearsightedly as she stepped forward, seeing a blur of movement, and despite the swollen skunk-snake's best efforts she overtook it as it struggled to slither away. Her foot struck its brush of a tail, which hadn't flipped up fast enough to spray her, and she toppled forward between it and the twitching bulge of swallowed prey. Instinctively it trapped her between the two, and she looked up to find a pink nose, white muzzle-stripe and beady black eyes a foot from her own. It was very, very full already, but it nevertheless loosened its jaws as its muzzle slid forward. There was a human in its grasp, her face inches from its mouth, and there could be only one response to that. ************ MISSOURI DISAPPEARANCES BLAMED ON MAN-EATING MONSTER Knob Noster, MO (AP) - The partially digested bodies of four members of the Carson family were today recovered from a captive monster. Described as a "skunk-snake" (see attached image) the creature was discovered by relatives of the family when they arrived for a family breakfast. It was too gorged to move and was tranquilized by animal control. It subsequently regurgitated its victims along with their dog, according to investigators. It was then learned that it can squirt an anesthetizing spray that will weaken even an adult human to the point where it can feed on them. This is presumably how the family was taken. Despite its relatively small size - once it disgorged the Carsons it weighed less than two hundred pounds - the creature was well on its way to digesting its meal. The family dog, apparently swallowed first and quite small, was reduced to a skeleton after an estimated three hours in its stomach. Snake experts who examined the remains of the family say that it would have entirely digested them in only a week to ten days, which is remarkable given it ate three times its body weight in one sitting. This same creature has been linked to multiple disappearances in Knob Noster State Park, on which the Carson family residence abuts. The skunk-snake's trail was tracked to an underground burrow where were found clothing and belongings from at least a dozen other victims. The homeless camping at the park were the chief victims but credit cards and other identification were found that explain the disappearances of several hikers and joggers. The weakening spray allowed the creature to swallow its prey alive and phone records suggest that at least one victim tried to call for help from inside the creature, only for the person receiving the call to assume the noises at the far end were a crank call. It is currently being kept at the Kansas City Zoo while naturalists determine its origin. No such creature has ever been discovered and its anesthetic spray, plus the ability of a mere ten-foot 'snake' to swallow a man whole, are provoking much interest in the zoological community. Protesters are expected to gather for a third day outside the zoo, most wishing the creature destroyed and a minority insisting the creators of the "'genetically engineered monster" be prosecuted. Seventeen lawsuits are so far on file, blaming organizations as varied as Missouri Parks and Recreation, Project Delta and the Food and Drug Administration for the creature and the casualties it has inflicted. The lone man with the "Feed the lawyers to the monster" sign refused comment.