The campground of last resort

By Strega

"How did it happen," the park ranger said.  "It's always the first question we get asked, so I thought I'd start with that."

The dozen people around the campfire collectively nodded.  "And," one said.
"...Why do we let it go on," the ranger finished. "Also a good question.  So I'll answer both."

The other ranger pushed a control on her laptop and a small projector came on. The tripod-mounted screen lit up with images of an otter, a black bear and a mountain lion.  Stick figure people gave a sense of scale, showing that all three animals were larger than humans, though only the otters were unexpectedly large for their kind.  The ranger touched the otter with his pointer.

"As near as we can work out, about two years ago one of the giant otters living in Lake Wahachi became predatory," he said.  "But not the way you'd expect. These otters are easily capable of overpowering a human, especially in the water, but historically this almost never happens. After a series of disappearances, though, and the establishment of cameras, we discovered what was going on."

The female ranger touched her laptop again and the animal images were replaced by a grainy night-vision video. It took a moment for everyone to realize that the dark log in the middle of the screen was in fact an otter lying on grass, perfectly still and mouth wide open.  Most of them knew what was going to happen next but there were still gasps as a man staggered into view, bumped into the otter and proceeded to climb feet first into its jaws.

It took only about a minute of screen time for the man to slide himself chin-deep into the otter, at which point the whiskery muzzle closed and it visibly swallowed. When the bulge that used to be a man had settled in its long body the otter rolled over onto its webby paws and waddled away.

"Somehow this otter realized that people would occasionally mistake it for a sleeping bag, mostly when very drunk, and climb right in," the ranger said. "Needless to say, cute as they are the inside of an otter is not a hospitable place.  One this size can completely digest a man or woman in less than a day."

There was whispered conversation around the campfire and the ranger let it die out before continuing.  "The plan was to trap the otter, but someone leaked the videos and there was a public protest. It turned out there are people anxious to make use of the otter's, well, services.  Volunteers.  So the campground the otter frequents was set aside for their use."

The animal images returned to the screen.  "Since then, the otter has taught a smaller one, possibly its child, about the campground, and a black bear and mountain lion have either been taught or learned by watching.  A few times a week we escort someone to the campground, find an animal waiting hopefully for a meal, and," the ranger shrugs. "It gets one. This has kept the peace around the lake since we started the program. The rest of the lake and the other campgrounds remain safe for human use but anyone who goes to this one and gives the animals any sign that they are interested, or even falls asleep there, ends up as a meal."

Several quick videos played in succession. A man sticking his head in the bear's jaws, and the same bear bolting down a set of legs protruding from its maw. A mountain lion playfully licking a woman's hair before yawning and swallowing her to the shoulders in one gulp. And two otters, a smaller one with a sandaled foot protruding from each corner of its mouth and the larger engulfing a young man and woman feetfirst as they made love.

"The campground is well marked. Avoid this area and you can camp and boat all you like in safety. Go there and set up a tent and you will probably wake up with your face in an otter's jaws, or in another animal's. The rest of you will follow it in and we'll have paperwork to do.  So don't go there."

The little gathering broke up and the male ranger began disassembling the screen as the female packed up the projector and laptop. Josh stayed behind as the other campers wandered off.

"Josh Devlin," he said as he approached the rangers.

"Ah, Mr. Devlin," the male ranger said. 'Landis', his name tag read.  The female ranger was 'Gonzalez'.  "All your paperwork is in order.  If you'll accompany me to our cabin we'll fill out the last of it and we can be on our way."

The ranger's cabin was only a few paces away. Josh was surprised when there turned out to be a small but very curious dog that sniffed him all over at the same time the female ranger ran a plastic wand over his clothes.

"Not everyone likes the 'suicide by animal' idea," the male ranger explained.  "A few months back some protesters tried to leave poison bait at the campground. Luckily we caught them in time."

"What happened to them?" Josh was pretty sure he knew the answer already.

"Otter chow," the ranger said.  "Both the otters were there and the little one swallowed the woman while the big one got the guy. Tie someone up and leave them there, the animals think that means 'Volunteer'. Half an hour after we dropped them off they had new otter-fur coats of their very own. Good quality fur, otter, but this is the type that digests you."

Josh signed a last bit of paperwork - emphasis on the 'last', because unless he changed his mind he'd never pick up a pen again - and followed the rangers back out of the cabin.

"You don't have to answer, some do, some don't," said Gonzalez, "But why?"

"Leukemia," Josh said.  "This is my third bout of it and statistically I have about a ten percent chance of survival.  Plus, I like watching The Run.  I know it's sick, but the idea of being swallowed by an animal turns me on. I'd rather die in some critter's stomach and at least be food than spend a year in chemo and die anyway."

"A lot of our volunteers like the Run," Landis said, referring to a pay-per-view show where condemned criminals try to avoid various hungry predators to earn a pardon.  "But they don't want to be chased down.  They like the idea of a gentle predator. They're still going to die, but at least it seems like it's by choice. Mind you, if one of these animals has you partly swallowed  and you change your mind it's probably too late. Odds are you're going in whether you like it or not at that point."

"You should have hit Catawissa campground and talked to Smokey," Gonzales said.

"I did.  He said he doesn't want to get in the habit of  eating people who haven't done anything and I didn't want to mess up his campground to get him to. That raccoon ranger said he would but that I'm too big for him to get down."

"Rick's only eaten a couple of people," the female ranger said. "He's five feet tall.  You have to be pretty small for him to manage you. The last one was a woman who tried to rob the ranger cabin there.  I saw him afterward, his belly was as big as he was."

"'Saw him afterward' is a euphemism for 'Rick's as cute as a button and she's sweet on him'," Landis said.

"Well, he is," Gonzalez said defensively.  "But everyone else thinks so too and he sleeps with twenty or so women a year.  I just like him, not like-like him. Anyway, he's not like that badger they have up in Oregon. That thing swallows people four times its size."

"I'll tell Smokey what you said," said Landis.  "I'm sure he'll appreciate your consideration.  If you want I can try him now.  Maybe he'll change his mind about eating you."

"No, I'm already here," Josh said.  "Might as well support the local ecosystem." He smiled.

They'd walked for perhaps a quarter mile through moonlit meadows when they came to a sign. DANGEROUS WILDLIFE, it read. NO ACCESS WITHOUT RANGER ESCORT.

"There's still time to turn back if you like," Landis said.  "No one needs to know you were even here."

"That's all right," Josh said.  "I've got my affairs in order.  I'm happy to go tonight."

A hundred yards further on they passed through some trees and scattered campsites came into view. The ring road connecting them was cracked, weeds sprouting out of the asphalt. Naturally there was little need to maintain it when only rangers, various animals and animal food on two legs used it.

There was a sturdy but bedraggled hammock strung between two trees at a campsite and a padded mushroom chair with a rattan frame at another, among other furnishings.  "Donated for the animals, mostly by 'volunteers' ," Gonzales said. A ball of black fur in the chair uncoiled to reveal a brown muzzle and alert,  beady animal eyes. 

The black bear emerged from the chair and padded closer.  It recognized the rangers but not Josh, and it sat down in front of him, its muzzle level with its sternum, and licked its chops.  When he reached out to stroke its snout it eagerly opened its jaws, anticipating a meal.

"Last chance to change your mind," Landis said, but as Josh's hand sank into the bears thick, salivating tongue he found he had no urge to retreat.  The short trek here had worn him out and it was just the last of many bad days.  He'd been through chemo twice now and it was a relief to know he didn't have to again, even if it meant dying.

The powerfully muscular tongue curled around his wrist and pulled, and Joan smiled as his hand slipped into the smooth wet chute of the bear's throat.  It swallowed and his forearm followed his fingers past the fangs. Already its gullet had a tight, sucking grip on his arm but he might be able to pull out if he leaned back and yanked with all his might.  Instead he leaned forward and let the bear swallow his entire arm, willingly putting his head into the thing's gaping jaws.

"Thanks for your time," he said to the rangers, and then his head was just a bulge sliding down through the bear's black neckfur.

Wet slick throat slid over and around his face, thickly coating it with saliva that lubricated him for easy swallowing.  The hungry bear wasted no time, pushing its muzzle forward and easily engulfing his neck. A strong paw reached out to wrap around his chest and the bear was working its jaws over his shoulders. With a series of pops its muzzle gaped and stretched until its rubbery lips slipped down over his upper arms, and the paw never left its place on his back, tugging him forward. The bear had accepted him as its meal and no amount of struggle would get it to let go.  It wouldn't stop until it had swallowed him whole. 

If he stayed leaned forward it would step toward him and yawn, if he sat it would grasp him with both forepaws and stuff him in. Barring the rangers helping this could only end with a burp and  that was exactly how Josh wanted it to end. He dug his sneakers into the loamy soil of the campsite and pushed himself deeper, wriggling past the elastic and sharp-toothed gape of its maw and into the wet accommodating muscle of its gullet.  

As its lips reached his elbows it swallowed again and a great rolling contraction of its throat muscles gripped him like a soft hand and pushed him deeper.  Josh's face emerged into a loose space that thank of bile and as the wet folds of flesh expanded to make room for his neck and shoulders he knew it was the bear's stomach. This was where he would be digested.  He went in as a man but very soon, as far as the bear's body was concerned, he would just be another meal to process.

That was fine. With a last shove Josh managed to get himself to the waist in its jaws and the bear paused in its feeding as the rangers pulled off his shorts, underwear, and as they stripped those down his legs, his socks and sneakers as well. There was no need to trouble the bear's digestive tract with anything like that. They hadn't said anything about his T-shirt; he supposed that meant that the fabric and its Megadeth: World Tour logo would make its way through the bear's guts with no difficulty.  It would emerge much the same as when it went in, unlike the rest of him.

The last shoe popped off his foot and the bear's muzzle lurched upward. He'd seen this on the tape, the bear beginning to bolt down its meal, and knew that it could easily swallow his legs with just a few tosses of its head. Wet flesh slipped and slithered over his hips as his rump was swallowed and it was with no great surprise that he realized his cock was as stiff as an iron bar. In the moment before his hands were sucked into the gullet he grabbed it and slid it along the bear's meaty tongue into its throat. His feet lifted off the ground as the bear began to gulp him down but Josh still thrust, forcing his cock along the slippery walls as it and he began the last slide down its throat.

From the moment he put his hand on its tongue to the point where it had him swallowed to the knees was barely a minute, Josh calculated. Another toss of its muzzle and his heels slid along the bear's upper fangs, its rubbery lips wrapping around his insteps. Josh groaned and humped against the slippery bear-flesh, his upper body already forced to curl up in the stomach but his legs and abdomen stretched out in its throat.

Nothing could save him now.  Nor did he want to be saved.  Josh thrust against slick flesh, shuddered, and came, perhaps ten calories of semen adding nothing at all to the bear's massive meal.  It would have digested his cum regardless of whether it was still in his balls, after all.  Instead it dripped thickly down the walls of its throat and was carried along as the bear got its jaws tight around his toes and swallowed.

Throat muscles flexed and pushed, squeezing his rump into the bear's stomach, and Josh let himself slither down its throat and curl up without resistance. Fur and muscle stretched and creaked as the bear's fat belly became very much fatter over just a few seconds. The squeeze of stretching muscle pushed him into a tight fetal ball and there was already what must be at least a pint of stinging digestive juices starting to work on his naked body. All he could hear now was the bear's strong pulse and the warm gurgle as its stomach started to work.  It was with no reluctance at all that Josh exhaled, and the air from his lungs left with the rest when the bear let out a lengthy, satiated belch.

"No," Gonzalez said firmly to the smaller of the huge otters that had appeared.  It had gobbled up her hand as she watched the bear have its meal and through it wasn't much larger than she was she felt the grip of its throat muscles and knew it was perfectly capable of swallowing her whole.

It blinked innocently at her, hoping she would let it eat her, until the larger otter let out a chirp of annoyance and bit down on its scruff. The tight grip of fangs forced it to open its jaws and she pulled her wet hand back out, wiping the saliva off on her pants leg.

That was that as far as the otters getting a meal tonight and they knew it. Each lifted its low-slung body so she could scratch one behind the ears and Landis the other.

"Sorry, guys," Landis said, and all four watched as the fat bear climbed back into the mushroom chair and settled down to digest its meal.  "Maybe next time."