Even weird kids have friends

By Strega

"Hey, its that weird kid," Randy said.

"Get him!" Johnny said instantly, and the two teenagers took off after the smaller kid, who had darted into the woods the second he saw them.

His name was Bill, or Will, or something like that. Will Jenkins?  Everyone at the little school just called him The Weird Kid.  He lived in a house that was little more than a shack on a dirt road outside of town, and his mother cleaned houses for a living.  In a town this small that didn't bring in much money and The Weird Kid always showed up at school in ragged clothing a size too large or too small for him. 

He had tried to make friends at first but children are mean and cliquish and the fact that on several occasions he was seen playing with the local wildlife, from squirrels to raccoons and even one time a deer, didn't help any. The local boys routinely chased him, took his lunch or beat him up.

Like anyone would in this situation he avoided them, sneaking to and from school and disappearing into the woods as soon as he saw one of the bullies. That was just what he did this time but Randy and Johnny sprinted after him.  They were each a head taller, longer legged and faster and there was no doubt they could catch the Weird Kid.

But The Weird Kid dashed toward a rock outcropping and disappeared into a cave. Randy skidded to a stop just shy of the entrance, not wanting to get ambushed, even by someone a foot shorter. Johnny stopped as well, but only for a moment.  

"Hey, I know this place," he said.  "It's a cave that's a natural slide.  Used to come here in the summer and play.  Get in there, he's gotta be out the far end already!"

"You sure," Randy said uncertainly, and Johnny gave him an impatient shove.  Randy stumbled and went headfirst into the cave, and sure enough he vanished as though he'd dived headfirst down a slide.

Though he's shoved his friend in without the least hesitation Johnny wasn't about to take chances with his own skin.  "How's it look," he shouted.

"It's fine," came a hollow voice out of the cave, and Johnny shrugged and dived in. It was only as he slid down the water-slick chute that he had a sudden misgiving. Hadn't that been kind of high pitched for Randy?

Too late to worry about that now. Johnny slipped down the dark smooth tunnel, knowing that at any second he should see daylight ahead. Instead he saw a glimmer of light illuminating pink flesh and sharp fangs in the instant before he slid headfirst into the bear's maw.

There was a wet thump as his momentum sent him past the wide-gaped jaws and deep into saliva-slick throat. Thick flesh pressed tightly in from all sides as the bear's gullet stretched to let him in but the force of his downward slide kept him going even as the beast's fangs scraped painfully over his back and ass.

There was a jabbing pain as a fang stabbed into his thigh but he was already halfway into the beast's throat by the time the momentum of his slide was exhausted and the bear grunted as it heaved its muzzle upward.  A powerful gulp sent waves of muscular action rolling over Johnny, gripping him as though in a soft strong fist and squeezing him still deeper. The bear's back teeth gripped down around the toes of Johnny's shoes, it swallowed again, and just like that he was sliding helplessly down its throat, carried along by a moving contraction in its gullet.  A last bulge of toes moved beneath the bear's neck fur and with that Johnny was gone, swallowed whole in seconds and on a slick downward slide that did not stop until he was expelled from the throat into the fleshy hell of the bear's stomach.  

Where he was not alone. As he was squeezed into the belly his cheek bumped into wet fabric and skin.  Someone else was in here, someone as slicked down with saliva for swallowing as he was. A powerful ursine pulse throbbed through Johnny as he tried to get his bearings. With thick walls of muscle pressing in against him he had no choice but to curl up with the other hapless occupant of the stomach.

"What is going on," said a weak voice, and Johnny realized the other occupant of the belly was Randy. His friend shifted, sliding along the slippery stomach wall until they were face to face, but that was about all he could manage. The tiniest bit of light made it through the distended belly walls and he could just make out Randy's bright red hair, stuck tight to his head now by a thick coating of slime. The walls were coated with the stuff and it rendered them almost frictionless.  It was impossible to get a grip to struggle, even if struggle would help when there was four-plus inches of bear between them and freedom.

"We were eaten by a bear," Johnny said, and gasped as the foul reek of the belly entered his nostrils. Thick beads of fluid trickled lazily down the slippery stomach walls around them, adding to the growing pool that already stung his skin wherever it touched. His clothing provided a moment's protection but soon it soaked through, and though it seemed immune to the stomach acids his skin was not. He and Randy were in a bear's stomach and it knew what to do with a meal, even if that meal was two teenage boys. Two, but not three. "Where's The Weird Kid?"

"Not here," Randy grunted, trying to push back the stomach walls and failing. Acidic fumes stung Johnny's nostrils and the fluid his flesh and he knew that pretty soon all that might be left of him were his clothes. He dug into his pocket for his folding knife, but the inward-pressing bear flesh made even that small movement difficult.

"This is your fault," Randy said, and hit Johnny as hard as he could.  With practically no room to draw his fist back that wasn't very hard but he followed by grabbing at Johnny's saliva-slick arms and headbutting him in the chest.

"Wait, hold on," Johnny said, for though Randy did practically no damage the wrestling match made him lose his grip on the still-folded knife, which slid between his hip and the slimy stomach wall and sank into the rising pool of stomach acid. There was a brief, angry exchange as he tried to free himself from his friend's grip and then to his horror the stomach walls squeezed in still tighter.  

Even from inside it they heard the bear's long belch as it vented the air that went down with its meals and then there was just squelching darkness and a last desperate effort to wriggle free of Randy's grip and find his pocketknife as the bear's stomach juices began to consume the two of them.

"Good boy," Phil said, and stroked the bear's coarse fur as the bulge in its middle kicked and thrashed.  It was a doomed struggle that the bear ended with a second burp that turned into a fit of coughing.  Johnny's shoes, sucked off his feet by the undulations of the bear's throat as it swallowed him, came up intact.

"Ooo." Phil snatched up the slimy sneakers and tried them on.  The thick layer of lubricating saliva that eased Johnny's trip down a bear gullet also coated his shoes and they slipped easily onto his feet. "New shoes!" They were warm and wet and smelly but they were a lot better than his old ones, their soles walked nearly off.

"Good boy." With that Phil snuggled up against the bear's bulging flank, smiled as it affectionately licked his hair, and settled down for a nap.  The bear, full and content with the latest of several meals he'd provided, did the same, and the low slow gurgles from its swollen midsection lulled Phil to sleep.

It was a Friday afternoon and by the time the weekend was over the bear's digestive system had done its work.  Much of the clothing swallowed with its meal eventually came back up in a slimy mass that Phil washed in the crick. A third shoe appeared as Phil unwrapped and washed out the bile-smelling mass but its mate, three of the four socks and one t-shirt were nowhere to be seen.  Phil shrugged, not quite desperate enough for "new" clothes to poke through what emerged from the bear's back end. There was enough here for a whole change of clothes and a bit extra. There was even a pocket knife lodged in the bundle, its cheap chrome half-dissolved by stomach acids but still working. 

When he returned home his mother just shot him a look.  She was used to him staying out for days at a time but though his clothes were largely from secondhand stores she had no patience with dirt.  "What are you wearing?  It's filthy, get it off so we can wash it."

"Ma, it's fine," Phil complained good-naturedly, but he did not protest when she pointed to the door.  In a moment he was back in his other clothes and she led him to the wash tub, watching as he scrubbed and wrung out the various items of clothing the way she'd taught him.  

"Goodness, what a smell," she said, for despite his best efforts the shoes and clothing were permanently stained by their time in a bear's belly and still had some of that bile reek.  "Where did you get them this time?  More stuff abandoned by a hobo?"

'Abandoned' was truthful enough, the boy supposed. The last decent pair of shoes he wore he got from a mean old tramp who no longer needed them on the basis of being too digested to wear them any more.

"Got 'em from a friend," he muttered, and wrung out an acid-spotted T-shirt.  The shoes he'd only wear at home lest someone recognize them as Johnny's but the rest, while in better shape than most of his clothing, was as ill-fitting  and discolored as a lot of the rest of his clothing.  The dyes always turned odd colors when partially digested so he didn't worry anyone would realize they belonged to the bullies.

It was a little town but people came and went and a lot of the families were so dysfunctional that a couple of missing teenagers would not even get reported. "They probably ran off to the big city," people would say. The teachers would probably be happy that a couple of troublemakers didn't come to class any more. 

There was a badger watching them from the brushes near the house, but Ma showed no sign of alarm.  Philip had a number of animals he brought by the house and some of them even brought food with them.  You learned to tolerate the little beasties when one of them might arrive and give you a freshly caught fish, as the otters sometimes did.

"Oh Philip, I thought you said the kids at school were too mean to be friends. Called you 'Weird Kid'."

"Aw ma," Phil said, and reached down to pet the badger as it scuttled out of the underbrush to wait by his ankle for the scritches.  "Even weird kids have friends."
   
[i]Mine just have four legs,[/i] he did not add.