The slide by the sea 2

By Strega

"I dare you," Randy said.

Wendy peered doubtfully down the slide.  The recently installed beach slide dropped a full twenty feet of smooth stainless steel and normally she'd happily jump on for a ride, confident that the deep soft sand at the bottom would cushion her landing. The number of tracks around the slide showed that the twins weren't the only ones to see it and want to try it out.

"I don't know," she said, for there at the bottom of of the slide was the long torpedo shape of a sleeping sea lion.  More than ten feet from nose to flippers and several times as heavy as the two of them together it slumbered peacefully on the warm beach sand.

Randy egged her on.  "Come on," he said, as he studiously ignored the nearby Do Not Feed Or Annoy The Wildlife sign.  "It's a big fat seal.  You'll just bounce off."
"You first," Wendy said, having both a touch more common sense than her brother. "I bet you won't."

"Get out of the way," Randy said, his adolescent pride, as usual, leading him to bad decisions. Before his own underdeveloped sense of self preservation could get in the way he hopped on the slide and slid down.

It went better than she expected.  The sea lion barely flinched as a hundred and fifty pounds of teenage boy impacted on its blubbery back and bounced off. Randy landed in the sand none the worse for wear and the sea lion blinked its whiteless eyes open and peered quizzically up at her.  It was too lazy to even bend its head around and look at Randy, who in any case had at least the good sense to back out of easy reach.

"Come on!" Randy shouted,  "Slide down!"

Wendy watched as the sea lion shut its eyes again.  It had moved only enough to put its head more or less below the end of the slide before falling asleep again. Or at least it looked asleep. Still, it was a slow moving beast and just this once, she took a chance.  With her breath held she sat on the slide and let go of the sides.

It was terrifying.  It was also fun. With a stifled shriek she slid down the slide and bounced off of the sea lion's back.  It felt like hitting a trampoline, the thick layer of fat cushioning the impact so she ended up in the sand without even a bruise.

"Told you," Randy yelled, for he was already up at the top of the slide again. Wendy backed away as the sea lion blinked up at her brother but though it was awake this time it didn't react as he slid down.  He too bounced off its blubbery back and it just grunted and ignored him.

With no one to tell them what a bad idea this was the siblings shouted in glee and ran to the top of the slide as fast as their feet would carry them through the soft beach sand.  First Randy, then Wendy bounced off the sleepy sea lion before they once more ended up together at the top of the slide.

"Let's go down together," Wendy said, for once the one to come up with the dumb idea. The slide was just wide enough for two slender teenagers to fit onto at once and Randy shouted with glee as they hurtled headfirst toward the sleepy sea lion.

Who was not sleepy at all, but rather waiting for the right opportunity.  At no point up until now had the siblings both come within reach at the same time but as they slid down toward another what they thought would be another bounce off its back it was not about to pass up such an opportunity.  Laughing, Wendy and Randy clung to one another as they hurtled down the slide and booth looked up just in time to see the great blunt sea lion muzzle rise into view and yawn.

There was a brief glimpse of fangs and a wet purple gullet as the jaws gaped unnaturally wide but it was replaced with darkness as with a wet thump they collided headfirst with the waiting maw. Such was their momentum that despite the scrape of fangs against their skin they rammed past the sea lion's back teeth and slid deep into the squelching wetness of its gullet. By the time they recovered from the shock of impact they were halfway down its throat, pressed together by the slick gullet walls and pinned so firmly by the mass of inward pressing flesh that their arms were trapped to their sides.

"What happened," Wendy said, for her head had smacked into Randy's as they slid in and both were seeing stars.  She followed that with a gasp of horror as the sea lion lifted its head.  With an upward heave of its muzzle it lifted their legs from the slide and the thick layer of slime on the walls of its throat offered almost perfect lubrication. Their own weight sent them sliding deeper and a monstrous bulge moved through the sea lion's already thick neck as the two pressed-together teenagers were swallowed alive.

"It's eating us!" Randy exclaimed as he pushed his hands past Wendy and against the slippery throat wall.  There were inches of fat and hide between them and the outside world and he only made the vast bulge change shape a bit as it moved down toward the sea lion's body. Taller than his sister, the crown of his head was the first thing to press against the rubbery sphincter that ended the chute of gullet.

"Help me push," he said, but it was too late.  The sea lion stretched out its muzzle to let their sandaled feet slide into its maw, clamped its jaws shut around their sandals and swallowed.

The sea lion had eaten humans larger than either of them but never two at once and the awkward lump of prey stuck fast in its gullet for a moment.  It had its meal mostly down though and it stubbornly refused to give up. The wriggling lump of teenagers shifted in its throat as they struggled and a last straining gulp finally did the trick. Wendy let out a terrified shriek as a great rolling contraction of throat muscles pushed them on and though they kicked and squirmed they still slid heavily into the sea lion's lengthy stomach.

With the great bulge shifted from its throat to its stomach the sea lion groaned uncomfortably, for its meal still kicked and squirmed.  A single human was soon squeezed into immobility by the weight of blubber pressing in but the presence of two allowed them to use each other for leverage.  Though his meal refused to settle down and digest, the sea lion still waddled laboriously away from the slide. There was no evidence at all of what happened to the teenagers beyond the lumpy bulge in its middle, which was after all the point of the whole exercise.

Soon he reached the cool shade of an abandoned pier and flopped down next to an almost equally large sea otter.  The sea lion spent a moment scooping out sand so his belly could sink in and be concealed, but the size of his meal still left some bulge showing despite his best efforts.

"Was that the plan?" purred the otter, who had watched the whole thing.  "It worked well."

"The plan was to swallow one as they slid down the slide and grab the other before they could run," grunted the sea lion.  "But they never got close enough together.  I had to take my chance when they both slid down."

The sea lion grunted, stretched, and squeezed his belly with his flippers.  He deflated almost like a balloon as the air that went down with his meal escaped in a long belch.  Even so he wasn't comfortable. Normally everything was quiet by now but his double meal still wriggled.

Down in the slimy depths of the stomach Wendy found her cell phone.  The light from the screen showed pink fleshy walls, the bile-colored digestive juices slowly filling the void and worst of all, the half-dissolved human skull wedged in a fold of the stomach wall, still wearing a red baseball cap.  One of Randy's blue flip-flop floated atop the pool of acid and the place stank of bile, fish and previously digested people.

"Dad," she said as she tapped in a number.  Her skin felt greasy already from the beginnings of digestion. Randy, squeezed against her back and exhausted from a failed effort to turn around and worm his way back into the throat, was barely moving.  The skull showed what would happen if someone didn't rescue them. They were going to add to the already inches-thick sea lion fat all around them.

"Dad," she said as the phone was answered.  "Dad!  We're down by the slide, there this sea -"

Then the sea lion belched again, squeezing its belly with its flippers, and the sudden inward contraction of the stomach wall jarred the phone from her hand.  It slipped down the slimy wall into the rising pool of acid just as the shrinking stomach forced the last air from her lungs.  There was a brief struggle as she and her brother spent their last strength against the inward-pressing walls, but soon they were stretched out side by side, wrapped in stomach and too weak to even squirm as digestion began.

"Well, it worked," the otter admitted.  He considered the still visible portion of the bulge sticking out of the sand despite the sea lion's best effort to bury it.

"More trouble than it was worth," the sea lion grunted, then was suddenly silent. The sea otter followed his gaze and saw the panicked-looking man at the top of the slide.

"Trouble," the sea lion grunted as the man made his way down the slope and found a trail through the sand that led right to them.  Anger and fear for his offspring, who were currently stretched out in the sea lion's gut, made him walk right up to an apparently sleeping sea lion several times his size.  

All the effort of looking perfectly peaceful and harmless was wasted.  To the sea lion's horror his meal found a last reserve of strength just as the man arrived and the portion of the bulge showing above the sand began to twitch and jerk.

"Cut it out," he grunted, slapping his side with a flipper.  "Not getting out of there the way you got in."

The man, who of course heard just grunting and not the words, instantly realized what the inner struggle meant.  "Let them out!" he cried, and fired off a kick into the sea lion's flank.  His foot bounced off the thick fat as though he'd stuck a mattress and the sea lion barely felt it, but its ears went back in alarm at the thought that more humans would come.

Though he was full and slow he twisted around and snapped at the man, missing badly. He didn't want another meal at the moment but if he got ahold of the man that's what would have to happen.  He'd reunite the family no matter how uncomfortably full it made him.

Luckily he didn't have to.  As the man backed up to avoid the sea lion he tripped over the otter's stretched out tail and as he collapsed back against the furry beast the otter's whiskery muzzle came around and engulfed his head.

Normally the two preyed upon scantily clad beach visitors, never swallowing clothing beyond shorts or a bathing suit, a t-shirt, sandals and maybe a hat.  This man on the other hand wore a light jacket over a long sleeved shirt, long pants and shoes.  All of those went down the otter's throat with him.  Webbed paws reached up and grabbed him as he struggled, forcing him inches at a time into the water-weasel's jaws, and soon enough of him was down its throat for its swallowing muscles to get a good grip.

The kicking legs disappeared inches at a time as the otter bolted down his meal, and before long its fanged jaws closed around an expensive set of leather shoes that would dissolve along with their owner.   It stretched out its muzzle, swallowing heavily, and the kicking bulge moved through its furry neck as another human disappeared into a gullet.

"Thank you," the sea lion said as the otter yawned to rehinge his jaws. The otter stretched, letting his meal slide into his gut, and uttered a great belch before speaking.

"It's not as though I didn't get something out of it," the otter said, pressing his forepaws hard against his squirming belly and burping again.  When the struggle inside him ceased he rolled over onto all fours.  "Hopefully not including a set of clothes trying to leave my belly the long way."

The sea lion smothered a laugh. Humans digested easily enough, but many of their toys didn't, and that included most clothing.  You still had to eat it with them, to leave no evidence, and just hope for the best. "I was thinking though. Three people..."

"...Is too many," the otter agreed.  "Let's go." 

Though the bulky double meal made the sea lion's normally streamlined body less suited to swimming than usual, and the otter's new bulge wasn't much better, they swam out into the bay and found some rocks to sun on. By the time they got there their bellies had begun to churn and gurgle, beginning a day or two of work as they broke down entire humans, one stretched out inside the otter and two somewhat smaller ones packed together in the sea lion's long stomach.

"So, tomorrow," the sea lion said sleepily.  "Or the next day.  Where will we hunt?" Because no matter how innocent they made themselves look, if enough people disappeared suspicious glances began to be shot the way of the local wildlife. Best to move to another beach while the old one cooled down.

"Mm," purred the otter, and rubbed his belly as it gurgled.  "A few days back I saw a pier where humans dived off and tried to go through hoops floating in the water. Not very big hoops, not much bigger than my head, and I thought, what if I wait for one to jump..."

"And pop up through the hoop with your mouth open," said the sea lion, who though full and content salivated at the thought of a human ending up in his stomach with even less forewarning than the ones who slid down the slide into his maw. Dive, thump, 'Where am I and was that a burp?'

"We'd have to be careful," he went on, thinking both of only doing it when no humans were around except the one slated for a short trip through a digestive tract and of the impact if a human missed his maw and hit him in the face.

"We always are," purred the otter, and settled down in the warm sun for a nap.  The sea lion followed suit and soon there was no sound but snoring and the internal gurgles as the human-shaped swellings in their long bellies gradually became shapeless bulges full of mostly dissolved meat and softened bone.

Between the two of them they'd swallowed most of a human family today and if the mother had been there she too would have gotten a stylish if uncomfortable otter-fur coat to share with her husband until the two of them were digested.

It takes a lot of calories to keep a big otter or sea lion going.  Luckily they'd found a seemingly inexhaustible supply of food.  No matter how many humans they gulped down they never seemed to run out.