All because of a phone

By Strega

"All right mom," Billy complained.  The latest of many, many text messages popped up on his phone, reminding him that in fifteen minutes he was supposed to meet her back at the car. 

His phone chirped as yet another sprang up on the screen. "And don't bother the wildlife," this one said.  

“You feed one crab to a sea anemone,” Billy said. At that moment his distracted progress along the beach was interrupted as his foot hit something.
Billy stumbled, falling onto the soft sand. For the first time in several minutes he looked up from his phone. The chatter of seagulls and the crash of waves almost made it through the music blaring through his earbuds.  He'd tripped over a long torpedo of a creature, a seal or sea lion.  He'd never figured out which was which and didn't particularly care.  

If nothing else it gave him something on which to take out his pent-up irritation. "Stupid seal,' he said, and from his seated position in the sand kicked the thing in the side.

The sea lion hadn't noticed the tween boy tripping over it, but even though the armor of its thick blubber it felt the kick.  Whiteless eyes like dark marbles popped open, but it just blinked at him.  Even his kick hadn't hurt it at all and Billy grinned.

"Rubber seal," he said, he kicked it twice more. The third kick provoked a grunt as he put most of his strength into it and he actually managed to make the thing shift a bit in the sand even though it was several times his size.

It was impossible to read expression on a sea lion but it lifted its great head in response to the kicks. With its mouth closed there was no sign of the teeth that might have reminded him that his was a large, dangerous animal. It still merely blinked at him curiously even as its thick neck and great blunt head loomed over him where he sat.

"Stupid seal," Billy said, and kicked it where the foreflipper joined its body. It was the last kick he got off before the sea lion lost patience. As he drew his sneaker back for another one the sea lion opened its mouth and simply pushed its jaws down over him where he sat. Before he had time to register anything like alarm the scrape of fangs over his scalp was replaced by the slither of gullet as the sea lion's throat expanded to take him in.

"How hold on," said a startled Billy as the sea lion heaved its head upward. The cable for the ear buds popped out of his phone as he dropped it, the latest two messages from mom unread.  Throatflesh coated with a thick layer of lubricating mucus shifted around him as the sea lion pointed its muzzle toward the sky and with a great heave of its head it engulfed his hips.  The thing's front fangs scraped down past his shorts onto the bare flesh of his thighs as gravity sent him sliding deeper.

There was simply nothing to grab, nothing to use to stop himself as he slid down the sea lion's throat.  A great bulge moved through its already thick neck as his knees disappeared into its maw and the weight of thick flesh pressing in from all sides pinned his arms to his sides.  Even if they'd been free, the sea lion was several times his size and had the advantage of position.  The struggle had effectively been over in the instant  it got its jaws over his head.

Stretched out in the long chute of the sea lion's throat Billy finally woke from the distraction of phone and now-silenced music, but it was far too late.  As he tensed and tried to fight a great contraction of the thing's swallowing muscles rolled over him, squeezing him deeper. There was a last glimpse of bright red sneakers as they disappeared into its maw, following the rest of him down the sea lion's throat. 

It only took one gulp.  The sea lion stretched out its muzzle, the double bulge of sneakers moving down its neck. It was big enough that as the boy slid helplessly into its long stomach the resulting bulge merely expanded its thick body.  If you didn't know what to look for you'd never know that the long swelling in its body was an entire human, albeit not a large one. The sea lion grunted, glanced around to see if anyone else was going to bother it, and lay its head back on the sand. The entire encounter from Billy tripping over it to the grunt took less than two minutes and no one saw what happened. It helped that the sea lion was sprawled out in the cool shade if a pier, out of easy eyeshot of the beach. 

The sea lion blinked as an inner struggle made its flanks twitch. It had never swallowed a human before, yet the struggle was not so different than that of a large fish. Plenty of those had thrashed their last in its gut and it soon closed its eyes again, well aware that the struggle would soon stop as the heat, weight of inward pressing flesh and the beginnings of the digestive process quieted things down.

It was right.  Despite his desperate efforts and youthful strength there would be no escape for Billy. The thick walls of the sea lion's body resisted his effort to somehow push through them, and gravity pressed the smothering weight of sea lion fat against him until he was exhausted.  The natural tendency of the stomach to squeeze tight around its meal didn't help and he was soon stretched out in a fleshy coffin of sea lion gut. It was suddenly all too clear to him that he wouldn't get out the way he got in.  To it he was just another fish, just another meal.

"Stupid seal," he said, but the small sound of his complaint was lost among the thump of the big predator's pulse and the beginnings of a gurgle as the hot digestive juices flowed in.

"Where are you Billy," appeared on the screen on the cell phone lying half buried in the sand.  "Let's get a snow cone before we go."

There was a reason Billy spent so much time staring at his phone. His mother didn't take well to more than a minute's delay in a response to one of her many text messages and would seek him out to scold him.  This time was no different. Even as the last bulge of Billy's feet made its way down the sea lion's neck his mother Sandy was turning on her phone finder to track down her son.

The sea lion's post-meal nap didn't even have time to get started.  It roused again at a human voice.

"Where is that boy," Sandy said.  Like her son she stumbled through the sand, eyes focused on the little screen in her hand.  Billy's phone ten meters, it said.  Five meters.  One meter.  She looked up to see Billy and instead there was just the long torpedo of a lazy sea lion stretched out in the sand. It was too bulky for the swell of a young man's shoulder to be particularly noticeable where it bulged out of its flank. Billy fit neatly into its long stomach and thick blubber rounded off the curves of what would otherwise be an incriminating bulge.

"Darn it Billy," she said as she saw the edge of the phone protruding from under the sea lion's flank.  "I told you to keep hold of this.  Phones cost money you know."

The sea lion blinked at her as she leaned over to reach for the phone.  Even as she did her eyes barely left her own.  She texted one-handed to her daughter, also somewhere on the beach.  "Billy lost his phone, see if you can find him." Her other hand dug at the sand around Billy's phone. It was pinned under the sea lion and without letting go of either she sat next to the beast.

The sea lion blinked.  What was it with humans bothering me today, it seemed to say.  It lifted its great blunt head and looked at her, and was ignored. At least until Sandy finally wriggled Billy's phone loose.  With a phone in each hand she was even more distracted.

"Can't talk," she mumbled, "Texting." Billy's bad habits had to come from somewhere and here was exhibit A.  The sea lion lay there with his head raised, watching this strange behavior as the woman stood back up, one phone in each hand.

"Ooh," she said.  "Double photo!" With one phone in each had she snapped double pics, unaware that her son was in the frame, albeit concealed by his current thick coating of sea lion.

Sandy turned to walk away, and the sea lion lay his head back down.  All he wanted to do was snooze and digest his meal, after all, and the human was an unwelcome distraction.

"Oh wait," Sandy said brightly.  "Close up!"

Not twenty feet away, bolted to a pier, was a Do Not Feed Or Annoy The Wildlife sign.  It would more accurately read Do Not Annoy The Wildlife Or You Will Feed It. As she turned and leaned down, both phones outstretched, the sea lion was annoyed and her advancing hands were met by a sudden thrust of its muzzle.  The sea lion lifted its head to meet her and before she knew what was happening her arms went right down its throat, followed by her face as the big sea mammal lurched forward.

Sandy stumbled and fell as everything went black.  Unfortunately for her she fell forward, and her weight sent her shoulders into the sea lion's gaping maw.  Chances are it wouldn't have mattered. The sea lion was already shuffling forward and unless she got very lucky it would have had this second meal anyway. As it was she slipped into the sea lion's throat, fangs scraping over her belly as she disappeared all the way to the hips.

Unlike Billy she had time to realize what was happening and the light of two cell phone screens.  They revealed the slimy pink chute of gullet as it undulated over her and the sudden twitch as the sea lion swallowed. Half of her was in its gullet, the rest stretched out on the sand in front of the thing's muzzle, and that became more like two-thirds and one-third as its powerful swallowing muscles sent her sliding deeper.

While not accustomed to human prey the sea lion had swallowed prey this size. Large fish, a shark or two that incautiously assumed he was safe to approach, and even a smaller sea lion who intruded on his territory and realized its mistake only as it disappeared down his throat. This prey was shaped differently, wide of shoulder and awkward to swallow, but his gullet proved elastic enough for the task. With another gulp he took Sandy to the ankles, and as her hands, each holding a cell phone, pushed through the muscular sphincter into its stomach it swallowed one last time. A panicked shriek barely made it through the thick layer of fat as Sandy joined her son in the sea beast's lengthy stomach, and that was that.

Sandy grunted as she was squeezed into the waiting belly, her face ramming into the soles of Billy's sneakers before pushing past.  This caused her to drop one phone, which slipped down into the pool of digestive juices.  As the throat continued to squeeze her into the stomach her mouth smacked right into one of her son's knees and she dropped the other, which disappeared into a fold of Billy's shorts. From their hidey holes they still cast a bit of light and as she was pushed the rest of the way into the sea lion's gut Sandy's eyes went wide.  She'd realized who was in the squelching fleshy hell with her.

"There you are," she snapped.  "What did I tell you about bothering the animals?"

Pressed side by side with her in the long, and now uncomfortably tight belly, Billy did his best to defend himself.  "I didn't do anything! I just tripped over it and it ate me!"

Sandy spent a moment poking around for the phones, failed. They were down by her knees and it proved impossible to bend down and get them.  The good news was that the thick coating of mucus that lubricated her for swallowing provided a moment's protection from the digestive juices, and while Billy had been in there a little longer he wasn't in any real pain yet.  The bad news was that in a few minutes the churn and gurgle would get properly started.

"Well you must have done something," she said crossly.

"Yes," her son said with equal venom.  "I got eaten."

Sandy opened her mouth to reply but just then the belly walls squeezed inward.  The sea lion let out a long, long belch as the contraction squeezed out most of the air that went down with its meal, then lay there blinking.  The inner struggle was silent now, but still vigorous.  Just as it had the first time it simply lay there, confident that exhaustion would soon end the disquieting squirming and then its belly would do what it always did: make the bulge go away.

It was a big bulge and it'd take longer than usual, but the sea lion simply burped once more and settled down into the sand.

Sandy never did find her phone, or Billy's, there in the slimy depths of the sea lion's gut.  But someone else did.  In the few minutes before the digestive juices rendered both phones useless, the phone finder app once more came into play.

"Oh, you found him," Cindy muttered, eyes never leaving her cell phone.  Mom's Phone and Billy's Phone, 10 meters, the screen said.  5 meters.  1 meter.  She never even saw the sea lion.  It lay sprawled out, full and wanting nothing more than peace to digest its double meal, but its patience with humans was exhausted. When she tripped over a half-buried rock and came hurtling toward it the irritated sea lion's jaws snapped open to meet her. She was smaller than her brother and her momentum sent her down its throat as neatly as a letter dropped into a postbox. It merely had to close its jaws and swallow. 

When its third brief meal was done and the nauseating squirming inside it had stopped, the sea lion could finally relax.  One smallish human made an almost invisible bulge in its long body.  Two had swollen it wider and the third turned the whole agglomeration into an uncomfortable lumpy swelling. Even the soft sand pressed almost painfully against it and the sea lion spent a few minutes digging out a trench for the great lump in its gut.

It was merely a very fat sea lion to the eye now, its efforts having concealed a long lumpy bulge that would otherwise have instantly drawn the eye of any human who happened by. Not that this was by plan.  It had merely wanted to ease the strain on its belly, and now it was reasonably comfortable.  

Reasonably.  The sea lion let out a mighty belch, then lay down its head.  Humans. Not its usual prey, and wearing odd-tasting things too.  One of them had made a decent meal.  Two had stuffed him full. Three was almost too much. Its belly was stretched tight around its huge meal.

But the gurgling had started.  Its long belly knew what to do with prey, even if that prey was three whole humans.  This, too, would pass.

Not all of it would.  Not comfortably anyway. While he had never eaten a human before he'd swallowed some of their toys, usually by accident as he ate other prey. More than one shoe had made its way entirely through his body and he didn't look forward to Billy's doing the same. Hopefully they wouldn't. The other two were wearing flip-flops, which at least were less bulky if equally indigestible.

You just had to hope that clothing, shoes, flip-flops, cell phones and bathing suits - those last two weren't so much of an issue - came back up rather than trying to go all the way through.

You couldn't control that, though.  With a last belch the sea lion settled down to digest his meal, and hoped for the best.  At least the humans weren't bothering it any more. 

Well, not unless you counted the uncomfortable tightness in his middle, anyway.