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The Eater
The anteater relaxed, letting his frame droop to the ground, pulled
down by the heavy lump in his belly. Under the surface of the distended
furry gut, his meal jumped and squirmed, pushing at the pelt and muscle
stretched so thin around it - looking for escape.
But there was no escape. He could feel his stomach tensing down already,
squeezing his meal, the powerful, muscular contractions kneading at
the man, trying to crush him. This was how ants died in his belly, in
the thousands, squashed not by his narrow snout's feeble jaws but by
the walls of his muscular gut.
He belched, long and high-pitched, and rolled onto his side, enjoying
the swollen feeling. Instead of spending hours hunting for ants or termites,
and having to rip open the hill and lick them up, his tongue had found
this man's feet as he slept in the field. So quickly had be pulled it
in that the meal had only awoken when up to his armpits in snout.
It'd screamed then, unsure what was happening, but before it had time
to cry out again the swollen snout had pulsed and rippled, and the shoulders
and face had been gone. Hands had clutched at the lips of his snout,
and then a last, heavy gulp, and he'd settled down as he was now, enjoying
the squirming inside.
The wriggling was slowing, now. Squeezed relentlessly by the strong
belly, the man shuddered, twitched…and was still. The anteater
waited for several seconds, to be sure it would stay quiet, and then
rolled to his claws, and waddled heavily away, his brushy tail wiping
the tracks from behind him. He knew that men would look for the vanished
one the next morning, and though no one would suspect the larger than
usual anteater, it was still best to be away.
***
The anteater reached the ravine past the avocado orchard, curled up
around the bulge in his middle, and mused about how it'd all started.
It'd only been about a year ago….
The odd human. Just separated from his mother, and of a docile disposition,
he'd not reacted when the man came out of the village to where he was
nosing around the termite mound. He's just been working at a soft spot
in the mound, ready to push his snout in, when the man pointed at him
and began to chant.
The high singsong had been no more understandable than any other human
babble, and he'd ignored it, prying at the crack in the mount with his
strong foreclaws. But then there'd been a rustle, and when he looked,
the man had thrown a handful of live crickets down next to him.
Crickets were not too big to eat, but were too much trouble to catch
normally, as they did not live in packs. This group of them vanished
in swipes of his tongue as he turned his attention that way, were gathered
up into his narrow snout and gulped down kicking and wiggling. Bigger
than his usual ant fare, he could feel them all the way down, even kicking
a few times at his stomach before they were crushed. He turned his attention
back to the mound.
And more crickets appeared. The chanting had grown more feverish, higher-pitched,
and this time he took the crickets one by one from the man's hand. When
the man turned, and walked slowly away, it had seemed perfectly natural
to follow.
***
Living in the village was strange and different. The children of the
men found him infinitely amusing, jumping on his enormous tail, peering
into his tiny eyes, and feeding him stray insects and bits of fruit.
He slept in his man's tent, and shuffled around the huts in the morning
and evening, when it wasn't too hot. Sometimes he found broods of cockroaches
or beetles, and slurped them up, or occasionally a larger thing, like
a big walking stick or praying-mantis. The children erupted in hysterics
when a mantis as long as his paw gripped into his tongue with its pinchers,
leaving him lashing his tongue around in pain until he finally managed
to stun in and draw it into his snout. After that, he was more careful
with mantises, and stepped on them before swallowing.
His man was very interested in what he ate, for some reason. As a pet,
he was often presented with bowls of chopped meal and vegetables, and
he ate that, chewing the larger bits with his little peg-like teeth.
He'd been at the village for a few weeks when the man changed that.
It was raining the evening rain when his man brought out the covered
basket. He watched with interest, expecting his dinner; but the man
drew out a gray mouse, and held it squirming by its tail. He eyed the
squeaking thing, and started to turn away, only to be stopped by a low
chant.
He looked at the man again, and at the mouse, as the chant sunk into
his bones. The mouse was not a bit of fruit or chopped meat, nor an
insect. The mouse was…the mouse was in his snout. He blinked, not
remembering the man pushing it in, nor opening his snout for it; it
was devilishly tickley, wiggling against his tongue. Without thinking,
he opened the narrow jaws inside his snout, and swallowed it.
It wriggled all the way down, and his twitched his ear in discomfort.
In a moment it reached his belly, and he relaxed as he felt it crushed
lifeless between the muscular walls. Mice could be eaten, it seemed.
The next one, he licked from his man's hand, and the next, and finally,
from the open basket, the mice there larger, gray and white and black
and all patterns of fur in between.
He belched, tilting his head to look into the empty basket, an felt
the mass of rodents squirming helplessly in his stomach as the walls
squeezed them. The struggle did not last long, and in a few moments
he lay down next to his man to digest his meal. With a happy sound,
the man patted his narrow head, and retired to bed himself.
He diet of mice lasted for a week. It caused some strange things to
happen to his toilet habits, and twice the man chanted over him as he
struggled with the masses of fur and tiny bones that did not dissolve
as ants did. At some point, the bones began to digest, too, and finally
he learned to gather the fur in the front of his belly, and cough the
mass back into the basket after the meat was digested.
The next food he was offered was rats. The first of those was a fearsome
animal, a gray-black, violent beast larger around than his snout, with
yellowed chisel-teeth and glittering eyes. It snapped at him, and he
eyed his man dubiously; this did not look like food, even after the
mice.
He was not to argue, it seemed. With a single word, he was frozen in
place, and his man pulled his snout open, stunned the rat against the
wall, and shoved it nose-first into his lips.
The paralysis ended, and he stared in horror down at his snout, which
now had a curious bulge in the middle. The rat was waking as well, its
claws already scrabbling at his delicate mouth, and the man's hand held
his lips shut, keeping him from spitting the rodent out.
It never occurred to him to swipe his great claws at his man; that was
just not done. But he backed away, was followed, twisted his head to
and fro, unable to free his snout from the man's hand. The rat grew
more and more active in his mouth, and as he approached panic, the man
spoke another word…and he found himself swallowing.
The rat gave a convulsive kick in his jaws, scratching him inside, but
it was past his jaws now, and the throat carried it heavily down, just
as it'd carried smaller things. The anteater coughed and trembled, the
hard lump painful in his gullet, but after a moment the pain passed,
and he felt the rat wriggling futilely in his belly. A moment later,
the stomach clenched down on it, and the struggle ended.
He eyed the next rat just as uncomfortably as the first. But…he
shouldn't have been able to fit the first one down at all. His snout
was, after all, meant for ants. So he stood still this time, let his
man cram the rat into his snout, and gulped at once. This one slid down
even more easily, as it was still stunned from the blow it'd been given.
The next rat he snapped up without help. The fourth he caught in his
tongue, and pulled it in kicking and scrabbling, until it, too, was
a bulge in his snout. And then, gulp, it joined the others.
His tongue, previously just wet with enough saliva to pick up clusters
of ants, had become truly sticky since he had lived with the man. And
his snout was more stretchy by the day. Though he hadn't quite realized
it, the very fact that he knew that was odd. He was becoming self-aware
in a manner that didn't quite make him intelligent, but did definitely
make him very clever for a beast.
The weeks and months went by, and his meals continued to grow in size.
His man led him on a diet that went from mice, to rats, to large parrots,
stray cats, a coati or two (their ringed tails lashed furiously from
his snout, as he swallowed them), and, by the time the summer rains
were nearly due again, to a young capybara half his size. He'd grown,
too, and was now much bigger than most anteaters, over a hundred fifty
pounds on his steady diet of wriggling animals.
The capybara swelled his snout out grossly, almost as large as his body
if you didn't count his huge tail. Its clawed hindpaws kicked from his
muzzle, and he struggled to gulp it deeper, his distended snout slowly
bending and rippling as the rodent squirmed beneath the fur. With a
powerful, tiring gulp he managed to get its head down into his body,
and from there it was easy. Moments later he lay panting, his swollen
belly jiggling as the capy struggled to get out.
That was one thing that never changed. No matter how big it was, how
hard it was to swallow, or, later, how hard it was to pass the remains,
his stomach never failed him. It squeezed the meal tight, a suffocating
hug that'd once been reserved for ants and little bugs, and the rodent
gave a last despairing kick and expired.
He belched, a drawn-out, high-pitched burp, and his human grinned and
reached for his foreclaw. Lately, the man had been trimming them, a
touchy process that the anteater would never have accepted without a
quieting chant. Now he'd let the man clip away, blunting the claws until
they were just nubbins. Why? It was not his place to ask, and the way
he lived now, he didn't need claws that could dig into a hard termite
mound or savage a jaguar.
Two days later, when he'd digested the rodent, he found out why. He'd
followed his man to the river, coughed up the capy-fur into the muddy
water as he'd been trained, and then they were off on a long walk downstream.
He soon found that there was another village almost within sight of
his, and another, and another. Finally, a gap, a swampy area that continued
for an hour, and then the largest village yet. Some of the human-places
here were colorful, made of materials very different from the treeparts
and hides of his own.
They were barely in the outskirts of the town when he heard the fight.
Two dogs snarling, ripping at each other, and finally, one yelping,
giving way; he and his man found the crowd of people just as one bloody
dog was dragged out of the ring. He eyed the wounded dog curiously;
its ears and neck were torn, its fur reddened by whatever it'd been
fighting.
His human led him to the crowd, and began speaking to a pair of humans
that seemed in charge. At first, the darker one laughed, but his man
brought out a sheaf of colored paper strips, and then the dark one looked
at him seriously.
He looked back, blinking, and then man bent down to pick up one of his
foreclaws. Or fore-paws, now, as his long digging claws were just nub.
The man felt the claws, then stood back up and talked to his man again,
gesturing.
There was an argument, and then his man handed over the strips of paper,
and the dark man smiled and spoke some more. Finally he gestured, and
the crowd parted.
He'd begun to lose interest in all of this, but then his man patted
his snout and pointed him into the ring. Curious, he ambled in, the
humans filling in again behind him. Some of them laughed, pointing at
him, and one reached out to grab the tip of his long furry tail, gave
it a tug.
He turned to look at the man, who was laughing so hard he could hardly
stand, and as he faced the edge of the ring, something struck his rump
a heavy blow. Staggering, he turned back, and confronted a dog.
This dog was much larger than the little yellow ones that lived in his
village. It was a heavy, black and brown thing, with a huge head and
short, shiny fur. Drool dripped from its lips as it growled at him.
Even its legs were thick, with big, long-nailed paws that had thudded
against his hips.
The dog's growl went down in pitch, and then it snarled, leaping forward
at his eyes. He barely heard his man behind him, saying the sound that
meant 'eat'…but with the dog coming at him hard, he had already
lifted his snout. His lips parted in a V, wide as a man's hands with
wrists together and fingers spread, and he stepped forward, meeting
the dog's leap.
With an impact that shook him to his haunches, the dog's muzzle connected
with his maw. His snout wrinkled oddly, bending down, but even so the
dog's head vanished, now a heavy bulge in his narrow muzzle. The humans
went silent all at once, and the only sound was the scrabbling of the
big dog's paws as it tried to pull its head out.
One man cursed quietly, trying to get into the ring, but two others
held him back. The dog jerked in his snout, the big head caught between
the weak jaws that hid inside the narrow muzzle. He paused for a moment…and
then remembered the capybara, and licked out his sticky tongue to wind
around the dog's forelegs and chest.
The tongue drew back into his snout, and with it came the dog's neck,
the big head slipping past his jaws and into his gullet. Lowering his
nose, he pushed his lips up over the struggling thing's shoulders, soon
forcing its forelegs back against its chest. The head was in his throat,
now, and he swallowed, the shoulders slipping into his bulging snout
as his tongue wrapped farther down the dog's belly.
The dog was strong, kicking and wriggling, but his tongue was stronger,
and the shape of the thing's chest moved into his snout, bulging and
rippling the fur. Swallowing heavily, he managed to get the muscular
forelegs between his jaws, and the dog began to fall downward, enough
of it in his throat now to be pulled deeper with each gulp.
It was nearly as large as he, and very strong; he felt its ribcage sliding
past his jaws, the big bulge moving through his neck and into his body.
Now his lips were around its belly, the hindpaws kicking at his neck
frantically. He lifted his snout , tossed the bulky dog's hindquarters
upward, and swallowed.
The cursing man was sobbing, now, reaching out as though to grab the
dog's hindpaws or short-cropped tail. Held back by the other men, some
grinning, some staring in disbelief at the anteater, some talking to
one another and pointing at his man.
His man was one of the grinning ones, and he reached out to pet the
anteater's thickly furred tail as the dog's rump was sucked into his
snout. The pelvis stretched his jaws again, and then the rump was past,
and his snout bobbed as he got the dog's haunches into his throat, swallowed,
and swallowed again.
The big hindpaws kicked one last time from his snout, and then the tongue
licked out to pull them in. The shape of the dog's hindlegs moved through
his snout, slipping back towards his neck, and were gone, the bulge
slipping down into his neck and body. With the weight descending to
his belly, the anteater arched his body, swallowed, then stretched,
and felt the mass gather in his gut. His hindclaws were pushed apart
by the huge, squirming lump, his bellyfur stretching so thin he felt
the dirt against his skin as he sagged to the ground.
The dog was struggling, trying to bite, scraping its nails against his
belly, but the muscular sac crushed down on it, squeezing the breath
and life from it. The anteater lay atop his meal, eyes shut, and tried
to relax, as his body resumed its usual shape after the passage of the
enormous meal. Ribs creaked, muscles twitched uncontrollably, and he
whiffled uncomfortably as the dog's hindpaws were pushed down to join
the rest.
Another moment of desperate struggle inside, and then the dog quieted,
squeezed into unconsciousness. The pressure in the anteater's belly
eased as it grew accustomed to this meal, and he let out a high-pitched
and lengthy burp.
Some of the men were still grinning, some laughing, some watching him
with horror. His own man laughed!, taking bunches of paper strips from
the dark man, and then snapped his fingers. The anteater rose heavily
to his paws, and waddled after, as they set off up-river again.
He was not able to move very fast, with a dog almost as large as he
in his belly. His stomach was working at the meal, sapping his energy,
and is he did not strain to arch his back, his belly dragged uncomfortably.
After half an hour, he was exhausted, and at his man relented, allowing
a rest at the edge of the swampy area.
After an hour's nap he barely roused when his human called, so the rest
stretched into the evening, and finally through the night. When he woke
at last, the sun was just risen, and his man was using a small fire
to roast an ugly fish. The cooking and eating gave him time to fully
wake, visit the undergrowth, and return, his belly much lighter now.
By this time the dog's flesh had digested, and the bones were following,
though more slowly. Half an hour later, they were back on the trail.
Two hours after that, they were back in the village. His man was happy,
stacking all the strips of paper he had now, shuffling them about on
the table, laughing when a rare visitor would stare goggle-eyed at all
of it. The anteater just lay in the corner, still heavy-bellied and
enjoying it. The next day, they would visit the stream and cough up
a head-sized mass of black and brown fur.
His human was happy, still, and so he was happy. It was back to his
diet of crickets, fruit, and the occasional animal that his man brought
him. Nothing too large, for a while, certainly nothing as interesting
as the dog had been….
One evening, a week or so later, he noticed his man was packing up a
travel-bag with food, a change of clothing, and all those strips of
paper. Before, this wouldn't have aroused his interest, but his man
had done something very like this, before…before the dog.
It developed just as he'd hoped. The next morning, they left the village,
the children chasing after and taking one last tug at his tail, and
then they were in the rain-forest again. A different direction, this
time, not along the river but crossways to it, and up over the hills.
This trip was longer, too, up and down the wrinkled land, through the
forest. It was noisy there, and there were many bugs, snacks along the
way. But bugs just weren't as interesting any more.
He almost caught a coati that stood eyeing them curiously. The fearless
thing was just out of tongue-reach when his man tugged at his scruff,
steering him back onto the path. He turned to follow, whiffling unhappily.
He was hungry.
By the evening, they reached another river, and shortly after, the path
led to a village. No sound of a dog-fight in this one, but his man patted
his head, and the bag that held all the paper strips. A few of the strips
got them into a disused hut, and there they bedded down for the night.
That night it rained. Not the usual, slow, drenching rain, but heavily,
with great cracks of thunder every few moments. The lighting flashed
and crackled, and the two of them slept uneasily. His man had given
him a bowl of crickets, but after lapping up a few, he lay and looked
at the bowl in the flicking light. Crickets weren't enough. Rats weren't
enough, any more. The dog…tomorrow he thought he would have a dog.
Finally he slept fitfully, as the crickets hopped out of the bowl and
through his fur. Thunder woke him twice; this village near the mountains
had storms as he'd never experienced. Finally, though it still rained,
it grew lighter outside. His restless sleep over, he rose, and paced
from one side of the hut to the other. He was so hungry that he slurped
up the few crickets that had stayed in the bowl; but they were hardly
felt on the way down. They weren't real food any more.
His man woke, and laughed at him as he paced. A pat on the head, and
then the man went back to counting the paper strips, as he'd been doing
the night before. The anteater paced, his belly grumbling.
At last there were voices outside, and his man went out to talk to the
men. Soon he returned with two others, and they held his forepaws and
looked at his claws. The anteater stood patiently for this, because
he knew what it meant. It meant he would have a real meal, soon.
His man led him outside, and stood with a crowd while other men brought
dogs to the ring. It was still cloudy, and the rumble of thunder came
from the storms that still hovered father up the canyons. The river
beside the village ran rough, and some of the men pointed and spoke,
but most just had eyes for the dogs, many large and heavily scarred.
Other men pointed at him and laughed, or patted his furry tail.
His owner spent the first dog-fight exchanging paper strips with the
others; the anteater couldn't see the fight at all past the ring of
humans. The men watching shouted, and cursed, and cheered. Finally one
dog yelped in submission, and the fight was over. He waited impatiently,
expecting another fight to start.
But then the ring opened, and his owner signed him forward; he wouldn't
have to wait any longer. Eagerly, he padded into the ring, ignoring
the soreness in his forepaws, where the claws were trimmed too short.
On the opposite side of the ring, two dogs were pushed in. They were
yellow, and about half his size, not nearly as muscular as the big dog
he'd met in the other ring. But they were wiry, and stood staring at
him growling, hackles raised. He returned the look, and anticipated
how they would feel kicking in his belly. One, at least, would be caught
by surprise; they looked at him and expected an easy fight, but he knew
better. With a slow pace, he stepped forward, waiting for them to split
apart.
But before he could do more than anticipate his meal, there was new
shouting. The men were turning, looking at something; one grabbed the
larger dog (his meal!) and dragged it back out of the ring. An instant
later, women in the huts screamed, and the ring broke up into a chaotic
swirl or running men.
It was the river. He blinked at the wall of brown water that swept down
the canyon, and staggered as a man tripped over him and crashed headlong
to the ground. The wall was as tall as a man, and it carried trees and
brush, bobbing up and around in the foaming mass of water. A dog ran
past, yelping, and he turned toward the forest.
Half a dozen steps, at his best shambling run, and the water was there.
He was swept up in the churning maelstrom, tumbling wildly, his balance
and orientation instantly lost. Something smashed into his side, and
he barely glimpsed a man, head flopping limply as he was carried past.
He coughed, and managed to get his snout above water as he was swept
along.
Seconds later, it was over, at least for him. The flash-flood flipped
him up into the branches of a tree, and he hung there dripping, panting,
gripping the trunk with all four paws. The tree shuddered, and brush
and logs swept past, and mud, and bodies, and he thought how lucky he'd
been. The village was gone, the grassy flat now a swirling lake, driftwood
and kindling all that was left of the huts. Of the village, he saw no
survivors, except himself.
The tree shuddered again, and he peered down at the churning brown water.
Something had smashed into the trunk…would the tree fall? He coughed
up some of that brown, and saw the smaller tree that'd been carried
into his tree-shelter's trunk. Something moved…it was a man, clutching
weakly at the bark, slowly pulling himself out of the water.
It was his man, bloody across the forehead, but alive. The man used
the bobbing trunk he'd ridden to push up the anteater's tree, and when
his life-raft was carried away, he'd climbed high enough to not be pulled
loose by the torrent. Up the trunk he came, gasping and coughing up
water.
He lowered his snout, blinking down at his sodden man. The blood across
the man's forehead welled up now that the water didn't wash it away,
and the human blinked blindly, feeling his way up as he climbed the
sloping trunk.
A hand reached up, almost touching the lips at the end of his snout,
and without thinking about it he licked out his sticky tongue to encircle
the wrist. He tugged upward, helping his man up into the fork he occupied,
and the other hand found his snout, petting him as the human struggled
to climb in. He licked his tongue around the second wrist as well, and
the man smiled, realizing it was his anteater who'd helped him. It opened
its mouth to speak.
And as it spoke, the anteater thought. He had not had the dogs. He'd
had nothing but a few crickets since yesterday, and then only bugs.
Not since the big dog in the other village had he eaten anything really
satisfying. The hands were so close to his lips, his tongue wrapped
around the wrists. The man was not so much larger than the dog had been.
And he was so very, very hungry.
His man's expression froze, as the sticky tongue pulled tight, dragging
the hands up against the v-shaped lips. The narrow snout stretched open,
and with an easy tug the anteater drew the hands inside, enjoying the
bulge they made in his long muzzle as he sucked them down between his
little jaws. The man's arms were pulled up, stretching him out where
he lay half in the fork.
His man's mouth worked, but no sound came out, as the hands slid between
his jaws. He caught them there, tasted them, and then swallowed, pushing
them past and into his throat. He felt the beginning of tightness there,
and swallowed again, gulping in the wrists, the man's arms now all in
his muzzle. The flexible snout flexed, and he tugged with his tongue,
hungry for more.
Now his man spoke, quiet and urgent. He didn't understand the words,
but he knew what the man was saying. He gulped down the forearms, and
pushed his snout down over the upper arms. His lips flexing and stretching.
It was stretched very tight already, as tight as when he'd swallowed
the dog, and wanting more, he pushed his head down violently.
The man had just begun to chant when the snout-lips folded down over
his eyes, stretching over the top of his head and sucking tight. He
shuddered, but kept chanting. The man's voice was relaxing, soothing,
as it always was when he chanted. The voice made him want to just lie
there, let his claws be trimmed, or let himself be fed the next larger
thing. He whiffled pleasantly, and pushed his head down between his
forepaws, remembering.
But then the chanting stopped, and something was wriggling in his snout.
He blinked, and looked down his muzzle at the big bulge his man's head
made, and then swallowed, taking in the rest of the arms, watching the
bulge of the head pull up towards his eyes. The chanting had stopped
because even half-asleep, he had sucked in the man's head, and it couldn't
chant when it was between his jaws.
His man was struggling, now, kicking at the tree-trunk, wriggling back
and forth. The anteater looked at the naked back just in front of his
lips, and swallowed, feeling the head squeeze down between his jaws,
slip into his throat. The shoulders were being pulled into his snout,
stretching it wider than it'd ever been stretched. It hurt, but at the
same time, the bulk sliding into his maw was so…satisfying. He
gulped the head down into his body, and sagged in the tree, the wiggling
human almost half inside him weighing him down.
Swallowing firmly, he got his man's shoulders down past his jaws, into
his throat. That was the widest part. And, just as with the capybara
months ago, that was the beginning of the end. His throat gripped the
wide part, and each gulp dragged his man inches deeper, his lips folding
out over the ribs, then down over the belly, and soon, stretching out
over the rags of the waist-cloth his man had been wearing before the
flood.
His body was stretching and creaking, odd gurgles bubbling up every
second gulp or so. He hadn't noticed this with the capy, or with the
dog - but maybe he'd been straining too hard at the time to notice.
This wasn't easy, it was anything but easy, but he was so hungry that
gulping the man down seemed the most natural thing in the world.
His man's rump was pulling into his jaws, now, the naked thighs struggling
as his lips sucked them in. His weak jaws strained wide, over the hips
and butt, and then it was past, and he gulped that down, too. His snout
was still swollen over the legs, but he could feel the head enter his
belly, and the shoulder a moment later, as he licked out his tongue
to spiral around the calves.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he swallowed, felt the thighs move through
his throat, bulging out his neckfur. His belly was tense and full already,
fatter than it'd ever been, but he kept gulping. Opening his eyes, he
saw the bare feet just outside his lips, the tanned toes curling; a
moment later, he pulled them in as well, and closed his snout around
the last bulge.
Leaning back in the fork, he raised his distended snout, and swallowed
once more. The legs moved in his gullet as he strained to get this last
part down, the feet kicking strongly as they slipped past his jaws.
It was all in his throat, now, the toes pushing at his teeth as he gathered
his strength.
The last gulp was surprisingly easy. He felt his throat grip around
the feet, push them down; with a long, smooth slide the legs moved through
his body, gathering in his belly to swell the already huge bulge. And
then at last he could relax, panting, his narrow tongue hanging out.
Lying on his back, his belly spilled out to the sides, the lump in it
as big as he was unfed. The lump kicked and wriggled, the fur stretched….
And he felt his stomach tense down, squeeze his man in a suffocating
grip. Squeeze, and squeeze, as the hands felt at his insides. The muscular
belly-walls bore down, and then, his man was still.
*Belch* He lay pinned under his belly in the fork of the tree, and listened
to the river running below. It showed no sign of receding; had the flood
washed away the village entirely? Where would he go now? His man was….
He pawed at the vast bulge in his middle. His man was gone. It'd been
better than the dog…more satisfying. And no other man had seen.
Somehow, he knew that was important.
He'd wait until the river went down, or until he was hungry again, one
or the other. And then, he would find another man.
***
He padded heavily through the rain-forest, putting some distance between
him and the field. The man who he'd eaten lay heavily in his gut, but
he knew staying was dangerous; he would walk for a while, then rest
and finish digesting his meal. In time, he would heave up the clothing
and hair into the river, and then walk another ways, to another village,
before he looked for another meal.
There was something moving in the brush ahead, and he watched carefully
in case it was a threat. But it was another anteater, a female, whose
half-grown cub clung to her back. He stepped aside to watch them pass,
and caught the eye of the cub, nodding. A rat's…no, an opossum's
tail writhed from the cub's swollen snout, and the smaller anteater
nodded back to him.
He was by far the largest male anteater in these parts, and it had been
easy for him to monopolize the females for miles around. None of the
other males had put up a serious struggle; he could have eaten them,
as he had the occasional overconfident jaguar or lesser beast, but it
had seemed wrong. Still, he had been the one to mate with the females,
and the half a dozen cubs he'd fathered would soon need to be taught
the way of things.
He found a quiet spot, and settled down to digest his meal. Humans were
scarce now in these parts; for each one he swallowed, a dozen or more
left, convinced this part of the rain-forest was haunted. Lately he'd
had to wander further afield in search of fulfilling meals.
He glanced at a raccoon that ambled by; the bandit took one look at
him and scurried up a tree, to blink down at him fearfully. The animals
knew, somehow, that he wasn't just an anteater any more.
He was just an Eater. He belched, listened to his stomach gurgle, and
lay his head down to rest. Soon, there would be no more humans left
to hunt here. Then he'd take his children, and move to a new spot, and
teach them how to feed on men and women. And if their children grew
up as they were…perhaps there would come a day when humans were
hard to find anywhere in the forest.
He napped, and dreamed. He would have to save a few humans, if that
looked to happen. There was nothing quite as satisfying as a man.
The End.
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