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The rarest of lions by Strega

It was the fourth time Kate and Ben had been to Kenya, that land of dry grass and umbrella trees, of ferocious and interesting wildlife. They always booked at the same camp, a wonderful series of tree houses and catwalks - with safety rails and netting below, naturally - where the wildlife could walk right underneath their cabin. They had seen rhinos mate from not a hundred feet away the last time, and a pride of a dozen lions came and went over the week they spent there each time. The big cats valued the shade of the camp enough to entirely ignore the chattering tourists and clicking cameras thirty feet over their heads.

They could afford to visit only once but a year the memories of the remarkable place were so strong that it seemed like coming home. On this latest visit they even managed to beg a beaten-up Land Rover from one of the staff. He told them to stay on the main (dirt) road and never to go more than five miles out. Even that, it turned out, was too far to be safe.

They'd spent an hour in the partial shade of an acacia tree, watching a big male lion whose evening seemed to consist mostly of dozing and occasionally rising to sniff at the surrounding trees. Such a large and healthy male by rights should be at the head of a pride, but if he was it was not the pride that hung out beneath the treehouses. No, they would have remembered this big black-maned cat.

"Maybe he's some sort of perimeter guard," Kate speculated. "The guide said some prides have two or even three males, and they sometimes spread out to watch for intruders."

The lion's head swiveled suddenly to look at them, as it had several times before, though never with such alacrity. This time the amber eyes stayed fixed on them, and as though hypnotized they stared back.

"What a magnificent creature," Ben breathed. "I'm glad there is still room in the world for things like this." Then they smelled the smoke.

"Ben! There's steam coming out from under the hood!"

But it wasn't steam, as the smell of burning engine soon informed them. The smoke went from white to black and tongues of flame appeared from the cracks around the sides of the hood. Ben reached for the door handle to get out and perhaps fight the fire, and jerked his hand back when he saw the lion's face not two week away through the side window. "Jesus!"

There was hot smoke coming in through the vents now. Ben grabbed Kate and shrank away from both the vents and the lion, only to have the huge cat, who was apparently not at all afraid of fire, walk around the front of the Land Rover and wait at the door they were now pressed against.

"Back up, into the back seat! Maybe the fire will die down."

But it didn't, and the smoke got worse, and it was soon so hot at the front of the Rover that they were forced into the very back. The back window, which rolled down in a strange Land Rover-ish manner, was open a crack, and they sat in the growing heat and smoke and looked at the lion sitting five feet away. When the first tongue of flame appeared at the front of the cab it spoke.

Ben and Kate boggled at the big cat as carefully enunciated, though growly, words came out of its mouth. It even had a British accent.

"You know," growled the lion. "When you think about it, being digested and being consumed by fire are much the same thing. I expect the former is much less painful than the latter, though."

There was a lengthy pause as the two struggled to believe what they heard, and then Ben said, "What are you talking about?"

"I mean," said the lion, and never had the great sweep of mane around a big cat's face made him look more imposing, "That if you come out here and let me eat you it will be much less painful than being burned alive. I've heard the screams of humans burning up in these people-carriers, and they are horrid."

Ben and Kate shared a look, then looked at the flames now entering the driver's compartment. Only the fact that much of the smoke was exiting the side windows, also open a crack, allowed them to breathe at all, and the heat was driving them ever further into the back of the Rover...and closer to the lion.

"Being torn apart by a lion doesn't sound much better than burning," Kate said.

"Well, it's a good thing I was planning to swallow you up whole," growled the lion. "Come out here, take off your clothes and I will gulp you down alive. I wouldn't want to leave any bits that let other humans know what happened, would I?"

In a less terrifying situation Ben would have laughed. As it was a harsh chuckle escaped him. "Yeah, right. Lions don't swallow people. You're not a snake."

"Aren't I?" Growled the lion, and worked his jaws in a most disturbing way. Only now did they notice how very far back along the sides of his face his lips extended, and how wide the back of his muzzle was. With a creak he opened his maw a fraction, and they stared past fangs and tongue into a slick pink chute as wide as a man's head. The walls of the tube rippled as the cat swallowed, and both shuddered. Suddenly they were all too sure that they each would fit down that throat, or perhaps even both of them at once.

The lion closed his mouth, an elaborate procedure of popping joints, and looked at them again. After a moment he spoke.

"The last person to tell me I couldn't swallow him was a hyena. I coughed up a ball of his fur the next day. It'll be easier for everyone if you take your clothes off."

Kate gave Ben a look of sheer terror and he looked to the front of the Rover.

"If we go out both side doors," he whispered. "One on each side, he can only get one of us. I'll go first, he'll chase me..."

Behind them the lion, ears a-prick, spoke up. "I can strike you with a paw once, then turn and catch the other. I will have you both regardless."

It was right. They could not outrun it. Neverthless Ben could not bring himself to open the back and step out to what would be a short trip down a lion's throat. If only they'd accepted the pistol the guide offered! Their cameras weren't going to accomplish anything other than give the big cat indigestion.

As the flames and heat grew more intense - the middle seats were beginning to char and reaching the side doors would be a painful experience now - the lion watched with his head tilted slightly to the side. A minute later he spoke again.

"If you stay and burn, when the fire dies I will have you anyway. You two are going to be in my stomach before dawn, cooked or raw. Raw will be less painful."

"Wait a minute," Kate said, suddenly seeing the lie. "Eventually the smoke is going to draw attention, or the smell of cooking meat. If you wait until we are burnt up more humans will come, or more lions, or hyenas, and you may not get to eat us at all."

The lion grimaced, caught out in his bluff. "Fine, you are right. You still have a choice between burning or being digested, don't you?"

"I will make you a deal," Ben said, and rushed on as Kate put her hand on his arm. "I will come out to be eaten, but only if you don't eat my wife."

The lion looked at the increasing amount of smoke billowing from the burning engine and seemed to make an inner calculation. If it weren't nearly dark someone from the camp might have seen the smoke already, and it was still not impossible that help could arrive. Probably not before the humans died, but perhaps quickly enough to deny him his meal. He made a decision.

"Take off your clothes and come out," he growled. "You have a deal."

Kate clung sobbing to his arm as he undressed, but Ben had made up his mind. The only way either of them would survive was for the lion to have his dinner. Better just one of them feed the cat than both.

When he was down to just his underwear he gave Kate a final kiss and opened the door. The lion looked him over as he stepped out onto the dirt, and Ben showed his empty hands. It was blessedly cool - or at least not burning-hot - out of the cab, but he knew we was about to go somewhere just as inhospitable as the flames. As Kate slid out of the Rover as well, still clinging to his hand, he shoved her to the side and stepped forward.

Might as well go out fighting, Ben thought, and kicked the lion with all his might. It batted his foot aside with a padded paw and grinned. To a predator accustomed to a zebra's hooves his naked foot was slow and weak. It paused for a moment, looking him over, and Ben he marveled at the size of the thing. Its face was level with his midsection, and that gave him an idea. Ben threw a punch at its nose.

Just as it had wanted him to. Jaws snapped open as his fist whistled forward, and with a wet squelch his arm went down the cat's throat.

He'd read somewhere that gladiators could kill lions by reaching down their throat and suffocating them. Not this cat, though. Powerful paws reached out and grabbed his naked chest on either side, yanking him forward, and with a creak and gape of its muzzle the lion swallowed his head.

Kate looked up at the muffled shout and saw the lion, its jaws wrapped around Ben's shoulders. As she watched it heaved its muzzle upward, then thrust itself forward, and Ben was gone past the elbows. A bulge stood out through the lion's mane, and slipped down toward its chest. With one gulp the cat had swallowed him to the waist, and though he kicked and squirmed and gripped its mane with his one free hand it was soon going to swallow more than that.

Kate screamed in anguish and rushed forward, beating at the lion's face with her fists. The annoyed cat turned where it stood, ramming her with Ben's naked legs, and she fell backward as it ratcheted its unhinged jaws over her husband's rump. In just a few seconds it had him more than half eaten; it hadn't lied when it said it could swallow them whole.

It heaved its great head up once more, and Kate saw Ben's legs begin to slip out of sight. There was a visible twitch in the lion's swollen mane as it gulped, and she knew that unless she did something he would be in its stomach in moments. All she could think to do was grab Ben's feet.

In the slimy confines of the lion's throat Ben felt the hands around his ankles and knew what had happened. He also knew he was past saving. His face was wrapped in the wet folds of the cat's stomach and a long chute of strong throat muscle enclosed him from his neck all the way to the knees. The great contraction in those muscles that had started just before Kate grabbed his feet had started him sliding heavily down the lion's gullet, and he was sure that all she was going to accomplish was to get herself eaten too. This was going to end with the lion belching, and he couldn't stand the thought that his wife would add to that burp. Squirming and kicking couldn't save him, but it might save Kate.

Kate pulled desperately at Ben's ankles just as he began to kick powerfully. She almost lost her grip before a strength born of desperation locked her fingers into his flesh, and she dug her heels in and tried with all her might to pull her husband from the sucking wetness of the lion's gullet. It was too strong; the throat had too tight a grip. Pull though she would his feet were still pulled into the toothy jaws. Sobbing, she kept tugging even as those teeth scraped over her knuckles. There was a wash of sandpaper-rough tongue over her wrists, a wet gulp she heard as well as felt, and she found the lion's nose pressed against her breasts and the hot flesh of its throat wrapped around her arms to the elbow.

The lion looked at her cross-eyed and irritated and lifted a forepaw. Kate knew what was going to happen. One push of that paw, one easy gape of the jaws that had swallowed her husband, and she would follow. Ben had died to save her, but she was not going to let go. She kept tugging even as the padded paw, claws retracted, wrapped around her. She screamed and watched its ears go back as it readied itself to swallow her too.

But it didn't. The paw slid off her back and instead shoved between her breasts. She lost her grip on Ben's saliva-coated ankles and went flying backward. She was sitting on her rump watching as with a last gulp the bulge moved fully from the lion's mane into the lumpy, drooping belly.

"I keep my word," mumbled the lion as it re-hinged its jaws. "No one would fault me if I ate a human so desperate to join her mate in my belly, but I keep my word." It sat back to watch her, and she couldn't take her eyes from the bulge moving in the stretched gut. Ben was still alive inside the lion, still moving, though the big cat was ignoring the antics of his dinner. It must not be the first time someone was unhappy to be in there, and from past experience the cat knew that the protests would soon end.

"No," it said as she came back to her feet with hatred in her eyes. "You will not save him." She could see Ben kicking beneath the thin-stretched pelt. He was still alive in whatever slimy hell the lion had for a stomach. The movements under the tawny hide weakened as the lion belched up air that had gone down with its meal.

Kate looked around for a weapon, but there had been nothing in the burning Rover and there was nothing but dirt and sticks here. Nothing heavy enough to hurt a lion. She looked again, in time to see the last stuggle die with her husband. He was still now, and there were a series of twitches as the thin-stretched pelt drew itself tight around the mass of meat. Her husband of eight years was just a bulge in a big cat's gut now, neatly curled up and ready for digestion.

The lion coughed and slid a dewclaw into its mouth, tugging forth Ben's underwear. They must have caught on a fang and been dragged from his body as he was swallowed. With a disinterested flick of its paw it threw them into the fire.

"Your mate sacrificed himself for you," the cat said, and watched her out of its unreadable amber eyes. "I respect that. I will carry you to the other humans if you climb on my back. It is not safe for you to walk alone at night."

Standing ten feet away, her eyes nearly level with the majestic seated lion, Kate thought about it. With tears still drying on her face she looked at the bulge that had been her husband. She could rush forward kicking and biting, and shortly thereafter she'd be with Ben again, squeezed together in the wet confines of a lion's stomach. She could take three steps forward and just put her head in the lion's mouth, and it would end the same way. It had wanted both of them and it would not refuse the offer of a second, freely offered meal.

Kate shook her head. Ben was dead and she had a choice. The lion wasn't set on raping or killing her as a human criminal might be. It just watched her, full enough to not crave her flesh, and let her decide. Did she want to make the lion belch again, and end it all?

No. Powerful though the longing was to be with her husband, she didn't want to reward the one who had eaten him. It'd had one meal of them and that was all it was going to get.

"All right," she said as she climbed atop the lion's shoulders. "Take me home."

One last horror was that there was no way to sit atop the lion and not be partially draped over the bulge that was Ben. The silent lion paced along, belching occasionally as her weight squeezed another bubble of air out of his gut. Each little burp made her cringe but it was full dark now and she could not bring herself to slide off the man-eating beast.

The lion paced along, face turned away so she could not see the smile. The massage she gave the slowly softening bulk of her mate was most pleasant. He didn't swallow humans often, and they didn't curl up as neatly as other animals. The weight bouncing atop the bulge soon forced his meal into a reasonably comfortable position, and it hung there sloshing as digestion gradually progressed. Meat was easy work for his stomach, but the bones would take a while. Most lions couldn't manage bones, but then most couldn't swallow a whole human. He could easily have swallowed both, but was rather glad he'd let this one live.

Half an hour at the cat's leisurely, sway-bellied pace took them near to the camp, and there she dismounted. It gave her one last amber-eyed look and turned away. In moments its fat-bellied form was gone into the dark.

They didn't believe her, of course. The servants and supervisors and even the camp foreman just shook their heads. A talking lion that swallowed people whole? She had been watching too much of those cartoons the English people liked.

An hour later they were back at the smoldering Rover but there was no trace of its presence. There were pawprints, you would be hard pressed to find an acre here without lion tracks. They had only her word that her husband had disappeared down a lion's throat, and they weren't taking her at her word.

The next morning they searched the brush for a mile in every direction, finding not only no lion but no scraps of clothing, no human remains, no shoeprints. A thunderstorm had rolled in late in the night and they were hard pressed to even find the pawprints from the night before, much less track the cat. In the end they shrugged and chalked it down to another wandering tourist vanishing into the wilds of Africa. It had happened before and it would happen again.

No doubt the shock had upset her mind momentarily, they said, and she really believed she had seen it, but shock could do funny things to a person. Why, there was one guide that used to work here before he disappeared into the veldt, that claimed he'd met actual lion-people to the south. Impossible, of course, just as was the tourist's tale.

So Kate went back to New Jersey, collected Ben's life insurance, and as she went on with her life she wondered from time to time how much it would cost to go back to Kenya, but this time with a rifle.

But by the time she got back to the States Ben was surely nothing more than lion fat and droppings, and what were the odds she might meet that same lion again? Could she pick him out of a lineup of big cats? How long did lions live, anyway? Was it even legal to hunt them these days?

She remarried, after a proper time, and she never told her new family what had really happened to her husband, just that he had disappeared on safari. She did collect children's books, though, and in a surprising number of those lions and other beasts did swallow people. The children thought it was all in fun, of course. She was the only one who knew that it really did happen.

Well, Kate and some other people too, but it was hard to report something like that once one has been digested. She had met that rarest of breeds, a lion that let her watch it eat without insisting that she contribute to its meal.