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A long hike in the woods. Always a good way to work off the stress of a long week's work. Drive to the trail head up the hill from Big Pine, grab your walking stick out of the back. You've done it a hundred times. It's a five mile hike and sometimes you get to see cool wildlife. Today you run into a bear. Unfortunately.

You come around a corner on the rocky trail and there it is, coming the other way up the trail. It's only fifty feet away and it's a big, heavy bear, pitch black of fur save for its brown muzzle. Its legs are as thick as a fat man's thighs and its paws are each bigger than your head. It must weigh at least five hundred pounds.

You pull up short with a gasp. What to do? It doesn't turn and run the way wildlife usually does at the sight of you. Even bears usually run. Not this one.

Your walking stick is no help. You picked it for lightness and the bear would use it as a toothpick after eating you.

The bear takes a step forward. With no time to think you drop your walking stick and run. Maybe there's a better option. Climb one of the pine trees nearby? Play dead? Curl up tight into a ball? It's too late for that. You panic and run.

A growl and the sudden, rapid shuffle of paws shows the bear is in pursuit. Running triggered the predatory reflex. If it runs, it's potential food. You hear it panting behind you. Each labored breath is closer. You're a decent long distance runner. You could outlast the bear over any real distance. The problem is that in a short race it's much faster than you are. Two legs are good. Four legs are better.

There's another problem with having two feet instead of four. Your toe hits a rock and you go flying. The good news is you turned down the slope to run out of some theory that bears can't run downhill. (Turns out they can.) So instead of stemming into the rocks you thump down on the moss and ferns by the little brook that runs by the path.

That was the good news. The bad is the bear barreling into you, a flurry of huge paws that slam you with bruising force into the moss. Somehow you aren't torn open by its claws and before it can bite you, you bunch up your legs and kick it with both feet.

You put all your strength into the kick in an effort to get it back off. There's just one little problem. As your feet shoot toward it the bear reflexively snaps its jaws wide open. There is a wet thump and a painful scrape of fangs as your feet disappear into its gullet.

You blink in confusion. Hot slippery throat presses in around your ankles and even through your hiking shoes you feel the inward squeeze of bear. The bear is just as confused and gags.

You remember hearing about a man who killed a bear...or was it a cougar?...by shoving his fist down its throat. You brace yourself against the ground and kick again, trying to stuff your legs even deeper.

It works. Your knees disappear past its fangs and you ignore the painful scrape of fangs. The bear gags and swallows, trying to clear its throat.

That gulp is your first clue that there may be a problem with this strategy. The bear's muscular tongue shovels your knees into its gullet and a great contraction of its throat muscles grabs your lower legs and sucks you deeper. Suddenly you're to the mid-thighs in the thing's maw and if the bear minds it at all it doesn't show. It moves its forepaws farther apart to make room for the long bulge in its furry neck and swallows again.

Your eyes go wide with alarm as your ass is sucked into the bear's jaws. Its throat has a tight pneumatic grip and your panicked effort to pull back out is fruitless. Your legs are stretched out in a slimy bear gullet, pressed tightly together and squeezed deeper every time it gulps. It's pulling you in. It's swallowing you whole!

You scrabble at the moss, looking for a weapon. The stream bed a few feet away is full of admirably large rocks but the one you find within reach is only the size of your palm. You brace yourself with your left elbow and slam the rock into its shaggy head with all your might.

Nothing. You weren't able to get much of a swing lying on your side and the bear's thick skull absorbs the impact. You pull back your rock to punch it in the nose but a huge paw traps it to your side. Before you can wriggle it free your hand and the rock as covered in hot bear drool. By accident or plan the bear's paw pushed your hand into its salivating maw and it goes down its throat with your hips.

"No. No!" You squirm and try to kick, but your hips are sliding down its throat and take your arm with them. The muscular grip of the bear's gullet is pulling the rest of you in after. Half your chest is gone and sharp fangs scrape you as it traps you against the ground. All it has to do is push. With your shoulder jammed into the moss, keeping you from sliding forward, there's nowhere to go but down its throat.

Your feet squeeze through a muscular valve into what must be the bear's stomach. Your hiking shoes shield your feet from the acids but your socks soak through instantly and your skin tingles as the bear begins to digest its meal. The skin of your ankles is just the start. Soon the rest of you will get the same treatment.

"Help!" You should have started screaming long ago. You try to make up for lost time. "Heeeeelp!"

The bear sits back on its haunches and its fangs scrape up over your shoulders from below. Your face is in its maw, your chin sinking into its thick slobbery tongue and your forehead jamming against its palate. You stare out past yellowed fangs and try to get a grip on its ear with your free hand. If you can hold on, keep it from swallowing, it'll suffocate.

It doesn't work. The bear tenses, lifts its muzzle and swallows. Its throat is wrapped around your whole body and the rolling contraction of strong muscle squeezes you deeper no matter how hard you try to hold on. A thick coating of mucus on the walls of its throat slicks you down for easier ingestion and the desperate grip of one human hand can't fight the strength of a hungry bear. The pressure against your forearm forces your arm to straighten bit by bit.

You lose your grip and lurch deeper. The light begins to fade as you slither down the bear's throat. The fleshy inside of bear's cheeks appear on either side of your down and its tongue rolls back against your chin. Your face is at the back of its jaws and all you can see is a sliver of light past the arm pressed against your ear. Your last sight is a jagged outline of fangs silhouetted against the blue of a summer sky. Then there is nothing but the slither of wet throat over your face and the scrape of fangs as your arm follows the rest of you. Your last cry for help sinks into slimy throatflesh and is absorbed.

Too late you think to straighten your legs, lock your knees. You should have done that before your legs folded up in its stomach. The relentless squeeze of its throat pushes the rest of you into its gut no matter how hard you try to resist. As your hand slips into its maw you make a last desperate effort to grab something, anything. The greasy bear nosepad offers no grip and your fingernails leave trails in the thick coat of drool on the bear's tongue. Then it is over. Your hand slips into the bear's throat and a last ripple of the swallowing muscles send it after the rest.

Helpless to save yourself, you curl up inside the bear. A great bulge forms in its midsection as a third its weight in man becomes bear food. The wet folds of bear stomach expand and stretch tight over you and you feel the heavy, lumpy bulge you make in its middle.

The coating of drool that slicked you down for easy swallowing wasn't caustic. The sloshing juices that half fill its belly are another story. Displaced by your entry, they squeeze into every crevice of your body. Every nook and cranny of the stomach, every fold of your body is coated with thick digestive slime. You burn all over as you start your trip through a bear. You went down its throat as a man. Now you're just food.

Energized by the thought of being bear chow you try to struggle. It's pointless. Thick fat and muscle squeeze in from all sides, constricting you into helplessness. In retrospect the fight was over the moment you failed to drive it away with the rock. Once it trapped your hand and swallowed it along with your hips, it was all over. The slither as the rest of you slid down its throat was merely the conclusion to its meal.

Squeezed into a helpless ball, surrounded by the bear's bass-drum pulse and the growing gurgle of digestion, you kick one last time. All it does is break loose a big bubble of air. Even from inside the thing, you hear the bear belch. It's sprawled out on its side, giving its swollen belly room to spread out. One paw is draped casually over the lump, cupping your cheek through the flesh and fur. It's relaxed. Why not? All the hard work is done. The caustic juices burning you all over now will finish the job. They will dissolve you, skin first, then muscle, and finally your bones converted into calories, fat and bear shit.

Your shorts, t-shirt and socks are soaked through. They seem to be immune to the acid and will make their way through the bear more or less intact. Maybe it'll serve as a warning to someone. They'll find a big pile of bear poop with a shirt or whatnot in it and say "I better figure out how I'd get away from a bear. Because this guy sure didn't."

Or maybe they'll just think it randomly ate some laundry. Dogs do that, why not bears? Then you'll just be another hiker who disappeared on the trail, not a teaching lesson that'll help others avoid your slimy digestive fate.

Your feet, still protected by slowly dissolving shoes, at least don't hurt. You try to focus on that as you sink into hot, gurgling darkness.

There is a last thought as the bear's stomach goes to work. There's something in here with you besides your clothes. In the fist pressed against your right cheek is the rock you tried to brain it with. It wasn't a big enough rock. Just the same, you hope it hurts like hell when the bear shits it out.