I RACED BACK to The Seaside with every intention of changing my clothes, getting the ladder out, and removing the metal flashing so the squirrels and other critters could escape before pandemonium ensued.
But when I went up the stairs toward my room I realized pandemonium had come and gone.
The attic access door had been located in the ceiling above the upper hallway. Now there was a huge hole where the door had been. The attic stairs were still folded up, like they should be, but the access door was on the floor in splinters, and a snake with a crushed head lay on it. The snake looked to be about six feet long, and was likely a rat snake. Wood was splintered all over the carpeting and squirrels were running amok throughout the house.
I propped the front door open and herded the squirrels out the door as best I could. Along the way, I encountered three snakes of similar length, but no rats. I suspected the new guests and I would find some rats later that night.
Rachel's blood-curdling scream told me she'd found one of the snakes in the back hallway as she tried to enter the house. I raced down the steps for the fifth time in ten minutes and removed the snake from her view while explaining the situation. Rachel turned and ran, and I continued working until I was convinced the squirrels and snakes were out of the house.
I decided Jimbo and Earl were wrong about not boarding up the escape routes, because when I pulled down the attic ladder and climbed up into the attic, I found a few baby squirrels, twenty feet of soiled, feces-soaked insulation, and nothing more. I relocated the baby squirrels to the side yard and drove back to the hardware store to buy some plywood I could use to board up the hole until I could get a new door ordered.
Jimbo said, "I'll order you one, but we're talkin' six weeks, maybe longer. You just don't see many doors like that no more."
I also bought a can of paint that seemed a close match to the ceiling color, and figured I had just enough time to secure the plywood, spray paint it, and tidy things up before the guests checked in.
On the way back to The Seaside I started working on an explanation for Beth as to how five snakes and a dozen squirrels could crash through an attic door, and how one of the snakes had gotten crushed to death in the process.