Something's in our chimney.

Ew.

At first, I felt really bad for it, thinking it must have been a poor little squirrel that likely fell into our chimney. Eric got a flashlight and said the thing had fur and whiskers. My next thought was gigantic, beady-eyed rat. I know squirrels have fur and whiskers (they do have whiskers, right?), but this thing was too quiet... and it seemed big. I know, that doesn't make sense since I never saw it. But still. Plus, it never made a sound, and squirrels make lots of noise when they're pissed off. So there's my logic. It is/was a rat.

So we grabbed a large box, opened the front door and barricaded the family room so that if it escaped, it would hopefully just find its way outside. Eric put the box under the flue, opened the flue, I retreated into a bedroom with Jaiden, closed the door and...

Nothing. We left the flue open for a long time, but the thing never budged. Eric assumed it climbed out, and I assumed it had just found a hiding place. Eric stuck his head practically up into the flue, and couldn't find anything. So, he went to the bathroom, I sat down with my laptop, and I heard scratching again. *Shudder* Eric assumed I was paranoid and hearing things. I knew differently. He opened the flue again, looked up, and magically there appeared a place where the thing was probably hiding. ;)

We got into our previous positions, opened the flue... and still nothing.

After Eric went to bed and the house got quiet, I heard it come off its perch and dig frantically at the opening of the flue (or at least that's what I imagined it was doing... trying to get out so that it could leave the fireplace, come directly at me and sink its fangs into me). I stayed up for another hour and a half, and eventually I didn't hear anything more.

Today, I heard nothing. One of three things happened:

1. It tried climbing out, fell and killed itself.
2. It tried climbing out and found a way to escape. (Maybe there's a hole into the attic? Which means it's crawling around above my head. I kind of doubt it was able to climb all the way to the top of the chimney.)
3. It's still in there, biding its time (unlikely--I've been sitting here 8 hours and I've heard nothing).
4. It just died. Of hunger or something.

So, in all likelihood, it's still around, either dead or alive.