The Squirrel Beyond the Veil

Maple Street wasn’t just quiet—it was unnaturally still, a place where the air tasted like mothballs and the oaks drooled sap that glowed faintly at night. The houses leaned inward, as if whispering secrets, and the residents moved like puppets with half-cut strings. It was a street of cracked teacups and forgotten clocks, where nothing strange happened—until the ghost squirrel slithered through the walls.

It began with Edith Gizzard, a widow at number 12 who smelled like lavender and moth wings. She was peeling carrots with a rusty spoon one night when a skree-wobble echoed from her chimney. Not a normal sound—no wind, no bats—just a wet, gurgling chirp that made her spoon bend backward. She waddled to the fireplace, peering up the flue, and something peered back: two glowing orbs, not quite eyes, hovering in a swirl of smoky fur. Then a carrot—her carrot—flew from her hand, spiraled up the chimney, and vanished. A single acorn plopped down instead, oozing a sticky, purple goo. Edith shrieked, and the goo giggled.

Next door at number 15, the Hoggle twins—two lumpy brothers who collected jarred pickles—woke to their kitchen pulsating. The walls breathed, the floor squirmed, and their pickle jars spun like tops. When they stumbled in, their fridge was vomiting tapioca pudding, and a tower of acorns teetered in the sink, each one carved with tiny, toothy grins. A shadow skittered across the ceiling—not a squirrel, not quite—its tail a writhing tentacle of mist. The twins locked eyes, then locked the fridge with a bicycle chain. The tapioca kept oozing through the cracks.

By morning, Maple Street was a twitching mess. Whispers spread like fungus: the ghost squirrel wasn’t just a pest—it was a wrongness. At number 9, little Zora Blink saw it peel itself out of her mirror, its body a shimmering quilt of squirrel bits and static. It stole her crayons, drew a spiral of chittering faces on her wall, then melted into the carpet, leaving a trail of acorns that pulsed like heartbeats. At number 17, the Kloop family’s goldfish bowl erupted into a fountain of feathers, and their cat, Mr. Whiskerbutt, grew a second tail overnight—ghostly, flicking, and fond of slapping faces.

The street’s sanity unraveled. Lights flickered in colors no one could name. Clocks ran backward, then sideways. Acorns rained from ceilings, some sprouting tiny legs and scuttling away. The ghost squirrel—or whatever it was— reveled in the madness. At number 11, the Zestons threw a dinner party to prove they weren’t afraid. Mid-soup, the table levitated, spinning like a top. Soup spoons morphed into wriggling worms, and the chandelier belched a cloud of glittering moths. A squirrel-thing perched atop it, its eyes dripping like wax, its tail a spiral of teeth. It hiccupped, and the room filled with the sound of a thousand wet socks slapping concrete. Guests fled, clawing at the door as it giggled behind them.

A meeting was called in the town’s only room with no windows—a damp, fungal basement. Theories oozed forth: alien squirrel probes, a cursed acorn god, a government experiment gone gooey. Traps failed—cages melted into syrup. Cameras caught only blurs of claws and whispers. Then Old Man Gorp, a hunched figure who smelled of mildew and secrets, coughed up a tale. “It’s the Squirrel of the Hollow Veil,” he wheezed, his tongue flicking oddly. “Back in 1888, a tinker named Zebulon Crank trapped squirrels in jars, pickled ‘em alive. One got loose—big, wrong, with eyes like oil slicks. It ate his shadow, then his sanity. Zeb shot it under that oozing oak, but it didn’t die—it unraveled. Been waiting ever since, chewing holes in the world.”

The oak. Edith’s tree, its bark rippling like flesh. The residents grabbed pitchforks, spoons, and a rusty trombone, marching to end it. But as they neared, the ground quivered, and the air turned to jelly. A skree-wobble roared, and the tree split open, spewing a swarm of ghost squirrels—hundreds, thousands—each a patchwork of fur, teeth, and oozing light. Their tails lashed like whips made of fog, their acorns rained down, sprouting mouths that sang in reverse. The mob screamed, flailing as the squirrels crawled inside their coats, nibbling at their thoughts. The trombone wailed once, then melted.

Maple Street broke. They stopped fighting, started feeding it—piles of acorns, jars of jam, their least favorite socks. Sometimes the squirrel-things danced on the offerings, leaving trails of glittering slime. Sometimes they burrowed into walls, birthing more shadows. Edith kept peeling carrots, though they screamed now. The Hoggle twins built a pickle shrine, and Zora’s crayons drew themselves into knots. The Zestons boarded their windows with soup cans, whispering apologies to the air.

A new family moved in years later, all shiny teeth and disbelief. “Ghost squirrels? Pfft,” they said, unpacking their normalcy. That night, a skree-wobble shook their bones. An acorn rolled across their floor, sprouting a tiny, clawed hand that waved. The mirror rippled, and a tail—too many tails—slithered out, chittering a welcome in a voice like drowning violins. The family didn’t unpack again.

Maple Street settled into its weirdness, a place where shadows giggled and acorns dreamed. The oak pulsed, the squirrels multiplied, and the world beyond pretended not to notice. Somewhere, Zebulon Crank’s pickled jars rattled, and the Squirrel Beyond the Veil chewed another hole in reality, one gooey bite at a time.