Midnight’s Warning

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Three days ago, on Thursday, they gathered after school. When they had no extracurriculars, the three of them did something together. Asia usually had an idea, and the boys were game to go along. To their astonishment, she once suggested that they go skinny dipping in Gorham's Pond, and despite the feigned protests of the boys, they did. Another time, she planned a hike where there were no trails. "Maybe we can get lost," she said. They did, marched randomly for an hour and a half, and she got in trouble for being late for dinner. Her idea Thursday was to scale the cliff in Whistling Rocks Park near Cave Two that overlooked the gorge where the Pinnock River flowed. The cliff was rocky and rose vertically sixty feet.
"Let's see who can climb the highest," she said with a sparkle in her eye. "My uncle went to Yosemite and climbed up that … what's it called mountain?"
“Half-Dome,” Jason said. “And only pro climbers do that, with pitons and ropes and all sorts of equipment.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t Half-Dome, and we can use our hands.”
“I’m not going all the way to the top,” Jason said. “The wind could blow us off.”
“It doesn’t matter, dude. It won’t bother us.” Sergio said. “Let’s do it.”
They scrambled over the rock rubble at the bottom of the cliff and tested the stability of the rock face with their fingers. It was granite and didn't crumble or give way. They spread out and started their climbs. Inch by inch, they rose, their bodies hugging the cliff.
“Don’t look down,” Sergio said. “It makes you dizzy.”
After what seemed like half an hour, and was actually three minutes, they were nine feet off the ground. To Jason, it seemed a mile high, his mind envisioning a free fall onto the rubble bruising bones and scraping exposed skin.
Asia was the highest. She reached above her head to hook her fingers around a small ledge. In that spot, wasps had a nest. They spent all summer adding cell after cell and bearing generation after generation of new wasps. They were sluggish now in the chilly October wind, but their winter die-off had not yet begun. Asia's fingertips felt the papery nest and, she quickly withdrew her hand. But it was too late. The dislodged nest tumbled down, narrowly missed Sergio's head, and landed below him. Suddenly, all three teenagers were surrounded by angry wasps, their pointed tails seeking the destroyers of their home. They buzzed around the heads of all three climbers, landed on their bare necks and hands, and swarmed in ever-increasing numbers.
“Don’t move!” Asia shouted. “They won’t sting if we’re still.”
It was the last thing the boys wanted to hear. Every instinct in them shouted: “Get out of here, fast.” But Asia was usually right about things, so they obeyed her. Sergio watched a wasp climb up his bare arm and start poking under his shirt-sleeve. Every muscle in his body tensed. But he remained unmoving.
A wasp crawled on Jason’s ear, tickling him and entered his ear canal. He willed himself to be calm and motionless. But he couldn’t stand the feeling inside his ear and the terror of being stung. He swatted the side of his head to scare the wasp away. In doing so, he lost his balance. As his feet and fingers desperately sought holds on the cliff face, Jason did a fast tango down to the rubble. He was cut and scraped as he navigated the tumble of sharp rocks. The wasps stung him: two on his left hand, one on the side of his neck, and one inside his ear. With arms and legs beating the air, he ran toward the Pinnock River, where it widened into a small pond.
Asia and Sergio remained on the face of the cliff. After interminable minutes, the wasps calmed and forlornly crawled on the rocks looking for their lost home. Neither was stung.
Jason splashed cool water on his wounds, his body trembling from the trauma of the wasps. He moved stones so he could scoop more water.
That is when he found the bones.