What Makes a Boy Light Fires?

Tommy Shuttle pushes over a big barrel of used motor oil grinning wide —-there’s going to be fire on the ground worthy to be hell’s ceiling.

“So, how’re we gonna keep score?” I say, excitedly pushing over another barrel. Thick black oil pours guiltily over the leaves. “What counts for what?” I grab a rake and start dredging oil across the ground. “Who’ll say who wins?”

Tommy’s eyes spiral with lunatic joy as he dumps the last barrel on its side emptying with thick hunks and retches. Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he gushes “Ha! That’s easy!” No matter how often I hear it, his laugh creaks up a stairwell that never seems to reach his attic. “The Fire Department! It’ll be in the Chronicle inbig black letters! They’ll judge!”    

“Yeah, we’ll probably end up in front of one of those before too long!” I say half joking. If that happens then we better make sure we deserve what’s coming to us. That’s pure Tommy logic, and it’s a psychic truth in this mechanical world —- infallible.

One parameter’s been established —- neither of us can copy each other’s strategy. Mine calls for piling oily loam and leaves against bases of dry trees; once ignited, I hope flames will jump tree to tree blazing torch after torch. Tommy’s more grounded —- he’s going for the all–over burn: fire the ground, and let wind carry flames to the trees.

Tommy and I agree it’s a shame flames won’t reach Berger City. Nothing would be better than seeing the Sewage Treatment plant by the baseball diamonds at Gerald R. Ford Park inundated with flame followed by a massive explosion. Tommy says he can imagine the ever–present Basketball That Owns Itself at the park’s court melting into asphalt reverting to hot pitch right before it bursts.

There’re always other strategies in daylight that can be used in a contest for the most out–of–control fire, but at night smoke and darkness will impede any attempts to put it out. But the glow’s only a secondarythrill. After all, what in a boy lights fires?

The Shuttles live in my neighborhood midway up the long hill of our road. Tommy’s the youngest of eight siblings and a few years ahead of me in school. There are always things afoot up at their house that areinteresting if not at the very least educational. I’ve seen my first XXX porno mag thanks to Tommy and Rodger, his older brother. Not long–ago Rodger showed us the latest addition to his large collection of skin magazines —-an all Little People’s issue featuring adult short women with boobs and butts contrastingly normal.

Recently Tommy and I have seen our first live naked woman outside of family. According to local lore one of our high school’s most attractive and popular girls is prone to display post–bath towel anatomy through her bedroom window. And thanks to Tommy’s short telescope we strategically concealed in the wood lineoverlooking the alleged window, we’ve not only discovered her grandmother’s in for an extended visit currently occupying our target’s bedroom but the unfortunate revelation that not all Old Lady parts sag; their bushes climb up. By mid–navel Nana Mohair has a jungle growth Tarzan couldn’t swing through.

On shelves and walls in his room Tommy displays various awards he’s received for

projects presented at Technical Students of America conferences on both state and national levels. During this time Tommy’s also accumulated a growing number of medications whose effects he describes as filling his brain with plush spider legs. I’ve seen the pills in his drawer: reds, blues, pinks in varieties of shapes and sizes — allsmelling the same: sickeningly chemical.

The first time seeing my own white Ritalin pills he laughed, exclaiming Shit, those are like marshmallows in my cereal!

It’s serendipitous that Tommy lives in the same neighborhood as me and doesn’t have any bearing on being friends. Some of the popular kids in Berger City live on our road too but share nothing with us other than general dislike. Tommy was pegged a deviant from the order of things long before I arrived in Berger City —-labeled a psychotic troublemaker best avoided. He’d been fucked–with slightly through the years but thanks to his massive older brothers he’s escaped those truly impressionable things typical aberrations to Berger City’s status quo undergo.

Tommy and I are friends because we share a predilection for engaging in wholesale destruction, whether planned or on sheer impulse. For us every day’s potentially 4^th of July, and it goes well beyond simple firecrackers, sparklers, or ash snakes. We’ve recently discovered that Styrofoam and gasoline creates effective napalm; ourlocal newspaper reported in its police news that the county sheriff reported two old Chryslers in a junk yard located along one of the many back runs in our county were burnt clear to the rims by what appeared to have been Molotov cocktails. We often experiment with rocket kits —- not for a little man to eject from his parachute but to create our own working version of a javelin missile; an abandoned shed near the railroad tracks is partially scorched and pocked with holes from our forward progress. Recently we ambushed a group of high school kids swimming in the river with a fusillade of Roman candle shots from the weeds along the bank and ran away before they could catch us.

Occasionally Tommy and I sneak out past midnight riding our dirt–bikes to engage in drive–by launches of whistling moon travelers at peoples’ houses and tossing lit punk daisy­chained to wads offirecrackers in garbage cans in random alleys. From hiding places, we giddily

 watch the havoc unfold as town cops take statements from irate homeowners. Tommy has repeatedly expressed that given a chance one day he’d “borrow” things from his Dad for some grand scheme. We’d daydream about additions to our list of places that would truly stand out while on fire in our piss–hole little town. Just lately news arrived that Berger City’s environs —- meaning the entire Ohio Valley—-was allegedly onthe Soviet Union’s First Strike List due to the region’s numerous industries up and down the river. When we’re not spray–painting Bull’s Eyes on random buildings across town, Tommy and I talk about helping the Reds to get the nuclear boogaloo glowing.

But most nights during our rides Tommy and I simply roam Berger City’s dark streets. We cruise along the lightless places while bags of garbage sigh in cans, lonely trains roll through whistling for traffic that isn’t anywhere and sounds from shadowy houses of upstanding town fathers beating their wives, monkey–barsacross the ever oozing shit mist blanketing Berger City’s fittingly monikered Stink Stadium’s open night mouth. Inthe air there’s always an uneasy heaviness we pedal against. Tommy and I both agree – something’s inherently wrong with the town not in a tangible physical way but posits its gravity on all aspects of its existence like some dark and unnamed planet in deepest space.

The kids here are either conditioned to ignore the morgue slab darkness just beneath the surface of the town or are dosed to distraction through Berger City’s standby opiates of sports and church. But it’s always close —- pooling below the manicured lawns for beetles to trail through on their way to devour the pristine picket fences of Berger City’s houses and churchyards, gnaw the bleachers at its football field, or slowly splinter itstelephone poles whose wires carve sky into sheet music of the high school fight song.

Being deemed aberrations by Berger City’s body politic, at least we come to it honestly–­ meaning it’s within us naturally to stand apart from the In Crowd in most of the standards here; indulging in following both regular and European football; Tommy’s sister’s punk rock records over Super–Q 104 or WOMP FM radio currently fucking ears with Big Hair Cock Rock or artful ghetto beats watered down into white suburban noise funneling into Walkmans sported everywhere by typical Berger City kids much like their letterman’s jackets. I’ve fought with my mother about wanting stone–washed jeans and black leather jackets over Zubaz lifter pants and turtlenecks festooned with gold chains. And fuck multi–colored Jams shorts popular with angry Berger City In–Crowd teens; a fat kid in Jams appears like a fat kid in Jams as those peers have made abundantly clear to me.

Our natural love for havoc constitutes for us the promise of that final transcendence from these Berger City streets on the day we can run from them —- run hard and far. But in the meantime, between then and now, I’ll run with Tommy apart from the kowtow step & fetch among our lessers while things shatter, fires burn, and explosions flash two running shadows across the ground in and around Berger City —- a rest stop on the way to a rest stop.

Tommy and I are friends because what cuts through this stinking air brings us what’s theirs —- camaraderie not existing around spherical, oblong, or cruciform objects inflating egos of people as vacuous as the balls they bounce. We’re friends simply because we the Maniacal can smell our own.

“Today’s the day, Bud!!”

Tommy greets me on the porch of my Grandparents’ house, excitedly starts telling me he’s discoveredsomething amazing and has a plan for what to do with it. On the way back up the hill he’s practically oozing excitement as he brushes off any hot questions I have, saying repeatedly It’s a surprise — believe me, you’regonna shit! With eyes flashing, he starts laughing in that out of body way revealing the mood of his controlling daemon. It means nothing short of what it implies: Today we’re gettin’ down with the burn down.

We stop at his house picking up a large army duffle bag. Slinging it over his shoulder we make our way upthe hill towards the very top of Taylor Drive, up past the last grass border and enter the woods.

There’s always that loud nature sound at the edge of the grassland. Being Berger City pale–faces wedon’t have native talents or instincts to detect any single entity in that Big Noise —- the uninterrupted lowfidelity volume of a million life forms eating, shitting, pecking, or fucking around us. Brown birds up in the branches meld with the canopy, flit–flit–flitting along indistinguishable as cigar snakes moving in ashtrays. The only color to the tree they occupy is granted by a large black and yellow hornet —- angrily concentrating on the sap its lapping from the trunk. As we pass near, it flashes its large wings at us twice in order to convey, Kiddies you disturb either my nosh or peace, I’m gonna hit you with my ass… And I promise, IT WILL HURT.

As we walk a trail that seems to go ever upward, Tommy pulls a pouch of Big League

Chew from his jeans pocket and wads a hunk in his cheek. He hands the pouch over. I do the same, chewing hard. The bubble gum’s always tough in the beginning like stringy bricks of Bazooka. Stuffing the package in hispocket Tommy continues to grouse about last night’s episode of The A–Team.

“Man, I hate it when they do that sentimental garbage —- those bleedin’–heart bullshit plotlines!”Tommy says, chewing through a growl. “It ain’t that they avenged a friend —- that’s fine. I mean fuck . . .revenge is always good, right? It’s that they always do it so,” here his teeth gnash disgustedly on the last word,“clean! I’d have shown Hannibal Smith cuttin’ his heart out for what he did.”

“They won’t show that, Man!” I say grinning. “Sure —- nobody gets shot with an M–16 and not have shit erupt out of him! I get what you’re sayin’ —- it’s not realistic. Like Battlestar Galactica—- all those laser blasts destroyin’ Colonial starfighters and Cylon saucers; vehicles do explode like that in real life! But with one–on–one combat there can only by that spark of a hit and nothin’ else. No gore allowed!” I spread a thin smile, pondering a moment the sight of a Cylon laser blast eviscerating Starbuck.

“It’s a load of shit!” Tommy exclaims. “There’s war movies on all the time that show dudes gettin’ blown up and shot to hell! For somethin’ purportedly to be military–based, The A­ Team comes across like G.I Joe for adults!” He cites the fact that for all their explosions and gun play neither series ever depicts flying entrails or a single body dropping. They wage war with pillow fight casualties.

“It’s different for prime–time TV, Man! They gotta dumb down any violence. It’s okay when it’s vehicle on vehicle! Explosions can imply anything violent just as long as there’s no blood and guts. Chances are when a show has a toy line for kids you’ll never see a drop of blood.'”

“It’ll happen.” Tommy says, popping a bubble. “That bar’ll be cornin’ down sooner or later. They can’t censor movies like the way they do on TV; those are defended by, like constitutional amendments. But it won’t be long until that freedom will trickle down to TV. Just like horror movies they show on Friday and Saturday night!”

“C’mon! You think The Exorcist would ever be played unedited on TV?” I bark a laugh. “Have millions of kids sneaking peeks at a girl fucking herself with a cross? In school that’d be bigger than tater tots! Movies yes;cable TV not a chance.”

”Nah, I’m tellin’ you it’s gonna happen. As soon as they find out they can make money for that I guessexposure or whatever. Once they figure that out, say goodbye to the black dots!” “That may or may not be agood thing, Man,” I say. “How will you know what to watch if there’s nobody to tell you no, you can’t watch that?”

Tommy’s brows raise a moment considering. “Good point. Rodger told me when Bobby would stay with Mamaw and Papaw she’d tell him not to look in Papaw’s army box in the basement. One day she said it whenBobby was helpin’ her with laundry, and curiosity finally got the best of him. She took a nap on the sofa, and he went down and opened the box. Guess what was inside — all of Papaw’s skin mags! They’re old–time ones –women with bushes clear up to their armpits!” At this we simultaneously bellow out NANA MOHAIR!!

Laughing, Tommy continues. “But that’s how Bobby discovered porn! Every one of us male Shuttles gets a taste for skin mags passed down by Big Brother!” Tommy smiles with warmth and respect.”If Bobby had listened to Mamaw, it may’ve been years before we might’ve, you know?”

I nod, feeling grateful to be part of a tradition. “Thank you, Bobby!”

Tommy laughs. “You bet! This is his duffle bag.” Tommy spins it off his shoulder to show me “Shuttle, Robert G.” and his serial number stamped long ways on the side. “Speaking of which, this thing’s makin’ my arm numb.”

“Want me to carry it?”

“Nah, I’ve got more clearance. And we’re gonna need it to get over this.”

We arrive at a huge deadfall. Four large elms lay bashed together with limbs and branches wrappedwithout any visible starts or finishes. In many spaces vicious snarls of purple thorn bush promise rips and lacerations to denims and calves.

“It’s been here awhile” I scowl, not keen on climbing a huge pile of rotten wood. Some very nasty looking thorns stick out through the bone white branches. “Man! There’s no way around?”

Tommy shakes his head. “This shit’s all over. I tried goin’ around it but there’s all kinds of thorn bushes and brambles. There’s an old trail rounding the hill, but it’s covered with poison sumac — real thick. There’s more of these fuckin’ thorns, too. I know where the weak points are on this, Bud! Just follow me!”

I cringe, but I’m completely game. So far Tommy’s kept mum about what’s in the duffle. When I press him about it he only says It’s the one we’ve been waitin’ for! And closes with the joyously ominous You’re gonna shit. Upward I go.

We move quickly over the deadfall despite its size. It’s the energy emitted by what’s waiting at the end giving us quick feet. On the other side a wide pathway —- an overgrown logging road —-opens up. We follow this for what seems to be miles.

The old path eventually branches out into two barely perceptible ones. Tommy tells me that the lower path goes towards a cave that we’ll check out sometime. The one we take winds a little more up the hill. Rounding its crest, we come to a large sappy copse of pine trees. We barrel through. At some places boughs are so thick we crawl on the ground.

No matter. Whatever is at this secret destination is driving Tommy on with a whip. “We’re almost there,”he says, grinning wide enough to see his wisdom teeth.

Tommy’s usually hyperactive with eyes set on spiral with any plan he comes up with. But this one’s got veritable cattle prod up his ass. His brows heave in a constantly rising expression comprising swelling anticipation, powerful glee, and something that’s been a constant through all of Tommy’s schemes I’ve come to recognize since the beginning of our friendship; right now, so pervasive and savage he doesn’t recognize how fast we’re going in his rush to get the party started. There’s no denying an old musical undertone’s tuning up —- its timbre I know only too well: the voice of pure and unrefined peril.

If Tommy would stand still his entire body would blur with it. His bones are practically humming — That’s it.

The low hint of sound I’ve heard since the pines. A hum —- barely perceptible but nonetheless riding the breeze carried through the woods. At the same time, I get a hint of a smell through my nose as it drips from exertion, reminding me of the smell through the strip on the door to our basement while my Grandfather woodworks. An odd wood pulp drift chilled by cool metal as if a swing set chain were held in Pinocchio’s dampened hand.

After several minutes, we come to a strand of ruined trees and old thick brush. All the while the volume of this nascent humming’s grown. Soon it’s the loudness of our steps. As we crest a slight rise, the sound immediately gains spectral muscle. There’s a real throb through the air from some massive and as yet unseen engine. AIl other sounds are suppressed. There aren’t birds chirping in the trees. Looking around, I notice there’re no birds period. The breeze pulls at treetops but no noise. There’s nothing but the hum. Drone.

Rounding a thick maple Tommy turns to me. “I wouldn’t brush that trunk if I were you!”

He warns, smiling maniacally. I glance over. A wide mass of hornets identical to the large angry one we’d seen awhile back is harvesting sap from the tree.

I shy away immediately. I despise wasps. As a toddler I was stung by a black wasp whose venom caused my right arm to swell. Since then, any wasps — Vespoidea, sphecoidea, reds, yellow jackets, daubers — Jell–O dancing, pop–can invading, sash crawling shit stains on the fair breeze are born as plague. Any that come within my personal space are quickly familiarized with the human ability to find any array of objects with which to smash them. As we walk towards what is now undoubtedly the source of the now droning roar, I come to realize that there are many trees sporting harvesting wasps.

We come to another deadfall, and finally arrive at our destination.

I freeze solid from ankles to Adam’s apple. The sheen of sweat across my body starts cracking like ice.

Tommy stops beside me —- maliciously laughing. I barely make out his voice over the drone —- along with the internal roar of me mentally shitting myself. I only register what he’s saying as lip movements in my peripheral vision. I think he’s mouthing words like bring along and ass wipe . . . something about me needing ass wipe. I couldn’t care less right now if he’s squeezing Charmin with Mr. Whipple giving him a blowjob.

All that’s on my mind right now is that first hornet. I’m trying to remember if I’d looked at my Swatch watchat any point around seeing it. Time’s essential right now. Because time equals distance. How long ago we passedit equates to how many miles between there and here. While trying to wrench my balls back down my throat,I’m computing the distance that we may be shortly running with every available influx of power.

But like throbbing engines of cars blowing speed limits giving males unwarranted hard-ons through their seats, this pulsing’s spreading a ludicrous grin across my face —- an inappropriate response to total and complete danger. Mortal peril.

Tommy’s look is no less intense. His eyes are wild, spiraling with savage glee. “Welcome to Sting City!!” he says to me giggling. Then in a voice booming loud and clear, he throws down our proverbial gauntlet. “AND WE’VE COME TO KILL EVERY ONE OF YOU!!” He then bursts out in maniacal laughter.

A massive elm supports the single largest ground hornets’ nest I’ve ever seen.

No —- this isn’t a nest; far too simple a construct for this. A community within a community, communities, a borough city–state with attendant satellite colonies beating as one collective and unified conscience.

Tommy’s dubbed it Sting City. It couldn’t be this big! No god–damned way! But there it stands —- a wood pulp skyscraper towering over us. With its citizen–serfs farming on surrounding trees, for all intents and purposes we’re standing within it.

I’ve lost control of my eyes. They’re involuntarily darting about —- attempting to take it all in.

The trunk of the elm’s at least 50 feet tall and around six feet through its center. The top of the tree’s gouged and blackened —- a lightning strike obviously long ago else this colony would’ve been nowhere as largeor as highly developed. The thickness of its limbs stretching out makes the elm a certain age, but evident loss of new branches and outer deterioration leaves no doubt in my mind that as a tree it’s dead. But in a wild afterlife it’s become imperial —- a seat of empire.

Sting City.

Entwined on its right side an ash leans into it, meshing old branches with new. A strange fuzzy vine thickly crimps the mass. The ash seems alive as a large ball of desiccated leaves hangs in the twisted merge ofboth trees. A thick mulch of wood chips and old leaves blankets the brambles surrounding both trees.

The hornets in the perfection of their innate and simple instincts have made the very most of theirsurroundings in Sting City’s construction, maintenance, and without a doubt the military buildup to defend theircity–state. Like many nesting insects they’ve made the most of space and physical impediments. But ingenuity at this unbelievable degree is completely overwhelming.

Sting City‘s also the source of the strange wood pulp smell that I’d detected earlier. The amount of wood they’ve removed from inside the elm must be massive. The hornets have made four holes, two large and two smaller, nearly evenly spaced down the length of the trunk to the root system where a large mossy rock juts out.Even from this distance, the bark around the holes looks dug into. Chewed. There’s a vast traffic network at the top and bottom of the nest. Hundreds —- hundreds —- of drones enter and exit the openings with perfect direction and precision. The two smaller holes —- one below a thick limb and one Tommy discovered to be in the rear, are large enough to have traffic in both directions with drones waiting to enter around their edges.

Carefully viewing Sting City from its few available angles, I see its vast mulch bed’s piled deeply below the entry points. It dawns on me that these hornets have not only tunneled through the tree, but in alllikelihood have hollowed most of it out. In gutting the interior, they may have transformed the entire tree intoone bark covered hive — a living organ with nourishing vessels up and down its length.

The highest limb around six feet beneath the blasted top has a hole bored beneath it with a largemushroom head constructed of wood pulp and insect resin resembling a launch pad. Hornets take off and land with perfect air traffic control despite the size of swarms blurring the air. I see hornets lifting and landing atop the leaf mass between the trees — now visibly serving as an outstation, an overflow point where hornets wait toenter the hive. Once space is cleared the lines enter as one mass.

The second hole’s roughly 20 feet farther down, located a foot from a large limb with a narrower but longer pulp platform. Tommy says the third hole to the rear’s cut beneath a wrapping of the strange looking vine,a fuzzy implanted vein bulging from the bark. He also says with regret we can’t come near the hole as the brush there’s too dense to move through. When Tommy first discovered Sting City in order to observe the entry pointhe’d used binoculars some distance away. He also says he’d seen fewer wasps there.

But the fourth hole at the rock is heavy with traffic — thick with drones entering, exiting, and taking off. There are lines on the ground moving like army ants into the trunk; the exiting wasps take flight into open air with sudden flashes and disappear. Having their entrance beneath the stone on its leeward side, it offers protection against wind and rain. However, the primary source of physical protection against ground attackat this usually vulnerable location’s all around the trunk.

A vast reddish thorn patch wraps several feet in depth around and through the deadfall with tendrils nearly half an inch in diameter. Nourished by mulch, large purplish thorns grow haphazard along its lengths — a formidable barrier to anything approaching Sting City from the ground: toads, frogs, centipedes, skunks, mice, off-balance delinquents, etc. As it is, Tommy and I are forced tokeep a distance nearly ten feet away from the patch itself. Not only out of concern for ripped jeans and cut legs from hundreds of large stiff thorns, but for what appears among them — and the true source of infinite menaceand danger which is the primary protection for this living city-state.

Drones as guardians crawl along the stalks between thorns. Going no closer we see them stationed on surrounding trees, upside down on the outflow station between elm and ash, and in constant flight umbrellas above and through the nest.

In Mr. Joy’s science class at Berger City Elementary we’ve covered wasps in our study of insects. Wasps have stingers different from bees: upon stinging skin bee stingers rip out of a bee’s thorax thereby killing it; waspstingers being smooth are capable of being slid out and back in injecting venom each time. A solitary wasp can sting over and over again, inflicting damage and possibly death to any transgressor mano a mano. This includes humans. The tactical advantage of being armed with such a weapon’s compounded with another advantage, that of numbers.

Mr. Joy tells us wasps use chemical signals for various aspects of hive life: one chemical signal implanted at food sources allow drones to return to collect more; another chemical signal defines territory and hive location, and so on. When wasps like hornets are agitated, anything having the misfortune of being stung is marked by a pheromone signaling drones to attack that same target. One mass, one conscience — they can aggressively swarm in a lethal cloud.

To sustain lives in such a spectacular city-state requires a vast amount of territory for food. Without adoubt drones range far and wide across grasslands and wilderness more and more developed for human settlement. This brings them into conflict with the only mass killing predator they have.

Two of which currently stand at a distance barred from approaching any further.

And one carries a large military duffle bag, intended to be utilized for combat against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Sting City doesn’t declare war but states of emergencies. With simple designs in nature providing their union of community and single consciousness for the propagation and protection of their species, they don’t wage war for annihilation — their only military objective is to simply exist in their environment, their continuing unity unmolested.

I feel a pang of guilt. How long did it take them to build Sting City? To erect their city­state and adapt to their environment? How many months — years — it must’ve taken to layer comb after comb, to birth the swarms responsible for their simple tasks to maintain the colony in order to create such an incredible example ofingenuity and community? Their isolation this deep in the woods had assured their prosperity. But now  — totheir ruin, they’ve been discovered.

I marvel a moment more considering the possible unprecedented size of Sting City. I’m sure neither Mr.Joy nor anyone else around here has ever seen its like. But instead of a camera, we’ve arrived with a pre-meditated murderous design and with relish will carry it out.

I have one last prick of guilt before it’s subsumed by the thrill of the promised mayhem we’re going to dowith whatever’s in Tommy’s war bag.

Tommy pulls the duffle off his shoulder. Unhooking the latch, he carefully dumps the contents onto theground.

I see immediately that he’s finally achieved the long prayed-for chance to “borrow materials” from his Dad — or more to the truth — his company.

Pa Shuttle’s an independent contractor whose outfit goes all over the U.S. performing demolition services for both private and Federal construction projects. He makes big bucks, which come in handy for rearing a family with eight kids. Tommy often talks about going on jobs with his old man where he’d flipped switchesdetonating multi-level buildings into collapses of piled rubble, caused huge strands of boulders to vaporize, and carved hillsides into overpasses and roadways. Pa Shuttle keeps most things under serious lock and key at his company’s compound, including hired security complying with Federal statutes outlining license standards for safety and security.

But evidently some areas aren’t secured enough.

“It took a couple days to build these.” Tommy says picking up what’s clearly a large core segment from a Christmas wrapping roll and hands it to me. Taking hold, I notice the cardboard’s thick and sturdy. Tommy’s coated it with some sort of clear lacquer and capped it at both ends with thick white resin. From one plug a two-footstrand of a slightly stiff purple cord’s embedded through a hole with a clear wax taper. The core’s heavy, dense — itdoesn’t give at all when I squeeze the sides meaning it’s packed hard. Pressing my glasses up on my sweaty nose I catch a smell on my fingertips.

Gunpowder.

I look down, counting six cores altogether.

From the bag a large spool in plastic lies on the ground, the same cord that sticks out from Tommy’s homemade bombs — his dynamite plus. He’s also brought a handle spinner to draw cord off the spool, a pair of snips, a roll of gray duct tape, and finally a large recurve bow of questionable age due to the nicks and bangs along its prod with six long broad-head tipped arrows.

“I couldn’t get to the real sticks or any Det cord,” he says, hands on hips surveying the materials but still sounding completely satisfied. “But I did snag gunpowder and that spool of fuse. He’s especially proud of his homemade bombs. “Besides if my guess is right these will pack way more punch.” He starts in with his giggle.“Waaay more punch!”

“Why’s that?”

“Well for one they’re bigger!” he says, eyes shining. “And another thing I tamped a full container of high-yield powder into these fuckers! Besides, Dad’s company cracks boulders with charges of the same shit almosthalf as big buried in the ground so I think we’re good!”

Almost as big? Looking at him I’ve zero doubt he’s planned this out to inflict the maximum amount ofdamage to the nest. “So, what’s the plan?”

Tommy picks up an arrow. “Okay, first thing is we’re gonna tape each core to an arrow about two inchesback from the head.” He hands me the tape. “Tear off a long piece and hand it to me.” After handing him a foot long piece he slowly wraps the core to the bottom of the arrow keeping mindful of the position of the notch. I tear off eight more. In a moment, he has an explosive projectile trailing a fuse. Laying it down on the flat duffle, be picks up the thick spool and tears off the plastic wrapping. Putting the spinner through its center he explains the next step. “Now I’m gonna unspool some fuse. Grab the arrow and hold it ass end up. I’m gonna splice the ends — make one long fuse.”

“l see what you’re gunning for,” I say, impressed. “You’re gonna shoot those arrows into the tree and blow it!”

Tommy shoots a clown mask look at me giggling maliciously, “We’re gonna nuke Sting City!”

Holding the bow, I feel the obvious imbalance. “This thing’s front heavy, Tommy — like there’s a brick tied to it.” I look up at the height of Sting City and whistle. “You know how to compensate for the off-balance in the arc? You miss it, there won’t be a chance to get the arrow back. Not with all this shit,” I say gesturing towards thethorn bushes.

“Oh I’m not gonna shoot it.” Tommy says grinning, “You’re gonna!”

“Me?!” My eyes blast wide open. “What do you mean I’m gonna?” I hadn’t planned on being the triggerman. When I saw Tommy’s intention with the spool and spinner I assumed Tommy would be the shooter and I’d hold the spool while the arrow sailed on its way with the cord issuing out. But this isn’t the case. Along with everything else in planning this assault Tommy’s taken my role into consideration.

“This spool’s heavy to begin with. The spinner’s heavy too. Together, they have to be held up, so thefuse plays out smoothly when you fire the arrow. So, I’ll hold the spool up, but I get to light the fuse!”

“Fair enough,” I say, picking up the bow. Despite its wear and tear it seems firm. Plucking the string to geta feel for the tautness I’m cautiously optimistic. “It feels good. Wish I’d known what you had in mind, I could’ve brought my Jennings compound.”

“Since when did you get a compound?” Tommy asks loudly, looking surprised at me but a tad bit wistful of what such hardware could’ve added to his plan. “I know you shoot bow but last I knew yours was an old one!”

“I even have customized arrows now — aluminum shafts.”

“Fuck! Oh well.” Tommy shrugs. “Can you handle this?”

I nod, smiling wide, which sets Tommy’s crackpot to immediate boil. “Let’s get to it!” He gushes. “Ahhhh … sweet suspense!”

I shake my head, laughing at Tommy as we ready the rest of the charges.

Tommy splices the fuse at the end of the first core with the spool. Holding the arrow, I’m trying to take into account the extra drag the unspooling fuse will exponentially add in its flight to the trunk. Seeing the arrow now armed with its core, at first I’m worried about the draw and the core’s proximity to the bow itself. Too close I won’t be able to pull back far enough, and it won’t have enough power to make it to the tree. However, testing it out I shouldn’t have worried

Tommy’s cores have been cut for clearance and maximum draw power. The  broad-heads at the tips are razor sharp. No doubt they’ll sink in deep when they hit, providing there’s still wood inside the tree that the hornets left intact. I tell Tommy there’s a good chance they might pass right through Sting City entirely; it being a real possibility it’s completely hollow from the amount of chip mulch seen around it.Tommy says he couldn’t come close to finding out with the defensive ring around the damn trunk and its multitude of temperamental striped asses waiting for something to nail. It’s a considerable X factor.

Behind me, Tommy begins reeling out the first strand of fuse for Shot Number One. While he does that, it’s a good time to talk strategy. “Where do you think I should park these?” I ask.

Tommy comes beside me and points up the trunk. “I’ve got that too. Put the first one into the top, as close to the hole as you can. That’ll give us an idea just how much wood there could be left. The second and third try to bracket the second hole.”

“There’s that limb, Tommy. It’s right there above it. The wood’s gonna be thick there.

Besides, it’s too small a space for me to hit accurately with this weight.”

Tommy nods sighing. “Yeah. Well, I guess plant them both below, one near the hole and space the other beneath that,” he says grudgingly. “Place numbers three and four a couple feet above where the ground bole is. You get the drift — walk them down.”

I nod. “And the last two?”

“One at the root where the rock is — as close as you can,” Tommy says. He pauses, sighing again. “We’re gonna keep one back just in case the fuckin’ thing IS hollow — much as I hate to do it. Fuck! I wish we had a clear shot to that bole in the back!” Tommy then perks up. ”Ah well! It might come in handy down the road, you know?”

I nod laughing. After a moment, I notch the arrow. “Let’s get evil.”

Tommy starts his infernal giggle. “Flame on, Bud! Little fuckers have no idea what’s about to happen!”

He stands to the side holding the spool. I draw back the arrow, testing the shot. The bow’s got a strong pull like my Jennings. No doubt it’ll do the job. Release it back.

I look over at Tommy. “Ready?”

“Let it fly!” He screams a war whoop.

I draw back feeling right about my guess for the arc. Holding my breath, I feel the string leave my fingers as it should, like a surprise. It sails nearly perfect. Behind me I hear quiet whirls as fuse-cord is pulled along.

The arrow hits slightly off center with an audible whump striking the top of the tree below the old scorch mark. And as I suspected, the trunk there’s indeed hollow. The arrow penetrated the bark to the point therounded top of the core actually punched in almost a quarter of its length. From its end there’s an unbroken line of fuse lain across the lower thorn bushes to the spool.

Tommy shouts loud. Happy with my shot he comes over playfully punching my arm. “SHIT, WHAT A HIT!” he exclaims. “Fuckin’ perfect! Perfect!” I smile, feeling proud stupid. Tommy sets the spool down and snips the fuse. He begins to play out more for the next charge. But as I stare up at the arrow and its primed explosive now jutting from Sting City’s bark, my pride’s slowly turning to concern. My smile dissipates as something I’venervously considered in this pre-meditated invasion rises up to chill my spine.

Above the core the air flexes — as if a gust were Saran-wrapped, from the number of hornets clouding around it. They quickly cover the plugged rim of the new hole, crawling and massing along the length of thecore. Their response is quick now that their initial shock’s worn off. Drones and soldiers are reacting to thissudden body in their midst the way white cells fight infection. They’re swarming the invader, but in this instance finding no pulse or heat signature they assume it’s a neutral organic body — simply another fallen limb. No alarms are given. The swarms are reacting to the pheromones of drones crushed by the arrow purely out of chemical compulsion. But it only took some part per million of a single crushed hornet to incite reaction. A sting into skin delivers so much more. With several stings, the Bull’s-Eyes will be painted bright red. Serious peril,indeed.

Tommy hands me the second arrow ready to launch. My fear and excitement meld into a single rush. Adrenalized, I stand nearly disembodied — watching myself notch, draw back, and fire. The arrow flies like the first, punching through the bark directly below the second bole. However, thin wood seems to remain as the broad-head sank no further than the top of the core. The tape’s now pushed back — bunched up much like atamping wad. Drones again react. From the bulbous outstation a swarm lifts off and descends, pouring like a small faucet the entire length of the core.

I fire the third, fourth, and fifth arrows — each one landing spaced down the trunk. Tommy roars approval — his excitement increasing with every hit. The fifth hits not near but literally through the ground bole, burying itself to the end of the core nestled against the rock now missing a swath of lichen from the passing arrow. The end is immediately covered up by swarming drones. Rocketing through the thorn bush the arrow disturbed guardians posted there. Slowly like heat waves on hot asphalt, the air bends in menace as theyrepeatedly rise and land.

The hum’s grown louder like a blaring siren. No doubt alarm bells are now going off throughoutSting City. They know something’s happening — something that’s brought sudden death to some of theircitizens. Drone to drone — swarm to swarm, the red signals are lighting up.

From top to bottom, Sting City’s now studded with Tommy’s homemade TNT. Fuses cut to perfect lengths from the cores bunch in Tommy’s hand like a bouquet. But those stems aren’t for festival, sweet matrimony, soliciting a rosy hue for some lovey-lovey’s cheek, or for any sweetness’s sake. He holds funerary blooms like those left to rot mournful stains on white headstones.

In its scope and consideration Tommy’s plan is magnificent. For its cruelty it’s far less than the 19^thCentury mindset that shot passenger pigeons out of the skies to extinction just for shit’s sake. Sting City’s fate was sealed the moment Tommy laid eyes on it. It took only a short time of observation to come to the full realization that he’d destroy it — that we’d destroy it. Even before he stepped out of its realm he possessed the imago of its desolation.

In this I feel guilty. I am guilty. These simple creations of nature, these things which have attainedperfection of community and cohesion of unity and harmony, a universal medium that seems present throughout nature’s exemplars save one species, are given weapons solely for the defense of Sting City — to defend with single mindedness their collective welfare. They serve no ideals of conquest for wealth, territory, or for Drone 1000 to cast his shadow against Drone 1001 to take what’s his. They don’t deliberately fuck over others of their species for profits or political power, dump refuse without regard for the land, callous in usage of natural resources, or be indifferent to recycling building materials. There’s nothing but defense towards anything meant to harm their body politic.

They don’t use stingers to deliberately annihilate those wasps that by natural design build mud huts instead of tree-trunk city-states out of some imagined racial dominance or theological ideals contested between mud and pulp. For them ideas of hegemony come as words signed by black–gloved hands in sepulchral dark. What does not propagate the collective survival of the species — what does not maintain the common good, is wholly absent from their equation. They focus brutality only to survive invaders. For that end the military arm of Sting City takes on all comers.

But here to their front doors comes an enemy who’s made war on their kind since the days the first wasp stingers entered Sapiens’ skins — cognitively striking hominid jaws with their tiny gloves. Since then, came swatters, sprays, electric cages, glue papers, chemical deterrents, deforestation; with each passing age the weaponry used to slay wasps grew more lethal than the last. Yet here they remain — flying marvels of simple engineering through millions of years whose tiny retractable venomous smooth shafts have outmatched the bestanti-insect weaponry of humanity — these beings who immediately return to primeval hand–flailing fear the moment a vespoidi emerges from the top of a pop can.

But what brought us to destroy you Sting City is there too at that instinctual level where our fear of your denizens resides. It’s a facet we’ve obscured through debated theories, ethical queries, and daubed over by philosophy until the provocative shapes of its conveyance are illegible. But always beneath our cosmetics and pedantics this truth of our collective history remains sure as a single sunray fails escape from the gravity ofblackest, densest space; bound like a boil on the face of the planet. And once lanced, its brutal juice spills in concordance with mass murder as our bloodletting repeatedly soaks the globe. And always at the end, all enlightening layers lie stripped away. For that brief baleful moment, our true nature is again bare to the stars, theskies, the earth, and to one another. There the questions proliferate anew: why did it happen? How did it happen? And the wretchedly hopeful how do we keep it from happening again?

I could announce to your citizens we’re here because we as a kind spell fire like it’s meant, O Sting City. We’re here because we recognize in you those things we recognize as not being in us. Encasing ourselves in complex systems, we’re left to howl when the laws, the structures, the driving need to create order to protect ourselves are left in rubble by that old low flaw — that animalistic simplicity shredding the validity of our divine and delusional right to the world.

With that perhaps we’re here to mock your simplicity, your order, but above all your success in achieving complete and lasting harmony. We’re members of a species prone to snuff out that in others which we ourselves lack. Your common accord incites the killer we so long deny. We’ve come to sugar the skin of your city with explosives to remind you that the primeval gauntlet remains at your insectile feet, and this is only our bitpart. Remaining pathetic in embracing inflated constructions to deflect and deny what comes fatal in us; we’re here to remind ourselves of that fallibility of acceptance — the ultimate egotistic act at your expense.

Humanity stands alone in nature for that desire to destroy simply for the glow of fires reflected on white bones. Tommy and I are here because we’ve refused to tow the party line and bullshit ourselves. We’ve embraced our deviations with the strengths of mothers’ hugs, and in so doing we find refractions in a single drone’s 1000 lenses enticing as kaleidoscopes as the flash fills its eye. We come to you as dragonflies that by other means still find fulfillment in the atomizing of your proteins.

I wax this — your valediction Sting City, as Tommy lights the first fuse. The murder spark bursts to life.Spitting loudly, it races along white and sizzling.

“I figure about a two second delay for the top fuse to burn before I light the next!” Tommy yells as he lights the second. “We don’t want the bottom one to blow before the top!”

In sequence Tommy lights the others. He keeps feverish eyes on the racing sparks while quickly stuffing materials back into the duffle including the sixth arrow and bow. He’s fully content that they’re no longer needed– to be saved back for some other future maniacal scheme.

Over brambles, through thorns, the sparks roll and crack — bouncing off hard-striped shells and rapidly flexing antennae of buzzing guardians emitting furious chemical warnings too late. They race between disrupted traffic lines congealed in futile masses at the sites of impact unaware that the true devastation is in route, a terrorist act never conceived of in their collective mind. The point of no return at the thorny barrier passed, sparks race up the tree towards their final stops.

Tommy stuffs his fingers in his ears, motioning for me to do the same. We start hailing the tree, shouting in unison DEATH … DEATH … DEATH … DEATH … DE– The first sparks reach the top cores simultaneously.

The combined blast wave hits us with a flatiron chest punch — knocking both of us on our backs even at what Tommy determined was a relatively safe distance.

The entire top length of the tree shatters with a savage roar having been truly hollowed out. A flame ball shoots out thunderously kicking across our legs. Wood’s thrown in a high flaming broken wave across the ground raining down on top of us, scorching clothing and burning forearms as we belatedly roll shielding our faces. The third and fourth cores detonate. Now splinters burst across the ground embedding everywhere — including us.The fourth arrow knocked out of Sting City with the first blasts lands among the brambles exploding upwards. Flaming thorns, sticks, and loamy debris erupt and scatter small fires in the brush. The fifth and final core driven deep into the guts of the nest’s the last to explode. Driven in and squeezed, it detonates with enough force to rip out part of the trunk system and cleaves the rock — a chunk the size of a headstone flips into now smoldering brambles.

At last silence pours in — leaving in the woods a vast space of stunned nothing with small debris coming down from shocked limbs above.

Rolling over, I lower my arms burning as if they’ve been skinned. I’m dizzy a moment — a few moments.Painfully, slowly I sit up, nauseous, and fearful not knowing how many cores have detonated. Four? Five?

I vomit — my guts feel thrown across my spine. My teeth feel loose. I’m aware of a dull numbness throughout my front from thighs to face. Despite having my fingers stuffed down the canals my ears seriously ring. I cough hard, spitting up woody balls of mucous while brushing anything hot or smoky off my face andarms — which is everything. Blinking hard, I see orange spots. If it wasn’t for my big square spectacles I might’ve been left without eyes.

Tommy groans. Looking over he’s slowly rising to his knees. He falls on his hands as if immediately dizzy. A minute later he rises still stunned — he looks around confused and off­ balance. He also vomits until he’s left dry heaving. Feeling the ground, he finds his glasses and slides them on — his left lens is cracked in half. After a few moments he shakes off his shock. Suddenly he curses loud, quickly brushing himself across his left shoulder — he discovers he’s actually on fire. Patting out his tee shirt, he stands up, and immediately begins laughing, hollering out “SMOKELESS POWDER?? MY ASS!!”

The high-yield powder apparently wasn’t all that smokeless as a thick pall of choking cordite-infused white drifts all around us. However, the stuff’s done its job. Sting City’s been vaporized. Mostly vaporized.

A good 30-foot section has been completely blown away. The blasts left a scooped out sappy brown high-backed chair 20 feet high. The outstation and most of the upper ash has fallen into a smoking mass with small blobs on fire.

The fourth core exploded among the thorns tearing apart the thickest spot near the fractured stone, now lying in torn smoky brush toppled like a vandalized headstone. The final blast cracked thechair in half with roots driven up like a mass of accusing fingers.

In the haze there’s not a hornet to be seen. A brief breeze from the east blows the cloud to tatters, leaving tiny piles on the ground to puff smoke.

Recovering, we realize the extent of our success. We’re immediately gripped by a juvenile and intense jubilation. Suffused with Stone Age whoopee, we dance and holler despite our injuries. We laugh pointing out scorching and burn holes on each other’s clothes and skin, showing off places up the front of our legs where thorns and splinters are stuck through singed clothes. We examine the devastation all around us like theZapruder film. Looking at the damage we’ve caused I feel exultant, awash in idiotic accomplishment.

Tommy’s screaming out, “WE GUITED ‘EM! GUTTED THE LITTLE FUCKS!!”

Over and over, we give each other repeated high fives. Tommy gushes “We must’ve kiIled every oneof those shits!”

We’re busy taking in the extent of our havoc, slapping and exalting in our debauchery.

In doing so, we miss the rapidly proliferating signs that to anyone unlucky enough to be standing alongside us would see are quickly rendering Tommy’s pronouncements premature and very much null and void.

Stamping out small piles of smoke still popping on the ground around us, we fail to notice a finning towering sheet of flipping Saran wrap congealing behind the still smoking remains of the stump expanding every passing second. The mass is soon large enough that it begins casting a swirling shadow over the blasted and ruined deadfall. Bending and twisting, it’s a maddened ghost practicing kills with a garrote in ever expansive hands. Expanding by hundreds of wings.

Unknown to us and only learned of later, a solid open spigot of venom-laden hornets is roaring unseen on the other side of the stump from the freshly broken ash freed by the destruction of the elm, which had supported the emergence of another slightly smaller nest within the ash. In his reconnaissance Tommy failed to glean that Sting City had been an insect Budapest; a city-state encompassing both sides of the deadfall.

And now it’s a city-state driven to immediate war fury; full retaliation to commence against large living heat signatures currently jumping and gloating in its ruined area as one conscience bent on murder. Raging drones flex wings like juggled wide-open chainsaws.

Tommy and I stop cheering, suddenly aware of the roaring veritable cyclone comprised of lashing whips.We turn to face what we both feared could happen but in our madness willingly accepted to mount our assault. We’re slow to back away — in awe of the gathering demonic presence. We dare to look surprised at this horror.

We are now in extreme peril. My heavy legs are prompting a sick introspection that my fat kid girth allows only so much steam — and might not be enough to flee.

I’ve just long enough to wonder if that first hornet had survived to point us out to the others. Somefeeble comedic imprint of monster movie plotline — a harsh cry of IT’S THEM! — to blunt the razors about to give enraged chase.

It doesn’t take long.

Tommy suddenly yelps, throwing his hand up to the side of his neck. He manages to yell “Goddamn! I’mHIT!” before again screaming out swatting his chest. He curses again as his shoulder is struck. His hands begin to batter and flail the air as stingers begin sinking in.

Head turned watching Tommy, I suddenly feel a matchstick torch behind my left ear as a smooth stinger slams into my head. “FUCK!” I manage to crush a hard body the size of a pencil stub against my head with my hand but not before it stings again. I’m hit in the shoulder like a lash strike — screaming loud as I’m hit again on both biceps.

Tommy roars two more times before finally screaming “FUCKIN’ GO!”

Grabbing the duffle, he takes off. I’m right on his tail, struck two more times at the top of the shoulder and the back of my neck before I manage real traction.

Tommy and I run for our lives. We’re now tagged with multiple signals compelling the raging swarm toattack us en masse. Marked for death if overwhelmed, the number of pheromones injected will compel them tosting our dead flesh long after we’re left lifeless on the ground.

The roar seems all over — everywhere at once. The air boils. Tommy curses. He screams.

I’m hit again. Again. Through the shirt and jeans, the back leg, above the sock on the right leg. Runningso fast I seem to levitate on balloon shoes filled with amyl nitrate.

The trail that seemed to take long before as we walked in seems to burn by as we run. The more we’re stung, the more pheromones call us out to the hunters. Tommy drops the duffle into a thick bush and screams again. Again.

Despite the needles pricking us we don’t flail our hands. We do nothing but will ourselves to run faster. Moving arms might cause someone running to lose balance and fall.

It’ll be a slow and brutal airborne doom. Choking in cyanide would be a merciful extinction comparedwith being stung to death.

I scream. Hit on the neck at my collarbone. On the webbing between right index finger and thumb. The back of my head through my hair. The back. The back. A moment later the thick stand of pines looms tall.

Tommy manages to scream “TAKE OFF SHIRTS! DIVE INTO THE PINES! COVER IN SAP!” He tears off his shirt plunging into the thickest boughs.

Tearing off my own shirt I dive in. Hot sap and wintergreen, brilliant sweeping scent it is, fills my heaving body in every sweat pore. The sharp sticks snap into my torso scratching and scaring but still I rocket through masses of nettles.

We emerge sticky and stricken onto the forked path, running down the lower trail. Tommy screams out, “THIS WAY! CAVE! CAVE!” I sprint close behind — heartbeats matching pounding steps.

Down the hill through a draw the ground opens up into thick leafy bushes. We drive through, arriving at a depression that dips down to one side. Tommy slides on brush and into the drain of a mud bank. Grabbing handfuls, he slips down a medium sized hole. I do the same, grabbing huge gobs as I dive into the hole. I hit the bottom of a medium-sized cave. Tommy’s covering his exposed skin with as much mud as he can. I follow suit –slapping cool wet mud to skin that seems to smoke from the fury of multiple stings.

Tommy and I lay face-down on the gravelly wet cave floor stifling our breaths listening for the roar. I start choking, then repeatedly vomit hard from exertion and reactions to venom. Dirty foam rides the wash of stomach acid through the pine scent in my nose. A moment later Tommy does the same, retching explosively again and again behind a hand clamped over his mouth.

Hearts pounding poisoned and sick, we’re desperate to keep quiet. But we’re racked by spasms out of venom and fear–fear that the swarm will funnel any moment into the cave to finish their mission. Covered in vomit and mud we’re silent as worms. We listen and wait.

But the roar doesn’t come — the only sounds are gurgling water and twitting birds in nearby trees.

After a long time at the bottom of the cave. Tommy slowly creeps up the mouth checking for the swarm. Moving up to the breech I hear him throw up again. After a few moments I hear him weakly call “C’mon out, Man! They’re gone! Nothing’s here!”

Dirty, tired, and nauseous we finally come out onto the draw. Tommy’s right — there’re no hornets to be seen. We’ve managed to outrun the swarm, but we’ve sustained bad damage.

Bruised from our flight and poisoned flesh swelling, every step we take is a flash of pain. We’re bone dry –our mouths almost foaming. We tread the low trail down hillsides wading in flaming agony. I vomit again. Tommy takes several stops due to dizziness. On one stop I’m surprised to find my glasses still in my back pocket. Tommy’s are gone.

Slowly we walk on fire through the woods. But we’re grateful as the Big Noise again is heard among the treetops.

Finally, towards early evening we emerge into Berger City’s Memorial Gardens cemetery. Tommy and I have beaten death. But walking for a short time in its tidy shadow, we’re reminded though it murmurs in the ears of allhumanity, today it drew a harsh bow across strings to sustain its ringing in ours. We trade off long drinks from a hand pump near the caretaker’s shed.

At Tommy’s house we tum on the hose — stripping down to underwear to wash off mud, twigs, and blood. Meanwhile his brother Rodger steps onto the porch making fun of us, saying that he could hear the distant explosions from his bedroom window. Tommy goes in and comes out with a bottle of Nuprin tablets, a six packof beer, and bottle of Sea Breeze astringent from his mother’s vanity along with soap, tweezers, and several washcloths.

Having cleaned ourselves, we start assessing our damage. Not only are we massively burned, bruised, and scratched across our bodies, but we count 39 separate sting places: 19 on me, 20 on Tommy. Two areas on my right leg hold several large wood splinters and six broken thorns; Tommy’s thighs have wood splinters, two thorns, and several strange yellowish bits that on closer examination are lacquered cardboard shrapnel along his entire left leg. You could tell the side we’d lain on the ground due to the relative light damage there apart from the stings.

While we patch ourselves up, Tommy tells Rodger the whole story. At first Rodger starts chuckling, thenlaughing, and then calling us fuckin’ idiots demands that Tommy take him out to find Robbie’s duffle and showhim. I tell them both I’ve fuckin’ had enough of the woods for one day. Tommy’s not too keen on returning either. He talks Rodger into giving us a couple of days to recover.

Finishing my beer, I say Bye and ache my way down Taylor Drive to my house throwing up on theroad one last time.

After showering and eating I go to bed. I stay there the entire next day. By the time I see Tommy the following afternoon I’m back to my energetic self, aside from deep body aches and numerous sores and cuts my grandmother’s coated with methylate.

However, I’m not ready for him to show me what he brings with him as he greets me on my porch.

Tommy’s face is deeply scratched and still stung red. He sports a pair of gold framed glasses with its right wing taped — an old pair. Seeing my grandmother in the window, he waves. Frowning she waves back. Being with Tommy she knows that sometimes I get banged up — boys have that happen from time to time and especiallywith us. However, the excuse I gave my Grandmother for coming in tore up without my shirt — about building a tree house that collapsed onto a hidden beehive, she took with a pinch of salt. Especially when she came into my room asking me about burn boles and scorch marks up both legs of my jeans when she put them in the wash.

She knows I’m hiding something. Judging by Tommy’s torn-up appearance my grandmother suspects it’s a little more than a case of a collapsed tree house and beehive. She doesn’t grouse at either me or Tommy, but the look on her face betrays zero disapproval.

Tommy nudges me over to the sidewalk around the garage where my Grandmother can’t see. He’s holdingsomething in a wadded-up shirt, hiding it down low by his side until we’re out of sight.

Without saying a word, he holds it up. I recognize the shirt — it was the one he tore off running for his life. It’s covering something big.

“That’s your shirt! Fuck! You guys actually went back!?” I can’t believe it.

Tommy nods, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Me an’ Rodger went up this morning. We managed tofind Robbie’s duffle, and some other things.”

“My shirt?” I ask.

Tommy shakes his head no. He lets drop to the ground what his shirt’s hid. Two things: a dead squirrel and adead sparrow.

“Well shit on me, Tommy.” I scoff. “You and Roger found dead animals in the woods. Imagine that.”

“Not just in the woods,” he says. “At the fork of the trail at the bottom of a tree!”

I shrug my shoulders not seeing what’s making Tommy’s pecker hard about two dead animals.

“Take a good look, Numb Nuts!” He exclaims. “Look close.”

I examine the sparrow first. I see it’s a young bird, but I don’t see anything. Its underside doesn’t showanything amiss. The only thing I notice is that its toes are splayed out wide. I don’t see the big deal about a dead bird. Its wide-open eyes tell me zilch.

Examining the squirrel, it’s easy to see the thing’s twisted and stiff. Then I notice it’s curled into a fetal position — its paws held up to its face like a baby animal. Suddenly, I’m nervous. Reaching up I take Tommy’s shirt from his hand. Picking the squirrel up I go in for a closer look. There’s a sickening rosin smell overtop itsquickening decay. Only then I see its toes are pocked with red dots — the muscles in its arms are swollen. Something tells me to pull its arms down from its face. Despite its stiffness I manage it. My balls suck in whenformer squirrel peek–a–boos a rattling shudder up my spine.

Its eyes are gone. Nauseously, I drop it. Again, I pick up the sparrow and look close. Its eyes aren’t open–they’re gone too.

Dropping the bird, I’m racked with chills as the meaning of what Tommy’s come to show me comes home. I look at Tommy. “Stung out?'”

Tommy nods slowly but his smile’s widening. ”Can you believe we found two more squirrels?” Tommy’s eyes slowly spiral. “And two other birds?”

“Stung too?”

Tommy nods again — almost solemnly if not for the full burst smile erupting from his face. “To de–a–a–ath!” He says deliberately squeezing the first syllable to milk it for the most horror.

Both my ass cheeks roll to the top of my shoulders from the force of my tremors. I’m not able to stop them. Another unbelievable element has arrived on my porch. What had been slobbering forour death — that blasted wendigo fueled by wrath that chased us and lost us at the pines had consumed innocent creatures in lieu of the actual perpetrators. I could sense the bloodlust even then floating in the sky over the distant woods. The swarm slammed into the pines. Even with a multitude of bodies it couldn’t get through the nettles, slowed down, and lost their targets. This saved us. There but by the grace of pines, go we.

Tommy proceeds to tell me he and Rodger went back to the remains of the nest but weren’t able to get close, telling me clumps of hornets clung in masses on the trees. Rodger says that they’re probably desperate for food and are acting like one mass foraging party. They saw the ash segment meshed within the brambles again thick with wasps acting like business as usual.

I look down at the squirrel and the sparrow. For a moment I consider taking both bodies to Mr. Joy to show them off, but then think twice about it. Too many questions would be raised.

By our deliberate actions we provoked the hornets and were fully due the blowback, but these poor tortured things were collateral to Sting City’s rage. We accepted the consequences willingly and would gladly give every drone blown to atoms again to feel that moment before sparks touched powder. But these victims woke to the sun expecting nothing but to live for the next nut, the next seed, and because two punk kids tossed cherry bombs at death they met a steaming horrific end. Once again our pathetic conditions have been bought atothers’ expenses, but this time I’ve a profound sense of unease that this latest purchase’s been brought losome

Accounts Receivable department’s attention: that there’s been some checkmark added somewhere, some loathsome tally mark to be given pause for future consideration concerning balances due.

I’ll bury them next to our red outbuilding. They’re owed that much.

I think Tommy’s read my mind. “We were goddamn lucky.” He says looking at me. His assessment’s right on.He stares back down at the bodies “But better them than us, bub?” He turns his head to face the distant wood line as we hear echoing chainsaws. For a moment, he pauses — listening. Just then I see a barely perceptible rollbubble up beneath his arm hair in the sunlight and vanish.

But then he starts his infernal giggling. “And think– we still have one arrow left!'”

For a moment, I stand up semi-numb. I look at my red pocked hands. Yes, we ‘re alive. And then I’m rockedwith an all-consuming wave of complete euphoria.

“FUCKING AWESOME!”‘ I yell. Tommy bursts into hard laughter. We wrestle each other to the ground — spooking robins perched in my grandfather’s crabapple tree nearby into flight.

Lilac night comes down fast.

Tommy finishes putting the last spread in the center of his oil slick. He makes a small pile. The cold air carries the sick stench of a million miles burned away in the engines of unknown cars. The flames should bum away any trace of whose barrels these are and any fingerprints or physical vestiges of those perpetrators responsible for the coming conflagration.

We’ll leave only one thing to remain afloat in smoke for the firefighters and the police.

Tommy lights a sparkler. “Flame on, Bud!” It erupts with a blooming spark shower. He tosses it into the heart of his pile.

The old underscore commences, molding my grin as the first flames reflect in my lenses.