Horrible Heights Creepy critters may top the list of scary things.


Yet for some people, there are plenty of other horrors in nature. Take heights. You’re hiking up a mountain trail. You go around the bend. Whoa! You’re on the edge of a cliff. Your toes hang over a 305-meter (1,000-foot) drop. Loose dirt rolls under your heels. You could slip. You’re not a bird, so “flight” isn’t an option.


Instead, you freeze. Tis instinct keeps you from hurtling off the cliff. Even so, you imagine falling and the splat


as you hit the ground. Your knees wobble like wet spaghetti. Your head spins. You try to find something to hold onto. Tere’s nothing. Shaking, you fall to your hands and knees. Ten you slowly crawl back from the edge.


Zapped! If you think you’re safe, think again. Suddenly,


black clouds boil up in the sky. Day turns into night. A cold wind whips, but that’s not why you feel a chill running down your spine. A bright light splits the sky. Lightning


zigzags toward the ground and strikes a tree. Branches sizzle and crash. Ten, Boom! Tunder rumbles. It’s so close and loud that the ground shakes. You begin to shake and sweat at the first


rumble of thunder. You race home and dive under a bed or hide in a closet. In fact, finding a safe place indoors is the right thing to do. If lightning strikes you, it can badly hurt or even kill you. Luckily, your chances of getting zapped by lightning are only one in a million.


A daredevil leaps from the highest waterfall in the world.


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