There was no God, he realized then. No mercy.

Clark was not prepared to show any mercy tonight.

He dropped Finn in the empty center of the beach, where a fat, bleached tree trunk had washed up after months rolling and floating on the surface of the lake. It was bare and white, pockmarked with insect holes drilled into its wood. He grabbed a fistful of Finn’s shirt and propped him with his back against the tree trunk. Blood trickled down Finn’s face where brambles and rocks had scraped open his skin, but the rain quickly washed it away. Finn’s ankles strained at the belt that secured them, and his muscles twitched with fear.

“Who are you?” Finn asked. He was practically screaming, but his voice was a whisper.

“You killed my daughter,” Clark said.

Finn gazed in horror at Clark, who was as big and broad as a bear. He read the hardness of Clark’s face and knew immediately who Clark was and what Clark planned to do. Finn’s torso slid off the tree trunk, and he crawled away, dragging his feet behind him, his body flopping like a fish on the bottom of a boat. Clark took two steps and yanked him back by the collar of his shirt. When Finn was upright again, Clark drove the head of the bat like a spear into Finn’s stomach, so hard that blood and stomach juices spewed from Finn’s mouth. When Finn took a breath, there was nothing in his lungs, and his fingers clutched the sand in panic as he gasped for air. Tears mingled with the rain on his face.

Clark thought he would take more satisfaction in Finn’s pain, but he didn’t. He was as lifeless as the huge piece of driftwood where Finn sat.

Thirty feet away, sweeping waves broke across a black mirror of surf and slid almost to Clark’s boots. Foam flew up in a white curtain that was as tall as he was. When the water receded across the slick sand, he saw glints of quartz. If he looked hard enough, he could see Mary here as a young girl, her feet slapping through the pools and streams. He could watch the summer sun as it kissed her hair. Hear her squeals of delight. Feel the strength of her damp arms as she hugged him.

“No, Daddy,” she whispered to him again. Urgently.

Clark forced her ghost away. There were some things a child didn’t understand. There were some things a father has to do. I’m sorry, baby.

He clutched the bat with both hands and held it the way a baseball player would, with tight, thick fingers on the grainy wood. Finn’s lips formed the word No, but nothing came out of his chest. Clark unleashed the bat in a fierce arc and whipped it into the meat of Finn’s shoulder. Bones cracked. Muscle tore. Finn’s body rose off the sand and landed in a sprawl four feet away. He curled his limbs together like a baby. His eyes were closed. He wailed.