Clark still felt nothing. He was impervious. Dead.

He retrieved Finn and propped him up again. The man’s collarbone jutted out from his neck like a chicken bone snapped in half. Finn’s skin was white.

“Stop,” he begged Clark. “Please stop. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t deserve to live.”

“I know.”

Clark squatted down inches from Finn’s face. “You took away my whole life. Everything I am, everything I’ve done, it was all for that little girl. When you killed her, I died. Understand? I’m dead right now because of what you did. And what was she to you? Tell me, what right did you have to be a part of her life?”

Mucus dripped out of Finn’s nose. His lips trembled. “I never meant for anything to happen. I’m so sorry she died. I only wanted to talk to her. I never touched her.”

“You stood outside my little girl’s window,” Clark said. “Did you see her naked?”

Finn was silent.

“Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Did you take pictures of her?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

Finn shut his mouth again.

“Goddamn it, what else? Did you jerk off? Is that what you did while staring at my little girl?”

“Yes. Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry, yes.”

Clark stood up again with terrible purpose.

“No, no, no,” Finn screamed, but it was too late. Clark swung again, connecting with the soft side of Finn’s knee, hearing it pop as the femur and tibia tore apart. Finn held on to his leg as if he could make the pain stop by covering it up. The sounds from his throat were guttural, like an animal’s. He writhed on the ground. Clark took a heavy breath and walked away, letting the rain and wind pour over him. He wandered into the surf and let the waves splash around his legs, so fierce that they almost toppled him. God was definitely angry now. The lightning was a white strobe light, flashing in his face, knifing across half the sky.

Finn shouted. “Kill me! For God’s sake, just kill me.”

Clark heard Mary again, as if she were right there, tugging at his arm, pleading for attention. “No, Daddy, no.”

I’m sorry, baby. No mercy.

Except now the merciful thing would be to end it. There was that time when his truck had sideswiped a huge buck, and he found it in the deep weeds on the shoulder of the highway, twitching, in agony, dying slowly. He couldn’t drive away and leave it there. Donna was in the truck, and he made her stay inside and not watch. Then he retrieved a rifle from the tailgate and shot the deer in the brain.

An act of mercy.

Clark marched out of the surf. He came up behind Finn, not in front. Finn felt him there but didn’t try to turn around. Clark could see the man’s chest heaving in and out. The bald pate of Finn’s skull was like a melon balanced on the tree trunk. Clark knew it would take one swing of the bat to end it. To end both their lives. One millisecond of pain and light to put Finn, Mary, and himself out of their shared agony.