Maggie arrived at his side. “Oh, my God.”

Clark’s clothes were shredded, as if they had exploded off his body. His chest was laced with a massive spiderweb of burns. His shoes appeared to be melted onto his feet, and when Stride checked the soles, he saw two circular black holes. Entry and exit wounds from the massive electricity of the lightning. They were still warm when he fingered them. He picked up Clark’s wrist, which was limp and cold, and felt no pulse. He checked again at the carotid and still found nothing. When he pushed open Clark’s eyelids, the man’s eyes stared back, dead and unmoving.

“There’s an AED in the back of my truck,” Stride said.

Maggie took off at a sprint. Stride mentally took stock of the time that had passed and concluded that Clark had been lying in the sand, his heart stopped, for at least five minutes. Way too long. Stride tilted the man’s head back and lifted his chin. He pried open Clark’s mouth, pinched the man’s nose shut, and covered Clark’s cold lips with his own. He exhaled two slow breaths and watched Clark’s chest rise and fall as the air filled his lungs.

Stride repositioned himself and placed the heel of his right hand in the middle of Clark’s chest and laced the fingers of both hands together. He rose up for more leverage and shoved down hard and fast, counting to thirty in his head. When he was done, he moved back and swelled the man’s chest with two more slow breaths and then frantically pumped against his rib cage thirty more times. He repeated the process again, his mind oblivious to anything around him except the time passing. Then again. And again. When he had completed the cycle five times, he pressed two fingers against Clark’s neck.

Nothing.

The clock in his head was at nearly eight minutes.

He continued applying CPR and was vaguely conscious of Maggie arriving next to him with the small AED box, which began to chirp instructions as she unpacked it. He alternated between breaths and chest massage as Maggie worked around him to dry Clark’s skin with a towel she had brought from the truck and then position the two electrodes of the defibrillator on his chest. She hovered over him, trying to block the rain.

“It’s too fucking wet,” she said.

“I know.”

Maggie turned on the machine. “Clear,” she told him.

Stride stopped and removed his hands from Clark’s body. Maggie pushed the analyze button on the defibrillator, which measured Clark’s heart activity and responded aloud with a discouraging message. “No charge.”

There was nothing to shock. No fibrillation.

“Goddamn it,” Stride said. He checked for a pulse and still found nothing. He bent over and continued several more cycles of CPR and then backed away as Maggie stabbed the button one more time.

“No charge.”

Ten minutes had passed.

Stride tried again. And again. And again. Two minutes later, there was still no pulse. No heart activity. Nothing for the defibrillator to regulate. He assaulted Clark’s chest with his fists, harder and faster, and then he heard Maggie’s soft voice at the end of the wind tunnel.