Myra said his name again in that same tiny, trembling child-voice.

'What happened? Myra, what happened to you?'

'I had an accident,' she said, and showed him her right hand. Only there was no muddy right gardening glove to match the left one, and no right hand. Only a spouting stump. She gave him a weak smile and said 'Whoops.' Her eyes rolled up to whites. The crotch of her gardening jeans darkened as her urine let go. Then her knees also let go and she went down. The blood gushing from her raw wrist — an anatomy lesson cutaway — mixed with the eggy batter splattered across the floor.

When Jack dropped to his knees beside her, a shard from the bowl jabbed deep into his knee. He hardly noticed, although he would limp on that leg for the rest of his life. He seized her arm and squeezed. The terrible bloodgush from her wrist slowed but didn't stop. He tore his bell: free of its loops and noosed it around her lower forearm. That did the job, but he couldn't notch the belt tight; the loop was far beyond the buckle.

'Christ,' he told the empty kitchen. 'Christ.'

It was darker than it had been, he realized. The power had gone out. He could hear the computer in the study chiming its distress call. LCD Soundsystem was okay, because the little boombox on the counter was battery-powered. Not that Jack cared any longer; he'd lost his taste for techno.

So much blood. So much.

Questions about how she'd lost her hand left his mind. He had more immediate concerns. He couldn't let go of the belt-tourniquet to get to the phone; she'd start to bleed again, and she might already be close to bleeding out. She would have to go with him. He tried pulling her by her shirt, but first it yanked out of her pants and then the collar started to choke her — he heard her breathing turn harsh. So he wrapped a hand in her long brown hair and hauled her to the phone caveman style.