First Lines of Margaret Atwood's "Old Babes in the Wood"

 "Nell came home one day just before dinnertime and found the front door open. The car was gone. There was a trail of blood splotches on the steps, and once she was inside the house, she followed it along the hall carpet and into the kitchen. There was a knife on the cutting board, one of Tig's favorites, Japanese steel, very sharp--and beside it, a blood-stained carrot, one end severed. Their daughter, nine at the time, was nowhere to be found." 

- Margaret Atwood, "First Aid" from the Old Babes in the Wood collection.

Another collection of sharp Atwood short stories. Like all such books some stories hit and others don't, but most of these are quite good - filled with smart descriptions and insightful observations. Atwood's always been conscious of mortality but her age and her husband's recent demise have inevitably caused death's shadow to loom larger over many of these stories, giving them a melancholy air.