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I committed myself to stepping outside. I had already convinced myself that whether I pressed the ground floor button or not, the lift would not be returning me to terra firma .
    What I saw was, I suppose, a cave. Maybe my senses had not been deceiving me after all, since it now seemed that the lift had descended all the way down through the cliff. I sniffed. Mixed in with the smell of burning was a hint of salt. I must have been at the bottom, in a cave near the sea.
    I crossed the lift and pressed a button. Just in case. As expected the doors did not close, instead they remained resolutely open. I took a deep breath, and almost gagged with the taste of the burning. The longer I was exposed to the air of the cave, the more intense the burning became. The cave was saturated in it.
    Having no other real choice I stepped out of the lift. It was a cave alright, but whether it was natural or fashioned by human hands I could not tell. Not really my field of expertise. I sold outboard motors, for God’s sake, and I was seriously out of my depth.
    Nonetheless I continued on. I had to find out what had happened to Mr. Wyndham, and I just knew the answer lay further into this cave. I had taken several steps when I heard the unmistakeable sound of the lift doors closing, amplified by the echoing void of the cave that surrounded me. I spun on my heel, intending to dive into the lift before the doors could meet, but I was too far away. I hadn’t realised I’d walked so far, but I had, and I’d need to be Superman to cross the distance between me and the lift in time. Feeling as useless as a screen door on a sub, I watched as the doors sealed my fate.
    It was just me and the cave now. And the burning.
    *
    It didn’t take me too long to find the source of the acrid smell. Whoever was behind all this (and I had my suspicions thanks to Meg’s manoeuvring me into the lift) clearly didn’t want their…what? Trophies? I wasn’t sure. Whatever they liked to call the poor people in the cave, the perpetrators didn’t like to walk too far.
    Several people were chained to the walls, their arms and legs spread eagle, heads slumped. It was hard to tell if they were alive or dead from my position at the mouth of this little cavern; hard enough to keep looking at them, what with the way they had been skinned. One of them had no skin at all; all that could be seen was the muscles that usually lay undisturbed and protected by the outer layer. There was something incredibly gross and wrong about seeing a body of pure muscle like this. Seeing someone in a naked and vulnerable state was one thing, as the other bodies were, but to see someone stripped to the muscle… I fought the urge to vomit.
    The other people hung to the walls were in various states of being skinned. Whole strips of skin were missing, some across the chest, others along the arms, legs and torso. One unfortunate man had been castrated, too. I winced, my hand gripping my own privates involuntarily. Although I’d never had anything done to my own personals other than circumcision when I was a kid, I could well imagine how it must have felt to have it cut off. I suppose any man would, wouldn’t they?
    Nearby, on a large metal table, lay several cutting implements. Knives and saws of varying shape and size. I was surprised to see how clean they were, and then my eyes alighted on the sanitising and disinfecting solutions that also stood on the table. At least the people responsible showed some good sense.
    What was I saying? Good sense? How could they possibly justify what had been done to the men on the walls. And yes, it occurred to me then that there were only men in this cavern. No women at all. For a moment I pondered on the idea that perhaps the women were in another cavern. But I soon dismissed that idea. Deep down I knew it was only men who were the victims here.
    I approached the table to get a better look at what was on there. I treaded carefully, and quietly. Not sure if