Jim rubbed his smarting eyes as the bright lights flared on, revealing... a warehouse?
Rows and rows of aluminum shelves, rising a good twenty feet from the linoleum floor where Jim stood, filled the large room. Metal ladders lined the aisles, and signs were posted on the ends of the shelves, cryptically describing their contents as things like "White M 35-40" and "His F 65-85".
Needless to say, Jim took a closer look. Nearing the shelves, he discovered that the bottom six feet of each shelving section was actually a single large area, with a long bar across it - like the inside of a closet or a clothing rack over fifty feet long. Then he saw what was hanging there.
Skins! Flayed human skins - or at least, that's what they looked like. They were actually made of a finely textured soft rubbery substance... perfect in every detail, down to the sewing in of fine hairs! None of the skins had a head, er, hood, er, whatever - causing Jim to become rather suspicious of the contents of the boxes on the rows of shelves above.
There was five or six small doors in the far wall, rather like the entrances to the dressing rooms in the mall far above, and another door in the side like the one Jim came in from.
Jim placed the skin he was holding - that of a middle-aged black woman - carefully back on the rack, and tried to decide what to do next.
Sat Oct 16 09:15:16 1999