i glimpsed gruesome depictions of human bodies flayed open ; dismembered torsos and decapitated heads ; the ironic leering grin of a skull whose frontal and parietal bones had been smashed to pieces ; a tangle of rotting entrails in which squirmed what appeared to be gigantic larvae or maggots ; anterior and posterior views of a woman 's corpse , her flesh ripped free from the underlying muscles and tendons and hanging like strips of peeling paint from the abandoned cathedral of her mortal temple .