A woman journalist, Ruth Cairns, is given the job of writing about a weight loss programme at the Chesterton Clinic, a place with a strange reputation. After checking into the Clinic, Ruth investigates rumours of limbless torsos and body snatching, and while there she makes friends with Ben, another slimmer... but Ben soon dies, and his body vanishes. Ruth gatecrashes a reunion of the survivors of a passenger airliner which crashed in the Atlas Mountains on its way to Marrakesh, and the episode reaches a horrifying climax after Ruth realizes that what it all adds up to is cannibalism.