It’s driving me absolutely bonkers - I thought it was Stephen King, but I can’t find it anywhere. So maybe it’s not.
The bit I remember the best is this awful horrible thing with a cat that’s still alive although it’s been eaten down to the skeleton halfway. The pitiable semi-victim of the piece has to do that to stay alive (and may, IIRC, have done the same to the protagonist.) The mood is a sort of stifling inescapable feeling. Help?
Was it Gray Matter by Stephen King? I remember there being a cat in there but I don’t remember if it was still alive as it was being eaten.
No, it’s a Neil Gaiman short. Let me find the name, but I know what the story is.
eta: it must be in Fragile Things since that’s the only short story collection of his I’ve read. Still looking up the title (my books are all in boxes from moving!)
The name of the story is “Feeders and Eaters” and it’s from Fragile Things.
Apparently it’s based on a nightmare he had, and it’s been made into a movie, which I now want to see Fragile Things - Wikipedia
It’s the one where there’s an old woman upstairs and eating the family’s cat, and the guy has to kill it because he feels sorry for it, but she needs her meat, right? That story is great.