Stephen King
Horror author and master of the macabre Stephen King has published some chilling stories about the family pet and other animals. Cujo is about a rabid dog who ends up terrorizing his own family. A family’s dead cat comes back to life in Pet Sematary, except he’s . . . different. That terror tale was inspired in part by real events after the King family cat Smucky was run over by a car. The late kitty was buried in a pet cemetery up a wooded path behind the King house where the author would sometimes write. The King-scripted film Sleepwalkers features bipedal were-cats. The 1985 film Cat’s Eye, written by King and based on his stories “Quitters, Inc.” and “The Ledge,” features a mysterious cat protagonist throughout the three-chapter anthology. “The Cat from Hell” is a short story King wrote in 1977 for a magazine contest and involves an unusual cat that becomes the target of a hitman. Despite all this, cats aren’t afraid to curl up for the long-term at the King residence. The Shawshank Redemption author has owned several pets over the years, including “a rather crazed Siamese cat” named Pear.