The cannibalism was pretty gross, but not because they were eating human flesh. It was more the elaborate way it was described. The author could have described eating grapes or doing laundry in that florid, super-ultimate-descriptive style and it would have been just as gross. It was like someone tying you to a chair and forcing you to eat adjectives until you puked. At times, I pictured the author being held at knifepoint by a maniac panting "More words. More words. Use bigger ones. Yes. You know how I like it."
I have to agree with the prevailing sentiment that the style killed the story. There was an interesting idea buried in there somewhere, but it was pretty much unrecognizable. I was in Mississippi for Thanksgiving, and there's a vine there called kudzu which some unsuspecting Southerner imported from Japan years ago not realizing it would spread like wildfire and swallow the entire landscape; this story reminded me of the rocks and/or small bushes which appear only as shapeless bumps in the mass of tangled vines. I could sense something under all that verbiage which might potentially have involved me in the events of the characters' lives, but I just couldn't grab hold of it. It didn't help that the characters were nameless; that conceit, for me, rarely adds to a story, and often comes across as pretentious. Are they too fabulous and mystical to have names? Are we just not cool enough to know their names? I guess maybe our awe at the heroine's uncommon sensitivity might be diminished if we knew her name was "Shirley." They all seem to drift through a shimmering world of intense meaning which has little to do with our world. Do they really always "lunge" when they move forward? Do they always "grasp" or "grip" instead of just hold things or pick them up? Do they constantly tremble with unspoken desire and never have trouble with bus schedules?
I guess maybe some people feel at home in that world and enjoy hearing about it, but I don't. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, but that kind of writing bugs me. I don't get horror from it, because it bears no resemblance to my experiences. In order to feel horror, I need some kind of grounding in reality; the banal details of the everyday are just as important as the fantastic outlandish events because they provide contrast and that sense of shock when the scary stuff does occur. Take Episode 209, "Corvus Curse," which I thought was brilliant: there's such an underlying humanity to that story that even when completely ridiculous things happen, you can still put yourself in the narrator's place and feel his surprise, pain, and loss. More stories like that, please!