Book One, Chapter Three
“The Yattering and Jack”
And now for something completely different.
This story is horror-comedy, believe it or not. While many of Barker’s stories have their funny moments–“What would a Resurrection be without a few laughs?” is the line from one of them upon which author Ramsey Campbell seizes in his introduction to Volume One–few are as through-and-through lighthearted as this one. Which is not to say it’s all Evil Dead 2, though; try to imagine that film with its predecessor’s tree-rape sequence grafted in and you’ll get a feel for some of this one’s darker moments. Nothing quite that untoward, but someone is driven insane, and since our protagonist (Jack), who loves her, knew full well this could happen, it’s a wrenching thought. “That was hard,” as Barker puts it. “That was almost unforgiveable.”
Almost. Barker extends quite a mercy in this one, one of the few he ever extends, when during the climactic confrontation between the two titular characters–a poltergeist-like minor demon and a more-than-meets-the-eye gherkin importer–Jack’s daughter smiles at her father, despite the fact that she on some level is aware that he’s put his daughters at grave risk for both their sanity and their lives. “Whatever was at issue here, she loved him.” Tender, all the more so because it’s probably undeserved, or at least underdeserved.
The comic business is a real larf in this one, provided you don’t mind animal mutilation played for laughs–three cats, a tankful of guppies, and a Christmas turkey meet unfortunate ends. The fate of the turkey, and of the Christmas tree itself, are antecedents of the wackily improvisatory calypso possession scene in Beetlejuice, tinged here though with menace that makes the laughter come through gritted teeth. And there are funny moments with the prose, too: Whenever the Yattering thinks of his masters, Beelzebub and the other Powers of Hell, he reflexively adds a parenthetical “(long may they hold court, long may they shit light on the heads of the damned).”
Underneath it all there’s a common Barker theme (albeit one that’s usually played much more seriously): that some folks are perfectly able to live outside the rules. It’s a Hell of a message. Pun (as is the case with the whole story) intended.