"Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story" by Christian Saunders (Damnation Books)

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Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story
Christian Saunders
64 pp. Damnation Books. $7.25
Pub. Date: 9/1/2009
ISBN-13: 978-1615720101

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Say you have a ghost haunting your house, a really annoying one, like more annoying than Adam Sandler after a few hits of helium. It does all the clichéd stuff, rattling chains, going bump in the night, running the washing machine when you’re trying to sleep. (Deep-six the Maytag, Casper, or things won’t be so friendly for you.) It rampages through your linen closet, cutting eyeholes in your sheets, ticking you off. Really if it’s going to be the harbinger of the linen apocalypse, couldn’t it haunt the Bed, Bath and Beyond down the street.

You can’t blame the ghost though; it clearly has nothing better to do in its retirement years than to collect Social Security checks and to hide your stuff. If you were stuck in someone’s house for an eternity, how long could you go before you started messing with them? Ten minutes. Tops. Before hiding the Cocoa Puffs becomes great fun.

Eventually the horns of a dilemma are reached, occasionally with the bull still attached, tenderizing your backside. It’s either you or the ghost. Preferably the ghost, because, hey, you like your house; it’s got great acoustics. So you put on your kick-the-pesky-poltergeist-the-hell-out-of-your-house pants, zip up, and go all Sylvester Stallone on the wayward spirit. And then you realize, you don’t know the first thing about ghost busting. And you don’t know who to call. So you stick it out, ineffectively fighting back, all because you’re too lazy to sell your house. You don’t need the Ghost Hunters; you need a real estate agent and a U-Haul.

But it wouldn’t be much of a ghost story if people didn’t stay. House tells them, in that manly house voice, to get out, and they think, how quaint. Then their kid gets sucked into a TV, and they’re stuck hiring a midget gypsy to get her out, meanwhile they pull out their hair, screaming: Why didn’t we leave when we had a chance?

Answer: You were too lazy to sell your house. Now it’s too late. Have fun searching for your Cocoa Puffs.

Jerry doesn’t even own a house; he’s just renting a nifty apartment in Beijing. Apartment 14F. Only recently arrived in China, he’s just started a new job, teaching conversational English to teenagers. But soon he’ll become fluent in another language—the language of terror. (Chills. Meet Spine.) Plagued by terrible dreams, Jerry soon notices odd happenings in his apartment. Supernatural happenings. Cocoa Puffs gone astray. What’s a poor ESL teacher with a ghost-infested apartment to do?

If you said: Move. You’ve been listening. Gold star for you. Does he move? Of course not. Christian Saunders’s Apartment 14F is a ghost story; moving is not an option. No, Jerry is going Muhammad Ali on some ghostly keister here, intent on getting to the bottom of this mystery quicker than you can say Velma.

Saunders needs to be credited for doing a professional and credible job in this short novella. His portrayal of China and its culture is top-notch, and easily the most interesting aspect of the story. I would have loved to have read more about Jerry’s interaction with the local people and customs.

The ghost story itself pales in comparison; it’s rather weak and lacking imagination except for one killer dream sequence and an unforgettable encounter with a fortune teller who gives Jerry a little too much tongue (and it’s not what you think.) An overabundance of exposition really counteracts any suspense in the book; there is no build up, making the ending seem feeble, packing about as much punch as a flatulent mosquito.

Jerry and his assistant Yin Tao are vividly drawn by Saunders, and the other characters are nicely done. I never felt an emotional connection to Jerry’s plight, though. So I was never more than a disinterested observer, knowing almost intuitively where events were going.

Other than the setting, there really isn’t anything intriguing about Apartment 14F; it’s solid work by Saunders. But that’s it.

Final Grade: 57 out of 100