Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut)

by Saunders, C. M.

  On the other hand, he could find no proof that ghosts didn't exist, either. Frustratingly, this left him in a state of limbo, hovering between two opposing mindsets.

  There was the stray hair he found in the washbasin, of course. But that was just a hair. It could have come from anywhere. Besides, he had already flushed it down the toilet. All he was left with was what he felt, what he heard, and what he thought he saw from time to time. And that wasn't nearly enough to allow him to draw any kind of conclusion.

  If he'd inadvertently moved into a haunted apartment, he wanted to solve the problem and do whatever he could to help put this wandering spirit at rest.

  But first he had to understand.

  That was why he'd asked Yin Tao, to make an appointment with the blind fortune teller on his behalf after his ever-faithful classroom assistant had mentioned the woman in conversation. Obviously, he didn't say why he wanted an appointment, and Yin Tao didn't ask. As a foreigner, Jerry found that he didn't always have to explain himself. It was one of the perks, he supposed. Most Chinese people understood that East and West were worlds apart. They did things one way, we did things another. Even in their darkest hours, most Western people wouldn't even consider eating an ox's penis, a duck's neck, or a sheep's brain. But in China, these kinds of foods were commonplace. It was famine cuisine, a legacy of the times when millions starved in China's streets. These days, no part of an animal was wasted while consumers in the wets only ate choice cuts.

  Take traditional Chinese medicine, for example. Most Eastern people swore by it, believing that the right combination and dosage of root, berry, ground bone or shrub could cure any ill from a runny nose to depression to heart disease. They'd been refining the practice for over five thousand years, and now traditional medicine clinics co-existed happily with conventional medical centres. How could over a billion people possibly be wrong?

  However, Western philosophy dismissed traditional Chinese medicine as hocus pocus based on superstition and hearsay, and instead spent untold millions in the search for more scientific solutions to their health problems. At least that was the idea. But anyone with half a brain knew that big pharma was more about making money than remedying people. Why make a single magic pill that could cure a terminal disease when they could keep people alive, and taking expensive medicine, for years?

  But generally speaking, Western people preferred practical solutions to their problems while Eastern people were more willing to accept the idea that something as seemingly innocuous as green tea could help prevent cancer. They didn't know how or why green tea could prevent cancer, just that it did. And perhaps that was enough to make it true. The power of positive thinking. The placebo effect on a massive scale.

  Jerry liked to think he didn't belong exclusively to either rationale. He wasn't one of those black or white kind of people. He was more willing to accept new ideas than most, providing the new idea had some merit and foundation in reality, and thought he could perhaps take the best aspects from Eastern and Western schools of thought and form his own opinion. Just because something was different, it didn't mean it was wrong. As far as he was concerned, nothing was impossible. Some things were certainly implausible, like the existence of ghosts and the veracity of fortune tellers. But Jerry didn't know enough about either to completely dismiss them.

  Besides, he was desperate. He'd run out of ideas, and at this stage was willing to give anything a try in order to try to get some peace of mind.

  She don't just tell future, she tell truth! Best in country!

  Jerry hoped Yin Tao was right.

  Chapter 4

  The woman was old. Seventy-five if she was a day. And she most definitely was at least partially blind. Milky eyes, cataracts that had gone untreated and grown over the pupils, peered out sightlessly from her brown, deeply-lined face.

  The eyes weren't nice to look at, but it was nothing a simple operation wouldn't solve. However, simple operations are expensive in China, especially for the poor. On the streets of Beijing you often see people with horrific disabilities or missing limbs, or with their faces horribly burned, scarred or otherwise disfigured. Chinese medicine doesn't seem to extend to fixing these ailments so the sufferers, unable to work and too poor to afford the appropriate medical treatment, cosmetic surgery, prosthetic limbs or wheelchairs, simply scraped out a living begging.

  Until, that was, the authorities ushered them away to some dark, unseen corner of the city so they wouldn't frighten the tourists.

  If they were lucky, they had a skill. They could still mend shoes or fix bicycles. Some even used their disability to their advantage, playing the cards they were so harshly dealt and utilizing the novelty factor.

  Like the old fortune teller who read palms with no eyes.

  When Jerry and Yin Tao entered her abode deep in the heart of the sprawling hutongs, the blind fortune teller was waiting patiently at a rickety wooden table placed in the middle of the small room. Her stark white hair was tied up in a bun and she was wearing traditional Chinese dress, probably for effect, with a shapeless, tattered red silk gown which was draped over her bony shoulders. On the Orient red is the colour of prosperity and good luck, though in this particular case it was difficult to fathom what good luck it had brought the poor woman.

  The blind fortune teller had a helper, a much younger, not unattractive woman with rounded features and shoulder-length hair, casually dressed in faded jeans and white tee-shirt, who was sitting to her left with her slender arms folded protectively across her chest. Maybe she was a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a niece, or some other family member. The Chinese usually managed to find gainful employment for even the most distant relatives.

  The room was tiny, but overflowing with... stuff. Worthless junk mostly. Ornaments, bric-a-brac and what looked like family heirlooms sat forlorn and neglected on the shelves lining the walls and a bulky, cracked bookcase was wedged into a corner, filled not with books (what would a blind woman want with books?) but with yet more junk. Dusty vases, intricate paper cuttings, and battered picture frames containing yellowing photographs of days gone by. Smiling family portraits, stolen snapshots of precious moments in time. A stale, musty smell hung in the air and outside could be heard the sounds of the city. Always, the sounds of the city.

  “You pay now, Teacher,” said Yin Tao as they entered the room, as cheerily as anyone could when demanding money.

  “Of course,” said Jerry, producing a crumpled wad of notes from his back pocket. He counted out fifty and gave it to the younger woman, who eyed him suspiciously and counted the money again. Then she examined each note carefully, checking for counterfeits and thus underlining once more the inherent distrust of foreigners. Jerry didn't have the heart to point out that being foreign, he had absolutely no idea where one could come by forged money in the first place.

  Eventually satisfied, the younger woman motioned for Jerry to sit down at the table and said something in Chinese to the blind old fortune teller, who put both hands together and held them out to him, as if begging for food.

  “Give hand Teacher, give hand!” said Yin Tao, excitedly.

  “Which one?”

  “You.”

  “I what?”

  “No, Jelly. You. Fourth tone. Means right. You bian. Right side, right side!”

  “Oh. Got it.” Jerry tentatively offered his right hand, and the old woman immediately grasped it in hers. She held it palm-up and lightly stroked her fingers across the skin as if casting a spell, her milk-white eyes darting sightlessly around the room as she did so.

  Then she did a most unexpected thing. She raised Jerry's palm to her mouth, and licked at it hungrily, greedily. He could feel the hot, moist roughness of her tongue probing at every contour of his hand, over his outstretched palm and between his fingers.

  The old woman moaned. It was either a moan of confirmation, or a moan of pleasure. It was impossible to tell for sure, but the moan seemed to have almost sexual overtones
. Even from a distance of a couple of feet, Jerry could smell the sickly, stench of her breath. It smelled like sour milk.

  He wanted to scream, pull his hand out of this crazy hag's reach and run away. Somewhere where she would never find him. The wetness of her tongue against his skin felt so unnatural, so intrinsically wrong, that it made his skin crawl until goose pimples peppered his flesh, despite the clammy humidity of the late autumn afternoon. Occasionally, his palm would brush against one of the few remaining teeth standing sentinel in her gums like tombstones in a forgotten graveyard. Each time it did so, it gave him a start like a mild electric shock.

  Jerry suddenly wanted to vomit. Closing his eyes, he fought the waves of woozy repulsion, trying to think happy thoughts whilst swallowing back the hot bile that tried to rise from his gurgling stomach. He had come this far, he wouldn't allow himself to give in now. It'll be over soon. It was just an old woman licking his hand.

  Just an old woman licking his hand...

  The ordeal seemed to last an eternity, and Jerry felt by turns ridiculous, nauseous and violated, as if he was being abused by some depraved sexual predator. He felt the colour drain from his face and struggled to keep his breakfast where it belonged as the tongue flicked reptile-like over the skin of his still-outstretched hand, probing the gaps between his fingers. It was a sensation that would stay with him long after he'd left the blind old fortune teller's home.

  Suddenly and without warning the old hag froze, tongue protruding grotesquely halfway out of her mouth, and a look of abject terror fell across her withered, weather-bitten face. A line of thick drool dribbled out of the side of her mouth and down her chin. She groaned again, this time with more urgency.

  Then she dropped Jerry's hand as if it were a hot rock, hawked her throat and spat a mouthful thick green phlegm into a tin pan on the floor between her feet. It landed with a solid ping. The pan was undoubtedly kept there specifically for that purpose. Spitting is considered socially acceptable in China, even for old women.

  She tilted her head to one side and began speaking quickly in garbled Chinese, a long unbroken stream of indistinguishable words gradually rising in volume until the blind old fortune teller was shouting at the top of her voice, ranting, whilst her sightless eyes darted this way and that. It looked as if the woman was having a panic attack.

  What the hell had she 'seen' to make her act like that?

  Jerry stood and gripped the table, feet planted firmly to the floor. Was this all part of the show? If it was, hats off for dramatic effect. And a special award should go to the young helper who was now also on her feet, simultaneously scowling at Jerry as if he had done something wrong, placing an arm around the old woman, and making soothing sounds as you would to calm a distraught child.

  Now that was attention to detail.

  “What the hell is going on? What's she saying?” Jerry asked Yin Tao, who looked almost as puzzled and shocked as Jerry felt. For the first time he could remember, the smile disappeared from his young Chinese assistant's face to be replaced with a look of puzzled concern, which spread over his features like a dark shadow. That look worried Jerry more than anything else.

  “Come on, Teacher. We go now,” Yin Tao declared as he turned abruptly and headed for the door.

  Trembling all over, Jerry backed away from the table on unsteady legs, wiping his sodden hand on his jeans as his top lip curled in disgust. He wished he'd remembered to bring some tissue paper. He followed Yin Tao through the door and into the teeming street outside without so much as glancing back at the blind fortune teller and her angry helper. Behind him, he could hear the helper cooing and the old woman teller still mumbling, hawking and spitting.

  He hurried to catch up with Yin Tao, who suddenly seemed intent on putting as much distance between them and the blind fortune teller as possible. He was weaving his way through the crowded narrow streets so quickly he was almost running.

  “Yin Tao! Wait! What did she say?”

  Passers-by turned and stared, but Yin Tao pretended not to hear and continued his escape. Jerry shouted after him again. And then a third time.

  Finally, fifty yards up the street, the young Chinese man stopped and waited for Jerry to catch up. “Sorry, Teacher,” he said, breathing heavily. “That woman, she crazy person. Crazy. I find new fortune tell for you. Better one. One that not crazy person. Do you want other one with no eyes? Or a seeing one?”

  “I don't think it makes a difference,” Jerry said. “Why do you think she was crazy? What did she say?” the assistant was rattled. Jerry could tell. It was obvious he was reluctant to repeat whatever the old bag had been babbling about, and the trademark smile still hadn't returned. That spooked him more than anything.

  “She just crazy, Jelly. Crazy person. Crazy old lady.”

  “Yin Tao, please, just tell me what she said. I appreciate the fact that you are trying to protect me but there's really no need. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. I have to know. It could be important. And furthermore, I have a right to know. I paid money to see that woman.” Jerry knew that would work, he wasn't really bothered about the fifty RMB, but the Chinese take the subject of outlayed money very seriously indeed.

  “Okay, Teacher. I tell you.” Yin Tao took a deep breath. “But what she say, it stupid. It crazy talk.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “She say she smell.... no, feel? How you say... sense. She sense death on you. She say it is strong. Death and... how to say... afraid. She sense death and afraid on you. Also, alone. Dead, afraid and alone. That's what she say.”

  “Great” said Jerry, “That's very encouraging. So I'm going to die soon? Afraid and alone? Is that what she meant?”

  “Maybe,” Yin Tao shrugged. “I don't know. Like I say, maybe she crazy person. China have a lot of crazy people.”

  “Yes, I'm beginning to realize that.”

  “And she say something else, Teacher. Something else that make no sense to me. That thing was what made her shout. She kept saying this over and over again. Even though this thing, it real nonsense...”

  “What was it?”

  “She tell you it live under your bed. Over and over. Under your bed, under your bed, under your bed.”

  Jerry felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. Far from being nonsense, now everything seemed to make a lot more sense. In fact, when he thought about it, there seemed to be a perverse kind of logic in everything the blind fortune teller had said. Even so, he decided to let Yin Tao go on thinking she was mad. Perhaps it was for the best.

  “Teacher? You okay?

  “I'm okay.”

  “You not look okay.”

  “I said I'm fine,” Jerry snapped. “You're right Yin Tao, that doesn't make sense. Not at all. She must be crazy. I would like to go home now.”

  They walked out of the hutongs and on to the nearest main road to hail a cab in silence, each man lost in his own thoughts.

  By the time Jerry arrived back at his apartment an hour later he was exhausted, and could barely manage a smile for Lin Xiao, the friendly old lift lady. He felt drained, as if all the strength had been sucked out of him. He couldn't stop rubbing his hands on his clothes, even though it was no longer wet with the blind old fortune teller's spit, and he couldn't stop thinking about what she had said to him.

  It lives under your bed.

  Dead, afraid and alone.

  Under your bed...

  Wonderful.

  Once through the door, he flicked on the light switch, kicked off his shoes, and immediately went to check the space under his bed.

  In all honesty, despite the many searches he had carried out of his apartment, he didn't think he had even glanced under there before. It hadn't even occurred to him.

  He knelt beside the bed and cautiously lowered himself down, half expecting to come face to face with a woman. Or the ghost of a woman. Or a terrifying demon-thing straight out of a horror movie that would reach up with clawed fing
ers and tear out his throat.

  He found none of those things. What he found instead was far more frightening.

  Hair.

  Long, black strands of oriental hair. Huge clumps of the stuff lay on the floor under his bed, plainly visible lurking amidst the dust bunnies on the bleached white tiles.

  Jerry's breath caught in his throat and he coughed, then gagged at the memory of all those dreams in which he was being suffocated by hair.

  This hair.

  The discovery suddenly made the dreams more terrifyingly real than ever. He could imagine those spidery strands snaking their way up from their hiding place as he slept, over the bedsheets, onto his face, down his throat.

  He gagged again, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. Then ran to the bathroom, dropped to his knees, and finally vomited. Maybe it was something he had eaten, because once he started he found he couldn't stop. He began shaking uncontrollably, sweat oozing from every pore in his body and knuckles turning white as they gripped the toilet bowl. The same toilet bowl where he had disposed of the hair he'd found in the wash basin. Not for the first time, he was very glad the apartment came with a Western-style toilet and not the traditional Chinese squatter variety.

  As he purged himself he saw the blind old fortune tellers grizzled face and milky eyes, and his mind replayed the same words over and over again as if on a loop.

  It lives under your bed.

  Dead, afraid, and alone.

  Under your bed...

  Chapter 5