Sublease Troubles

[-Aaron-]

Hi there, So heres my story.

Around the middle of April my friend and I found an apartment we thought would be good to split. The guys we were going to sublet from sketched us out a bit but the apartment was still alright. We gave them an application for it and they tried to get us to give them the deposit so they could leave town to go back home for the summer we told them we were not comfortable with that and they said they would get back to us.
We met them again and they had a sub letters form, we signed the form and gave them post dated checks, they told us they would get back to us that night to let us know if the landlord accepted and to get us our keys.
They never called us, and when we called them they said they would call us in the morning. When we never heard back from them we cancelled the checks.
The first of may rolls around and I get a call from them saying that our checks bounced (they were cancelled) and that they were going to take legal action.
I was emailed a copy of the form we signed with the landlords signiture where he is suppose to print his name and empty where he is supposed to sign it.
We were never told that we were accepted by the landlord, we were never given keys and we are certainly not in the apartment. These guys are 4 hours away I was not going to allow them to leave and take our money without getting the apartment. I am in no way able to pay for this place as I am getting ready to move to an entirely different city.
Is there anything I can do?

[Mr. Knowitall]

You changed your mind because they didn't get back to you the following morning, or you changed your mind because you decided you were going to spend the summer in a different city and no longer wanted to rent the apartment?

I can't read the forms you signed from here. However, if you signed the lease and it was subsequently approved by the sublessor's landlord, unless the lease prohibits that sequence of events, it may be binding.

[-Aaron-]

He had a checks for our deposit, that was dated for about 4 days after he was suppose to let us know we were approved and get us the keys, when he never called us we canceled the checks. He then tried to cash the check still having not called us. It was about a week after that that he finally contacted us wondering why he wasnt getting money even though we had still not been given any keys or even told we had the apartment.

I didnt decide to spend my summer in another city randomly I was offered a good job and I am relocating to that city permanently.