minds chase, chances run

by Samantha Szumloz 

“I’ll be back at dawn,” Millie, my older sister, whispers in my ear. Dawn comes slowly. It always comes slowly when you need time to move faster. This night needs to move faster. I’ve been hating all nights this past year. They reek of danger, like my old neighbor who used to watch me swim from his porch, like this bunker we’ve been hiding in for weeks. The stiff blankets turn to sheets of ice against my body, and I hug myself in my cot, willing myself not to tremble. 

Millie touches my hot forehead. “Sleep and shush.” Her brown hair falls down her shoulder. It’s matted and greasy from the weeks of improper bathing. She used to have gorgeous hair before we went underground, wavy and soft, always tied up in a red bandana. I’d kill to touch something soft again—Meemaw’s hands, Ma’s kitchen curtains, Pa’s night shirts. Phil’s beard. 

“Where you going?” I ask.

“To town. Gonna look for Tylenol to get your fever down.”

I grab her wrist. “Don’t leave me.”

Millie smiles sadly. “Remember when we lost Uncle Will’s dog in the beginning?”

I sniffle. “That stupid lab? Yeah?”

“Remember when we thought the bombs killed him? He came back to us weeks later, remember?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m like him. I always come back.” She brushes a few stray hairs away from my face. “You believe me?”

I nod my head slowly. “I believe you.”

She seizes her black trench coat sitting next to my head and gets up off the cement ground. “Close your eyes, Jude.” She buttons her coat and runs up the steps of the bunker, leading up to a crumbling kitchen in a crumbling house in a crumbling neighborhood. “Call me on the talkie if there’s trouble.” I avert my eyes to the yellow talkie on the table. It can pick up sound two kilometers away. What if Millie travels farther than that?

She opens the metal door of the bunker, walks out, and shuts the door, trapping me in darkness. I turn to my side and face the wall. My mouth suddenly tastes like my tears, and I have no choice but to swallow salt. It hurts to swallow, probably because my throat’s the color of a stoplight. In the silence, I think of Uncle Will’s dog. Millie failed to mention that the animal disappeared shortly after his reappearance. It’s been five months. She keeps saying that he’s probably finding his way back to us, but I know she’s only trying to make me feel better. It’s hard not to think the worst these days, especially when the only other place you can go to is your head. The brain can make up the darkest scenarios. Or the brightest fantasies.

Bright fantasies. Let’s focus on conjuring a few. Bright fantasies—when was the last time I allowed myself to have them? Do I deserve to have them? Would it be wise to fantasize at this moment? I guess maybe not “wise,” but worth exploring. I’m in a bunker with nothing but a talkie, a few cans of tomato soup, shadows, and a rotting mind. In order to stay sane, I need to think of a world that is sane, and what world would that be?

Life when night didn’t haunt me.

An ant crawls onto my hand. It travels across my palm, tickling my fingers with its tiny legs. Sunlight kisses the side of my face, too. Its rays pierce the corner of my right eye. A bony hand covers my shoulder. I turn over, and there’s Meemaw, sitting next to me in the grass of my old backyard. I squint to get a better look at her in the light. Her hair is dirty blonde with streaks of silver. She must be nearly seventy, her healthiest age when she was alive. 

“Is that a ladybug on you, Jude?” I glance back at my hand, and there’s a black-spotted ladybug opening its wings to me, red as roses. What happened to the ant?

“It is,” I respond.

“Ooh, let me see!” Other than chocolate cake and brown butter (her version of gravy), Meemaw adored ladybugs. She considered them symbols of good luck. She’d knit Millie and me ladybug-themed sweaters every Christmas. I used to love receiving them when I was in grammar school because I loved polka-dots. When I entered middle school, however, I came to realize that the red sweaters weren’t as lucky as their muse. Rather, they brought me Hell at 12. I got called a “dirty tampon” once.

It wasn’t funny back then. Now I think it’s hilarious.

I slowly raise my hand up to Meemaw’s face. Her smile widens. “What’re you gonna wish for?”

I sit up. “I’m not sure.” I think of Ma buying me Jelly Krimpets at the store, of Pa stoking a family bonfire for s'mores, of Phil climbing up the side of my house to meet me at two-in-the-morning. I’d love to see my loved ones carrying out love again without peril hovering over their heads. I’d love to see their faces again, too, but I can’t wish for all that. It’s too strong of a desire for a bug to carry. 

“I guess I wish for world peace.”

Meemaw scoffs. “People have been wishing for world peace for centuries. Pick something else.”

“No more death?”

“Too big of a demand.”

“No more bombings?” 

“What bombings?” Meemaw’s face turns quizzical. She passed away when I was 15, a few months before our government went haywire. That was two years ago. This fact fills me with relief like fresh air. She wouldn’t have had a surviving chance with the explosions and constant moving around. At least she had a fighting chance when she was alive, with her chemo treatments and sewing kits.

“Just… bombings.”

She sighs and strokes my hair. “I know what you really want.”

You do?

“You want to see Phil.”

I swallow and look down at the grass. A sharp pang explodes in my chest. Phil. “Yeah. Yeah, I miss Phil.” I bend down and blow the ladybug away. It disappears into the grass. 

“Your father doesn’t like him. I can see why with the boy’s tattoos.”

I force out a laugh, tears pricking my eyes. “You think all tatted guys are bad?”

“They’re not my cup of tea.” She winks. “But I still respect your taste.”

My throat tightens. My heart begins to pound in my chest. I can feel my spirit breaking from the inside, and I don’t know how to repair it. “What should I do?” I whisper. “How do I get to him?”

Meemaw’s hazel eyes glow like two suns. She leans forward, her breath smelling like Phil’s cigarettes. “Just follow his scent.” A second later, I hear a gruff voice from the back door of my house.

“Jude?” The voice speaks. I turn to my left, and there’s Phil, his hands in his jean pockets. His brown hair is shaved like a military man. He’s wearing his nerdy-ass drum corps shirt from the eighth grade. A tattoo bandage is wrapped around his upper right arm. He must’ve just gotten his arrow tattoo. 

I forget how to breathe.

“Phil!” I scream. I jump up and run to him, wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing myself against me. Phil chuckles and returns my squeeze, kissing my left temple. His reddish-brown beard feels divine on my cheek.

“How’s my girl doing?”

I bury my face in his shoulder, my brain lacking vocabulary. How am I doing? My answer will kill him. “I missed you,” I choke out. 

“I missed you too.” He lets out a soft “aww,” picks me up, and carries me into the house. I glance back at the backyard. Meemaw’s gone. “I couldn’t find a way to get to you after dark,” he explains, “your dad locked all the windows.”

This must be a few weeks before the bombings, when Pa played boyfriend-cop and banned me from seeing Phil for good. “Too young to be dating” was his reason, but his reason never stopped us from seeing each other when he was away. 

“Did Ma let you in?”

“She did. She’s a saint. She’s running over to your uncle’s now.” We enter my living room, and like a WWE wrestler, Phil pulls a backbreaker and throws me on the couch. I giggle wildly, high-out-of-my-mind off his presence. He leans down and kisses the tip of my nose. “We have the house to ourselves for a few minutes.”  

“Only a few?” I whine. 

“Your mom told me your dad’s coming back at five. It’s quarter past four.”

I wrap my arms around his neck again and kiss his cheek. I can’t let him go. Not now, not here. “I hate my dad.”

“Don’t say that. Your dad isn't that bad.”

“I hate him. I’m serious. I’m fed up with this shit.” I pull away and look into his green eyes. “Promise me when we turn eighteen, we’ll leave? We’ll go someplace else?”

Phil tucks my hair behind my ears. “Where do you want to go, baby?”

I think for a moment. “California.”

“California?” He laughs. “What’s in California?”

“Fucking Disneyland, I don’t know.”

“Alright, then.” He lays down on top of me and rests his head on my chest. “We’ll go to fucking Disneyland.” His breathing suddenly slows. I watch his body rise and fall against mine. I rub his back. He doesn’t stir. I can stay in his moment forever, but unfortunately, time in my mind runs on its own satanic schedule.

Phil starts coughing hard. “You okay?” I giggle. “Caught the black lung?”

He wheezes in my arms. “Baby?” I slap his back, attempting to expel whatever is in his throat. After three slaps, specks of blood eject out of his mouth, splattering onto my collarbone. His body goes limp. Alarms blare in every part of me.

“Phil!” I sit up and flip him over on his back. Thin trickles of blood roll from the corners of his lips down his pale face. I lift up his head, trying to clear his airway. No inhale. No exhale. No movement. I roll off the couch and press my ear against his heart. No beat. I don’t know CPR. I don’t know how to fight Death. Not in my head. Even when I’ve studied its moves a thousand times like a soldier learning the ways of her enemy.

I tug at Phil’s shirt, squeeze his face, scream in his ear, beg him to stay with me. “Where are you, baby?” I sob. “Are you gone? Are you dead? Don’t be dead. Please. Please. Please. Don’t be dead.” I know the word “please” means nothing to the departed. Even so, it’s better than saying nothing at all.

My hands tremble like leaves. They tremble so hard that I can feel them breaking off my arms. In the midst of my weeping and shaking, a spot of red spreads in the middle of Phil’s chest. Desperate, I lift up his shirt to get a closer look at the spot. It’s a wound. A gunshot wound, it looks like. Black blood oozes from the center and bubbles like stew. I touch the thick fluid—hot as metal in the sun.

A gush of blood flows out of the wound, streaming down Phil’s ribs and stomach I so love. Two hands pop out of the lesion. One of the hand’s nails are painted pink, and the other’s nails are square and bitten to nubs. Both of them are wearing gold rings, the very rings I used to wear whenever I played dress up as a kid. 

They’re my parents’ hands, and they’re clawing for me.

Save us, Ma hisses. Save us.

Don’t leave us, Pa chimes. Don’t let us go.

I grasp their hands. “Tell me where you are! Millie and I will come get you!”

Save us.

The blood’s pouring out of Phil faster now.  

Save us.

I hear Millie calling my name. She’s somewhere outside, beyond the backyard. 

Save us.

“I'm coming, Ma. I’m still alive.”

Save us.

“I love you, Pa. Don’t give up on me.”

Save us.

“I’m coming for all of you.”

Save us.

Save.

Us.

Now.

*****

A hand slides into the back of my hair and lifts my head up off my cot. Dawn comes slowly. Fingers pry my mouth open, planting two white tablets on my tongue. It always comes slowly. My eyes half-open to the sight of Millie’s bruised face. I hate night. 

“Drink,” she commands. She puts a water bottle up to my lips. I chug the drink.

“What happened out there?” I croak. “How long were you gone?”

“Two 12-year-old street bitches mugged me. And only for a few hours. Got back a little before dawn.”

“It’s morning?”

“8 A.M. sharp.” Millie smirks. “I got you a present.”

I slam my head back against the cot. “What did you get me?” I sigh.

Without delay, she reaches across the floor and drags a pink, dust-covered CD player in front of my eyes. It’s already plugged into the outlet in the wall, ready to be used. 

“I know how much you used to like music.”

“Put it away,” I mutter. “What if someone hears?”

“I’ll play it low. You know Joni Mitchell?”

“Joni, who?” 

“Michell,” Millie repeats. “Hear this.”

She presses play. A guitar strums in the beginning, the typical intro of a folk rock song. The lyrics unravel through a high, tweeting instrument of a voice, which I can only guess is Joni’s. She can carry a tune, I’ll give her that much, and her words read like poetry. Unfortunately, though, poetry isn’t my strong suit—can’t comprehend its themes well.

“What’s she trying to say?” I ask.

Millie raises her eyebrows at me. “You mean the message?”

I nod my head. 

“Going someplace else. The song’s called “California.” You like it?”

California. I swallow and ask my sister, “Where did you find the player?”

Millie’s eyes turn hard as stone. “A few blocks away, sitting beneath a tree. Strange, right?”

I glance up at the metal door of the bunker, a fire burning in my chest.

“Very strange.”

Photo of Samantha Szumloz

BIO: Samantha Szumloz is a Writing Arts student minoring in Creative Writing at Rowan University. She has been published in places such as Moria, Blue Marble Review, R U Joking?, and DisLit Youth Literary Magazine. She is going to be published in Moria’s fifteenth issue in May 2025. Other than submitting to publications, she posts religiously on social media and obsesses over the latest Hunger Games novel. She resides in central New Jersey with her family. To get in touch with Samantha, her Instagram is @poemsbysammsy.