Beyond the Grave

Year 2023

Somewhere in the desert of Southern California

(Faint sounds of Bullets and explosions in the background)

When I was a little girl, I would constantly eves-drop on conversations my parents were having, late at night after they thought we had gone to bed or were out of earshot, I would hear my dad talking about the end of the world- he was notoriously falling asleep in 'his chair' watching something on the History channel about Nostradamus or the apocalypse or some sort of 'doomsday' phenomenon. It used to drive my mother crazy.

“The girls!” She would say in a hushed tone. Trying her best to shut up a grown man and his somewhat embarrassing obsession with the end of the world.

“They need to know this is a SCARY WORLD! The end of America, the end of the world as we know it, will come in our lifetime! I need to prepare them young! Especially Scarlett! She is the fighter, the protector and the one with my tenacity and gumption. If something happens one day, Cameron, she will make sure she and Harlow survive!”

“Ok, let me get this straight Jimmy...You expect our 9 year old to start retaining survival skills for the 'end of the world' and teach them to her 5 year old sister?! Are you out of your mind with this bullshit?! Cut the shit Jimmy! They are CHILDREN. I don’t want you to scare the girls with anymore of your nonsense, Scarlett is already starting to get scared in mass, when the priest mentions the end times.” My mother said over dramatically with an eye roll, a broken voice, and a hand over her heart.

“GOOD! Fear will keep them safe! Ya gotta stay alert, Cam! What am I always telling ya?! It’s the 90’s for God sake! The end is near! I feel it in my blood, in my bones!”

“Oh, you always feel everything in your ‘blood or your bones’ Jimmy!” My mother half snickering exclaimed, with I'm sure another eye-roll to accompany her displeasure on the subject matter.

“I’m ITALIAN, Cammy!” He would always say with big expressed hands, and a smart ass smile, which always made me, in turn, smile. Grabbing his chest with passion and making signature Italian hand gestures, he would say “it’s a gift from God, we gotta certain intuition ya know? And my first born baby girl Scarlett, has it too! She and Harlow will be survivors after the apocalypse, cause I’m gonna teach her all my ‘Jimmy Domenico survival tricks’ oh yeah, haha!” He said with a big grin and fake karate moves, before he grabbed my mother from around the waist as she ironed his shirts for the next day and dipped her for a kiss.

That memory seems like yesterday and a thousand years ago at the same time; how did we get here and how did we get here so fast? ALL my life my dad prepared me for this - but for me, it was just about being with him. I never really believed any of it would happen to us…and so suddenly, I thought if anything it would be a gradual decline, and my mom always reassured me that my dad was ‘full of it’ and I had nothing to fear. Boy, were we wrong. It happened, and happened FAST.

As I grew up and graduated high-school, and started my own life, my dad and I would bond and talk for hours, smoking joints- to my mothers disapproval, around our old back patio table. We would laugh about ‘this present day,’ and joke that it wasn't too far off. Well, I guess, I was the only one taking it as a joke. Look at me now...in prison. Jokes on you, Scarlett. We talked about the conspiracies, we talked about what the 'New World Order' would bring, what would happen to the 'ants' once the elite were done killing off those who rebelled against the establishment. We discussed the things that were right under our noses, and we laughed at the “sheep.” God, I wish I could laugh now. About anything. I never, ever, thought in a million years, the end of America and the world as we know it would happen in my lifetime- but my daddy did.

3 years now since the pandemic hit the world…

3 months since America officially collapsed…

33 days I’ve been in this prison.

They heard everything… ‘Big Brother’ as Americans would call ‘them’

They heard it all… and they started making a list… and checking it twice.

Americans started to panic come the beginning of 2022. We thought this would be over by the summer of 2020. Those of us who took the end seriously, and didn't trust the new world government that was starting to form, began to flee to remote locations, groups of five of six families would be here one day and gone the next, in attempts to get off the grid. We grew our own crops and stored rain water. People started to deem people like us insane. They never thought the stores would really close- after all we had been through this before. People stocked up again and again at the stores for as long as they could. Then about three months ago, they shut off all water and electricity forcing people- even rebels, from their homes seeking mercy from the NGU. The NGU is the “Nations Global United” aka our New World Order and government. As they pretended to offer asylum in exchange for allegiance, they started killing off the Rebels one by one as they found them. Us. I am a Rebel. I am on death row in a small prison camp about 12 miles into the desolate outskirts of the beautiful desert I once called home.

Those 12 miles keep me alive. If I can escape this piece of shit NGU camp and make my way back home to my Dad, I know I can drive the 800 miles north to a Rebel Camp…where I hope to find someone, anyone I know, actually just anyone at this point. I still have hope that this place exists…I have to keep that hope.

The morning I was ripped from my bed by militant NGU officers, I woke up with a strange feeling… my dad would call it Italian intuition- he said it was my gift. We knew the NGU were searching for Rebels through a network my fiancé was the head of. The thought of him, being alive, and at the Rebel Camp, are the thoughts that keep me alive everyday and keep me fighting…and I know if he’s still out there, he is fighting to get back to me as well.

I begged him to stay that morning, I knew something was off.

“Please baby, don’t leave! I know they are going to come for us as soon as you leave!”

“Scarlett… you’ve been saying that since the collapse, three months ago… they don’t know where we are, we have been safe and you of all people are prepared for it- you’re the one who got me into all this survival shit anyways! And thank God your dad taught you everything he did! Now, give me a kiss, I have to go, you know what to do if someone comes, but no one is coming baby. But you know where to go and what to do if we get separated- you go north….”

“Yes, yes, I know the plan Axe…but please today is different! I feel it in my blood! In my bones!”

“Ha! You sound just like your dad!”

I did sound like him.

And just like him, I wasn't wrong.

It’s been a little over a month… I’ve survived off scraps of bread, half rotten vegetables, and occasionally some bologna.

I have one chance to escape. When they switch the guards. And today is that day. 33 days… my lucky number. No turning back now Scarlett…you are your fathers daughter, it’s now or never.

I’ve learned the guards, learned their schedules, used my psychological skills to manipulate them and make them think I am weak. A mans true weakness, is still a woman.

The guards on rotation today all have a weakness. A sign. A signal. And I’ve picked it up.

Now, it’s where the rubber meets the road.

I never thought I’d actually have to DO any of this- even though I’m well prepared.

I have to make it back to my dad. He holds the keys to my freedom and my journey North.

Getting past the guards was the easy part. For fucks sake, why didn’t I try sooner? How many of us could have just overtaken the camp at anytime we wanted? I couldn't think about that now, I had to run. I managed to secure myself a pistol off the guard; had to use a bullet on him though. How many 'Hail Mary's' for that?

As I used the sun and stones to direct me and make a sun dial as my father taught me, I tried to make my way the 12 miles back to my town… the roads were empty… everything was forsaken. I thought about my sweet dogs and Axe, and the probability of finding them dead in the house once I made it back. My heart broke.

Just think of daddy. Daddy will be there, and then you will be free.

As my blistered feet bled and my sandpaper tongue ached for water, I found myself walking up my street. I started to cry. Did I really make it? Am I delusional or am I really seeing our house?

As I wandered up the old driveway, first I felt, and then I saw no sign of life, no sign of the dogs, no sign of Axe. The place was ransacked. Did they kill him? Did they kill the dogs? God, please let them have gone north. The Jeep was gone. This gave me one fragment of hope that it was Axe who drove it away. I have to keep that hope.

But first, I needed my dad.

I went to gather whatever few things that I could and look for my car keys and the spare gasoline we had hidden under the floorboards in our closet.

As I opened the floor boards, I was overwhelmed to find the gasoline, the car keys to my old 2006 Mercedes Benz that I refused to ever get rid of, bottles of water, and another gun with a box of bullets still there. Axe had to have left it for me. My heart raced at the thought of him being alive.

As I walked to my car and filled it with the spare gasoline I smiled to myself. If I could just get to my dad, I could get the chance to drive North.

I got in the drivers seat… Grabbed the rosary, the Saint Michael and the heart shaped locket containing my fathers ashes with his picture etched on the gold. I sat for a minute and let out a sob, with tears streaming down my filthy face, I said outloud to myself, “I made it daddy.”

You see, I found my father dead in April of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. He was the head of The Rebels.

They thought killing the leader, would make an example for the rest of us. All they did was light a fire under our asses.

As I started the drive North, I felt an elated sense of freedom start to set in. I know, none of this is over, but now, at least I have hope. The static from empty radio stations played through the speakers. I rolled down all the windows, I pushed the CD button. Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean" blared through my speakers- I smiled and opened up the sunroof. My dad is here. I made it one more day...

And now, I go North...