The QuaranTeens, #1 Read online

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  The QuaranTeens

  by Keith B. Darrell

  The QuaranTeens

  By Keith B. Darrell

  Amber Book Company LLC

  www.AmberBookCompany.com

  U.S.A.

  Address inquiries regarding foreign rights, translation rights, audio rights, film rights, television rights, or merchandising licensing to: [email protected].

  Copyright © 2020 Keith B. Darrell. No portion of this e-book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, by any process or technique — except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the World Wide Web — without the express written consent of the publisher. All rights reserved. All lefts too.

  If you'd like to share this e-book with someone, please buy an additional copy for that person. If you’re reading this e-book and did not pay for it, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's hard work.

  All persons, places, and organizations in this e-book — except those clearly in the public domain — are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons, places, or organizations, living, dead, or defunct is purely coincidental. Stay home. Wear your mask.

  Kindle E-Book Edition • May 2020

  The paperback edition of this book is printed on acid-free paper. Your fingers are safe. E-book edition emits deadly radiation; you're screwed.

  For Amber, who was there from the beginning and who will remain in spirit. And Banshee and Solo, too.

  An intrepid proofreader perused this book for errors, but you know how hard it is to see clearly wearing a face mask.

  Special thanks to my characters, without whom I could not have written this book – for a writer is only as good as his characters – and to my readers, who inspire me and help me pay the light bill.

  Legal Disclaimers: No characters were harmed in the production of this book. Actually, a few were killed off but it didn’t hurt - they’re all make-believe.

  The QuaranTeens is also available in paperback. We’re greedy that way. Also available as a do-it-yourself audio book: just speak aloud as you read.

  The QuaranTeens

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter One

  The morose teenager stared at the corpse. Rigor mortis had set in but the pungent odor of decay had not yet escaped its mortal confines. “I’ve never seen a dead body before.”

  “None of us has,” her twin brother said glumly. “But we know what we have to do.”

  She pouted. “It’s not fair! It’d be like killing him all over again.”

  Covid frowned. “He would have insisted on it. You know what the code says. He taught us what to do when this day came; when someone… died.”

  She gulped and nodded. “How will you get him to the furnace?” Corona asked.

  “Best not to touch him. We can roll him onto a blanket. Four of us can pick it up by the corners and carry the blanket to the furnace. We’ll have to burn the blanket, as well.”

  “Why? He wasn’t infected.”

  “We can’t be sure. He’s dead, isn’t he? Maybe it was a heart attack or his age but who knows for certain? We have to follow the code. The code will keep us safe.”

  Corona sighed. “The code will keep us safe.” She repeated the mantra softly.

  The four solemn teens hefted their human cargo through the vast underground concrete bunker. Dozens came out from their cramped quarters to watch the procession in silence borne as much from a lack of comprehension as from respect. Until now, death had been a stranger, the bogeyman of countless bedtime stories told by the one who had now succumbed to the dark threat from their nightmares.

  The ersatz pallbearers bore the weight unsteadily. Ian was the strongest. The blond boy had the physique of a football player despite never having seen a football. His brawny hands held his end of the blanket slightly higher than the others as he trudged effortlessly ahead. The usually rebellious Kai was uncharacteristically silent. Corona had expected him to pronounce adherence to the code was no longer necessary, yet even he was subdued this day, solemnly obeying the code’s most sacred admonition regarding disposal of the dead. Varian wasn’t as quiet, though. The youth tussled his black hair from his eyes as he groaned. “He must have been eating twice our rations to be this heavy.”

  “Shut up, Varian,” Covid said, as he struggled to hold up his end.

  “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not in charge.” A smirk appeared on Varian’s face. “Come to think of it, we’ll need to choose someone to be in charge now that he’s…” Even Varian couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

  Corona walked beside her brother. “There’ll be time enough to discuss that later.”

  Blaine approached Kai. He was a slender redhead, slightly shorter than the other boys. “If you’re getting tired, I can carry him.”

  Kai grinned. “I’ve got this, squirt.”

  Blaine fell back as the four boys carried the body ahead. “I just wanted to help,” he said dejectedly. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Blaine turned and saw an alabaster girl whose auburn hair matched his own. “Fiona.”

  “I understand. That was thoughtful of you. But it looks heavy and the larger boys are best equipped to handle this.”

  Blaine nodded. “I just want to participate… to do my part; whatever that is.”

  Fiona hugged him. “You are. Simply by being here and sharing what we’re all feeling.”

  “I’ve never felt like this before.”

  “It’s called grief,” Destine said. “I’ve read all about it. There are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It was actually quite common before the quarantine—”

  “Can it, Miss Know-it-all,” Dax said. The freckled girl with the pixie hairstyle frowned. “He’s hardly going to give you extra credit now.”

  “Just because you never
cracked open a book or even set foot in the library is no reason to get snotty with me.” Destine muttered, “Bitch.”

  The throng of 50 teenagers, ranging in age from 13-to-19, walked mostly in silence through the sprawling underground bunker, passing the bedrooms, the kitchen, the library, and the room where they had held classes. Destine wondered if the room would ever be used again now that their teacher was gone. He had been the last adult: the one who knew all the answers because he had actually lived outside the bunker before the quarantine; before they had even been born. He’d been able to fill in what the books didn’t say and to solve any problems that arose. He’d said scientists like him were problem-solvers, although the teenagers only had a nebulous notion of what a scientist was. Some of the oldest teens vaguely remembered there had been a few other adults who died when they were very young. They were phantom memories and none could recall their names or faces. Presumably they, too, had ended up in the furnace. In those days, shortly after the quarantine began, they were most likely infected. But fire is the great cleanser. So the code said.

  Covid, Ian, Kai, and Varian stopped at the iron furnace door. They set the body down and Ian opened the door. A powerful blast of heat assailed their faces and the bright flames lit up the room.

  One of the younger girls timidly stepped forward. “Should we… should we say something first?” Nessa asked.

  “That’s dumb,” Dax said. “It’s not like he’s going to hear anything you say. That’s what being dead means.”

  Corona shot Dax a disapproving glance. Fiona walked over to Nessa. “I think that’s a good idea, hun. You can say whatever you want.”

  A confused look appeared on Nessa’s face. “I don’t know what to say. It just doesn’t seem right to dump him in the furnace like trash.”

  “It’s the code,” Varian said. “It’s to keep us all safe.”

  “He’s right,” Covid said. “But, um, I’ll say something. When we were born, or just a few years old, we were taken from our parents and brought here, to the bunker when the virus broke out. None of us remember any of our parents, or even the other scientists who ran the bunker. He was the one who raised us. He cared for us when we were sick and taught us everything we know. We’re all still alive because of him, and what he did for us every day of our lives.” Covid turned to the body lying on the blanket. “Thank you.”

  A murmur of “Thank you”s spread through the crowd. “Anyone else got anything to say?” Varian asked. When no one replied, he knelt and grabbed one end of the blanket. “Give me a hand.” Kai, Covid, and Ian lifted the blanket up and plopped the corpse into the fire. Kai tossed the blanket in after the body, briefly enshrouding it as both were consumed by vermillion flames.

  And then, it was over. There was no fanfare; they didn’t really know how to do death.

  The teens scattered throughout the bunker. Most returned to the small, cramped quarters they called their rooms. Others went on with their daily tasks, finding solace in a return to normality. Coralie took the opportunity to lock herself away in her tiny quarters. She had always been a loner and preferred her solitude. She found interacting with the others socially awkward. She closed her door, knowing no one would disturb her or even bother to look for her.

  Young Nessa wandered into the social area where a dozen older teens had congregated. She knew she wouldn’t fit in with the more mature crowd but she was too frightened to return to her room alone. She saw Fiona and rushed to her, giving her an effusive hug. She crawled into Fiona’s lap and rested her head against her chest as Fiona stroked her hair. She looked up at Fiona and asked, “What do we do now?”

  “ That is the question,” Varian said.

  “We do what we’ve always done,” Covid said. “We’ve been trained our whole lives to survive. Nothing changes. We go on, as he would’ve wanted us to.”

  “Someone has to make the decisions,” Varian said. “We can’t function with fifty people making conflicting choices. We need a leader.”

  Kai sneered. “Let me guess: You think we should choose you.”

  “I’m the obvious choice. I’m one of the oldest. I have leadership qualities; it’s documented in my file.”

  “How do you know what’s in your file?” Corona asked

  “I taught myself how to pick locks. They started files on us from the moment they brought us here. Psychological reports, genetic history… Apparently, I come from a line of strong leaders.”

  Destine grimaced. “If you’d spent more time in the library instead of rummaging through file cabinets you’d know before the quarantine people used to choose their leaders in elections.”

  “Or maybe it’s time for a change,” Corona said. “We’ve been stuck in this bunker our whole lives, or at least as long as some of us can remember. Aren’t any of you curious what’s on the other side of that door? There’s a whole world waiting to be explored.”

  Covid’s eyes widened. “You know we can’t go outside. We don’t dare. The code forbids it.”

  Kai grinned. “Rules are made to be broken. I think your sister’s right. Or do you want to spend the rest of your life in this concrete hole?”

  “There’s a reason they built this bunker,” Covid said. “When the virus came, it killed tens of thousands of people every day. No one had any immunity to it. The old ones had never seen anything like it. They believed it would wipe out all humanity. All over the world, they rushed to build bunkers like this. Who knows how many actually succeeded? Certainly not many on this scale. Even so, we were limited to fifty small children and infants, genetically chosen to be the future of mankind. We have a duty to survive.”

  “We have a duty to live,” Kai said. “I’m not going to stay here and bow down to Varian or you or anyone else.”

  “Don’t be a reckless fool,” Covid said. “What if the virus is still out there? If you catch it, there’s no cure. What if the water and the plants and animals are contaminated? We have safe food and purified water here. The air is filtrated. And nothing out there can get inside.”

  “But that means we’re trapped in here, as well,” Corona said. “We may have lived here our whole lives but you’ve read the books; you know people weren’t meant to live like this. You’ve seen the pictures of cities; streets filled with people; sunshine and sunsets.”

  “It’s not like that anymore,” Covid said. “Those books came from a time before the virus. We don’t know what it looks like outside.”

  “That’s the whole point. That’s why we need to explore and find out. It’s our world out there and we need to claim it.”

  Covid shot his sister an annoyed look. “Now’s not the time for this discussion. We’ve suffered a great loss today. We should all reflect on that.”

  “Good idea,” Destine said. “It’s been a long day. I’ll see you in the morning.” She headed off to bed.

  Dax frowned. “You may also wish to reflect on what’ll happen when the generators finally give out and the lights go off; when we can no longer keep the furnace running; when the last of the food is gone; when we’re cold and weak from hunger: Is waiting until then the best time to venture into the unknown — out of necessity?”

  Covid sighed. “We’ll discuss it with the others tomorrow. I want to hear what Destine has to say.”

  Dax frowned again. “What makes her opinion more valid than anyone else’s?”

  “Destine’s the most knowledgeable person in the bunker,” Covid said. “There isn’t a book in the library she hasn’t read twice. And she’s smarter than anyone.”

  “Fine,” Varian said. “We’ll hold a group meeting tomorrow and hear her out. And while we’re all gathered, we can hold an election.” He smiled as he left the gathering.

  Kai cocked his head. “He agreed too quickly. Varian’s plotting something.”

  “Varian’s always plotting something,” Covid said.

  “True,” Kai said, “but this time there’s no one to reign him in.”

  Covid grimaced. �
�We’ll see about that.”

  The bunker had been hastily constructed by government military engineers and thus its design was utilitarian, not aesthetic. The initial scientists it housed realized the sprawling, concrete shelter would have to serve as home to 50 children so they did the best they could to disguise the cold, uninviting facility and turn it into a cozy environment with a homey atmosphere. Books in a room that became the library; curtains on windowless walls; a pair of saggy couches in what was to become the social area – these were the last-minute little touches that made a bunker a home. But there was one spot they had missed; one oversight that put lie to the façade: the door leading to the outside world.

  It wasn’t an ordinary door. To the contrary, it was unlike any door one might have found in a home – or, at least, in a pre-quarantine home. It was metal… solid titanium, six inches thick. It was five feet tall, resembling a door to a bank vault or a submarine. The door was sealed with an unseen gasket, hidden inside its interior lip. There was a metal hand wheel on the door that had not been turned in a dozen years. For that reason, it was stuck and despite however much strength she exerted, Corona could not budge it.

  She strained, both hands on the wheel, hoping to see it turn. So engaged was Corona in her efforts that she failed to see the figure come up behind her.

  Chapter Two

  > Kai leaned against the wall, cupping the back of his head in his palm. The others were asleep in their quarters and had been for several hours… except for the 16-year-old girl he was furtively observing as she quietly exerted herself attempting to turn the hand wheel. He stood in the shadows watching a while longer until he grew bored. “You’ll never get it open,” he said.

  Corona jumped, startled by the voice coming from behind her. She pivoted. “What are you doing here?”