I'm searching for the name of a story I would have read some time between 1997-2007 (probably). I also believe it was read either in class or as assigned reading for class. It was public schools in Richland county, South Carolina.
From what I remember, a few kids around teen age were playing in part of their town that was away from others at least at the time they were there. Either tornado sirens sounded or they saw a tornado or maybe a severe storm but I'm pretty sure it was a tornado. Very close to where they were playing was a man's home. He was not home at the time. But he'd recently installed a state of the art shelter/bunker, and one of the kids knew about it for some reason, though it was not common knowledge in the town, I think the one kid was about the only one aside from the home owner who knew about it.
So they take shelter in the bunker. It had an electric door with a code and rations that would last this group of kids maybe a week? And other than possibly an air system, the only other way that air got into the bunker was an open pipe that led from a corner of the ceiling straight out to the ground and stuck out maybe a foot or something.
Either the power went out or they forgot the code, I can't remember, but something happened so that if there was a system keeping oxygen pumping to the bunker, it either wasn't working or maybe it wasn't mentioned in the story. So these kids were stuck and no one knew where, no one could hear them, and no one knew about the bunker, and the owner was out of town and not expected back soon at all. I think towards the end they either had run out of food and water or were close, but luckily that pipe still was letting air in so they didn't suffocate.
The last scene is a girl outside, where the teens are assumed dead. She's mourning them and carrying a bouquet of flowers, then decides that this pipe sticking from the ground is a good place to put the bouquet in memory of these teens. She puts the flowers in, cutting off air flow into the bunker, and the story ends.
Someone on Facebook suggested maybe I was combining two different stories but I'm not sure. Does anyone know this story? Does anyone know what it's called
by katyaalisabetha