Sharing Corrie

Chapter Thirty Six

Aunt Jack.

Corrie tossed her notebook aside and grabbed her jacket as she sprinted after Hannah out of the doctor's office.

"What happened?" Corrie panted as they ran outside.

"One of the bombs exploded at the munitions factory and started a fire. Alex is already there, but I had to come find you."

Titus Fletcher, Hannah's beau and the newly instated sheriff, waited outside in his car. Hannah and Corrie both leapt in and Titus drove the car towards the munitions factory outside of town, the wheels squealing as he pressed the gas pedal. Aunt Jack had been working for the factory for months now, and though Corrie had wondered about the safety of such employment, she had never considered it having such horrendous ramifications. The automobile bounced on the cobblestone streets until they turned to dirt on the rutted path that led to the factory. Corrie saw a waft of smoke in the distance against the pale winter sky.

"Your brother is already here?" Corrie clarified, knowing that she and Hannah could do little more than comfort the women and older men who worked the factory. Dr. Benjamin, however, could save lives.

Hannah nodded. "We were on a house call; we knew you were at the hospital to see over the troops were a problem to arise, and Titus told us what happened. I made him bring me here."

"Thank you," Corrie breathed as Titus pulled the car a few hundred yards away from the factory.

One wing of the factory was still on fire though the flames were reduced to embers, but the factory was near enough to the ocean that water had been brought to ensure the fire did not spread further. At least a hundred women and older or disabled men stood, sat, or laid outside of the factory. Many coughed into the arms of their garments, whether from the smoke or the fumes that blackened their faces every day Corrie could not tell.

"Where is she?" Corrie asked as she clambered ungracefully out of the vehicle.

Hannah landed on her feet after leaping out of the car and started to jog towards the scene. Corrie followed her, lifting her skirts as she ran across the frozen ground. Salty wind whisked off the sea, forcing her to hold her hat with one hand.

"Hannah, Miss Walker! Over here!"

Corrie caught sight of Dr. Benjamin's lanky frame as he waved one hand in the air. He was with a series of prone bodies, and for a moment Corrie's mind jumped to the worst possible scenario. After everything they had been through, Corrie couldn't imagine fate being so cruel as to steal Aunt Jack in such a horrific turn of events.

Hannah led the way as they ran towards the doctor, dodging dazed workers. "Is she alive?" Corrie cried frantically through desperate gasps for air.

Once they reached the doctor, Corrie scanned the faces and could not find her aunt. "Where is she?"

Dr. Benjamin hesitated, running a filthy hand through his air. "Miss Walker, she hasn't come out yet."

"What?" Corrie cried, whirling around to stare at the smoking wing of the factory. "She's still in there? Why has noone gone in to find her?"

"They've just now contained the fire to that wing, but it's still too treacherous to enter."
"I'll go," Corrie declared, untying the sash around her waist and dipping it into a nearby basin of water and holding it over her mouth.

"Corrie, stop!" Dr. Benjamin called as she started to run towards the smoking building, catching her wrist. "You can't go in. No one can. We just have to wait."

Panic bubbled inside of Corrie's chest and she fought to extricate her arm from the doctor's grasp. Jack, her insane, sacrificial, courageous Aunt Jack, was somewhere inside that building and no one was doing anything to help her. You can't wait. If you don't do something, no one will.