One more:
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An evil presence taunted him as he ran out of air, searching and crawling desperately for a way out of the suffocating darkness.


Pitch

Black



by PAUL D. GRAMS; Rockford, Ill.


 


The call came at 1:00 A.M. on April 3, 1995. A two-story apartment building in the center of town. Flames had been spotted in the basement and on the ground floor. Assigned to Ladder Company Number One, I rushed to the scene with my partners Ron Hill and John Brazones.


I jumped out of the truck and glanced at the house, a turn-of-the-century building with wooden siding. Flames licked at the basement windows; the upper windows were blackened by smoke. After 14 years in the Rockford Fire Department I knew these dwellings well. Of basic wooden construction, they have nothing to slow a fire as it rises. We would have to act fast.

An elderly man came running toward us, out of breath. "A woman lives up there with her grandson," he shouted. "On the second floor. You’ve got to get them out."

"Anyone downstairs?" I asked.

He shook his head. John and Ron broke the door down. The three of us put on our face masks and air tanks and scrambled up the stairs. The air in our tanks wouldn’t last much longer than 15 minutes.

It was a cool, damp night with no wind, and smoke hung in the apartment like a thick fog. My flashlight was only a few inches from my face, but I could barely see a dull glow. Lost in the pitch black, we tried to stay in touch by voice.

"Ron, you there?" I asked. "John, is that you?"

"Yeah." "Yeah." The responses were muffled, muted; even sound was distorted by the smoke.

Crawling, I bumped into a coffee table, then an overstuffed sofa. I reached for the wall, and my fingers brushed a hanging plant. Look to the floor, I thought. In a fire children will often hide, hoping to escape danger. I patted the rug under a chair and moved forward. "No one here," I shouted.

Methodically the three of us searched. It wasn’t a large place, and everywhere we turned we encountered chairs, tables, houseplants, a TV.

We worked our way to the kitchen, linoleum beneath our hands. I felt my way under a table and inspected a closet. No one. Ron called from the bedroom, "The place looks empty." John confirmed from the dining room, "No one here."


Thank God, I prayed. No one here. I hope they’re safe. Now we had to get out. Through the thick black I spotted a finger of flame lapping up through a heating vent near my face. "Let’s go," I said.

We felt our way along the floor back to what we thought was the living room, but we couldn’t be sure. We seemed to be in a maze. Which way was out? If we had had the fire hose with us we could have followed it back out the door. The air was so still and cold that the smoke didn’t move; we were trapped in darkness.

"Ladder Company Number One is on the second floor," Ron spoke into his radio. "We’re lost. We need someone to ventilate the building immediately so we can find our way out." There was another crew on the ground, hosing the fire on the first floor. If someone down there broke more windows maybe the air would clear.

We waited, breathing slowly, conserving our air supply. No one came. Nothing happened.

The warning bell on John’s tank started ringing, signaling he was low on air. Our time was running out.

I pulled out my radio. "Chief!" I shouted, "We are trapped on the second floor. We are lost in smoke and are almost out of air. Break the windows so we can find our way out. Now!"

There was no response. Somehow they weren’t hearing us. I started crawling forward, straining to find the exit. An image came to me, a horrifying photo in a fire fighting magazine I had recently read. The picture showed a firefighter’s handprints on a wall, only inches from the window that would have let him out. The man died just a breath away from safety. God, don’t let the same thing happen to us.


Just then I felt my shoulder bump into someone. "John, is that you?" I asked. No answer. "Ron, are you there?" No answer. Who was it? Someone to rescue us?

I inched forward and bumped the same thing. It wasn’t a piece of furniture; it was moving. And then a deep voice spoke, in a tone so cold that a chill ran through me: "You will never get out of here alive." It was as though evil incarnate had spoken.


No, you’re wrong. I will get out of here. I thought of my wife at home praying. Whenever I was in trouble I clung to that image of Val bowing her head in bed or turning to a few pages of her Bible before she fell asleep. Her prayers had kept me safe before; surely they would do so again.


No, I will get out of here, I thought. I would not let fear take me over. I will survive. God will help me.


Suddenly I heard glass shattering. One of my partners must have found a window and broken it. I headed toward the sound and reached the window. A ladder appeared. John scrambled down to safety. I went next. As I climbed over the sill I sucked in the final breath of air left in my tank. Ron came last.

On the ground we took off our masks and gulped deep drafts of fresh air. The fire shot up through the building and the second story burst into flames only moments after we left it. We were alive, safe!

Back at the station we received confirmation that the people who lived in the apartment had not been home that night. Thank God. I called Val and told her not to worry when she heard the news on the radio that morning. "Ron, John and I got lost in dense smoke, but we’re okay," I said. "I’ll see you when I get off duty."

I asked Ron and John if I had bumped into them before we got out. No. They hadn’t heard the voice and had no idea what I was talking about.

When I got home Val had already gone to work at the elementary school where she is the secretary. We spoke on the phone, and I described the horror of being lost and hearing that frightening voice. "Your prayers must have got me out of there," I told her.

"But, Honey," she said, "I was sound asleep when you telephoned. I hadn’t been awake for several hours."

"You’re kidding," I said.

"No," she insisted.

"Well, someone must have been praying," I said.

That day at work Val pondered my close call. She smiled hello when Sherry Zahorik, who works in the day-care program, came into the office. As Sherry started to tell the principal about her "strange night," Val gasped in astonishment.

With no previous knowledge of the situation I had been in the night before, Sherry told this amazing story:

"Sometime after 1:00 A.M. I awoke with such a heaviness in my chest I could hardly breathe. I began praying as I recalled the dream I had just had. I could see three people in a dark room, trapped by thick smoke. These three people were crawling, frantically searching for something. I could feel a confusion and a demonic presence permeating the room.

"Then this demonic presence laughed and said, ‘You will never get out of here alive.’ While the presence was speaking, I saw a picture of a fireman clawing at the wall, thinking it was a window.

"I got up and went into the living room, where I continued praying. Each time I thought it was safe to go back to bed, the heaviness returned. Finally the pressure was gone and I felt an extraordinary peace. I knew the crisis was over and everything was all right. I went back to bed and slept soundly."

When Val told me about Sherry’s dream and her vigilant praying, I was stunned. Everything Sherry said corresponded to my experience the night before. I’m convinced her prayers protected me from an evil force that was so real I could touch it. I felt it right next to me, breathing, speaking, ready to extinguish all life—and then it was gone.

There is no doubt in my mind that the extraordinary power of prayer can protect us from evil. And release us from the impenetrable dark.

 




This story from Guideposts magazine (Oct. 1997). For more inspiration, visit Guideposts.org

Awesome...thanks for sharing...