Dante's Inferno

Introduction

“The Inferno” was an epic penned by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century and was required reading for a lot of high school students, myself included.

“Dante's Inferno”, as it has become known in the vernacular, is also the title of two relatively obscure films from 2004 and again in 2010. The 2010 version is a richly produced anime version, dark and creepy. In my opinion it is an excellent rendition visualizing what most of us can only imagine.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401113/?ref_=nv_sr_2

“Never marry a Kennedy or a Firefighter” - Chief Comfort​

Remembering

Carl (Carlito) Dante hated his name all the way through school. His grandmother had named him, she and his grandfather were immigrants from Italy right after WWII. He was especially grieved when his English Lit class had to read Alighieri's Inferno.

Carl was also a paradox. A tall and muscular teenager with handsome looks, he was prone to action and would at one moment intervene on behalf of a kid being bullied and the next he'd punch someone's lights out. The last one he sent to the ER. His brown eyes which seemed full of mirth would turn almost black and he'd curse someone to tears and on the way home would risk it all to rescue a kitten from a flooded storm drain.

He was raised Roman Catholic but had no real faith. Carl would attend church twice a year for sunrise Mass on Easter Sunday and for Christmas Mass. This was to keep his mom happy whom he loved dearly.

After high school he went to college and there he met Beatrice. She too had been the victim of a grandmother's naming but she never had a reason to hold her name in disdain as she was so beautiful people loved her on sight.

Her copper tresses hung to the top of her full and heart shaped ass. Tall and elegant she moved through the world like a warm breeze. She had the gift of standing perfectly still with only a few hairs shifting in the air currents around her. Her eyes were the same copper as her hair which added to her unique and mysterious beauty.

She was attracted to Carl the first time she saw him. A dark and stormy contrast to her calm and pale beauty. Beatrice was the epitome of the virtuous but was inexplicably drawn to his rakish bearing.

For his part Carl wanted her immediately. He was stopped dead in his tracks by her easy, warm smile.

As he took in the vision of her total beauty he felt his libido surging up. He was captivated by the smiling heart shaped face and then his eyes traveled down her milky white throat to revel in her full and high breasts, perfectly outlined by the form fitting emerald blouse that was her favorite. The succulent lips that gleamed wet and soft as her smile relaxed drove Carl to near madness.

She accepted his invitation to dinner and she turned out to be a humorous and intelligent conversationalist. By the time he walked her back to the dorm, Carlito Dante knew he would marry this beautiful woman. He made up his mind that night to pursue her with all of his heart and mind; even if it meant corrupting her virtue; a thought not at all repugnant to him.

Over the rest of their college career they were rarely seen apart from one another. Carl pursued the seduction of Beatrice but every attempt to bed her was deflected with good humor and patience. For once in his tumultuous life, Carl quit the pursuit of bedding others and on their graduation day, “Bea” agreed to marry Carl.

On their wedding night Carl almost fainted when his virgin bride emerged in a floor length gown of a sheer and shimmering cloth that hung on her rich curves like a gossamer skin. Her pale pink nipples pressed on the inside of the bodice causing rippling light to cross back and forth as she trembled.

As urgent as his need was, Carl was a gentle and thorough lover that first night and by the time he entered her, she had climaxed and was ready to surrender herself to Carl's powerful sex. As he unleashed his seed deep within Beatrice she began to quietly cry, even as she kissed her husband's mouth and face. She assured Carl she was crying out her happiness and the finality of her gift to him.

That first year was the happiest Carl had ever known and his beautiful bride was a caring and loving woman that would come to him often and allow herself to be taken even if she wasn't ready for the invasion that was sometimes Carlito's aggressive and selfish fucking. She loved her husband and sacrificed her body to him again and again to his sometimes violent ravishment.

Carl joined the fire department and Beatrice was left on her own many nights throughout his training and advancement. He was an aggressive firefighter and advanced as quickly as he was eligible and was now the second youngest captain ("Cap" to his men) in the fire department. Carl had also fallen into the temptation rampant in the ranks of firefighters and policemen alike.

His first betrayal of his marriage was after he had arrived on the scene of an apartment fire. The downstairs and vacant apartment was well involved and had extended into the breezeway. He heard the voices calling from the upstairs apartment across the stairwell. It was a dad and his two young girls.

He was waiting on water to charge the 1 3/4” hose line. “Damn!” came the voice of his second driver, Virgil Dalton from over his shoulder, “we've got to do something Carl.”

“Shit!” he turned to his partner, “okay, look Virg, I'm going. You get water you put me out first, got it?” Carl took a deep breath and twisted the regulator of his Scott air pack into place and was already gone before Virg could protest. It seemed to play out in slow motion as he ducked into the swirling wall of flames and scrambled through to the upper breezeway where he was just barely able to duck under the tongues of fire as they wrapped around the railing.

Carl heard the panicked voices screaming inside. He depressed the donning switch and twisted off the regulator from his face piece, “stay away from the door!” The voices quieted, “do you hear me?” A moment and then he heard the dad's voice, “yes, help us!”

Carl removed the hand held pry bar from his turnouts' pocket and jimmied then spread the cornice apart from the door. One good shove and Carl tumbled into the family's apartment. He got on his portable and called for a ladder from the arriving truck company. He kicked out the screen, “kids first,” he commanded. He pulled off his helmet and mask calling for his partner, “Virg! Get over here.” Virgil had been moving as soon as he saw Dante enter the apartment, he lowered first one then the other into Virgil's arms and by then the truckers were setting the extension ladder. Carl climbed out and then allowed the dad to enter in front of him, the two descended to the ground as the fire was darkening and the smoke turning a light gray from the firefighters' attack.

When they had stowed their hose and gear, Carl who was riding the seat in the absence of his officer asked dispatch to place them out of service so they could followup at the hospital. They went through the ambulance entrance and were happy to see the dad and his daughters signing release papers. The dad took his hand and furiously shook it, “thank you! Dear God, thank you!” The small girls hugged his sooty legs.

He overheard Virgil talking to the battalion chief that wanted a report on the incident, “chief, he ran through hell's own fire to get to that family.” Chief Comfort's grizzled face wrinkled deeper as a grin formed, “yeah, after I chew his ass out, I'll write him up for a citation.” He breathed a sigh of relief, nothing could take the satisfaction out of trying to save someone quicker than a reprimand, he'd narrowly avoided one once before. Like this one he had violated protocol to make entry without a RIT or charged line. The difference on the last being that one wasn't successful.

It was a moment later when he heard a feminine voice behind him. He turned to find a beautiful and petite blonde, “are you Carl?” Carl nodded and she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. She dropped back down and smiled, “you saved them! My daughters, you saved them.” The feeling of her breasts pressed into his chest added with the post adrenal rush had stirred his passion and the divorced mom met him outside of the station the following morning.

She was the first in a series of nurses, scared women and even female rookies he'd taken to bed. He lost his marriage barely three years after it had begun.

The Inferno

Carl sat his empty cup down smiling at the gradation of dark rings that had grown over the years of not washing it, it was his lucky cup. It had been a busy shift already and he had needed the jolt of the viscous 2 hour old coffee. But alone he was prone to reminiscing and like the recently faded images, he didn't care for some.

“Cap?” Carl looked up, “supper's on” he rose from his desk and followed his driver Virgil Dalton into the kitchen. Virgil had been a good partner and friend since rookie school. More importantly, at least right now, he was the best firehouse cook in the state.

Carl filled his platter with the chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and verily smothered the whole thing in that brown gravy that would “make you slap your momma”. As he sat on his end of the dining bench there was a tell tale click over the station speakers. He just dropped his head and shoved back from the table, it would be another cold supper.

As Carl and Virg started for the engine the claxon sounded and the dispatcher's voice fell from the loud speakers throughout the station, “Let's go now! Engines 15, 33 26, Trucks 45 and 16, Battalion 7; structure fire reported 1441 Elm, Adam's Hat Lofts, people reported trapped, box 1548, time out 1920.” Carl hit the en route button on his engine's mobile computer and picked up the handset, “Engine 15 en route 1441 Elm.”

Station fifteen wasn't far from the former industrial area west of downtown being reinvented as an upscale residential area. Adam's Hats was a large mill that was being converted into loft apartments and was already partially occupied. The South end was still under reconstruction but several apartments were occupied on the North end. They could see the glow almost from the time they turned out of the house, “pull up your boots,” Carl shouted over his shoulder. The nod to the old days of hip boots and canvas duck coats let the backward facing men know, they had a working fire.

They pulled up in front of the building, the entire South end of the fourth floor was belching deep red flames and thick black smoke which settled in the cool evening air of this October night. The haze clinging to the ground obscured the lower levels and it already had the caustic plastic taste typical of modern fires. “Engine 15 out 1441 Elm, 5 story commercial, heavy mill construction, heavy fire on fourth floor. Transmit a second alarm. Engine 33 bring water, engine fifteen passing command, making a quick attack.”

Carl half listened to the read back from dispatch as he finished pulling his hood up around his face piece and reset his helmet. “Virg, when you get water I'll need a lot. Have Engine 33 set up a RIT and tell Truck 45 we're going up,” Virgil nodded and Carl turned his attention to their new charge John Charon who stood with his eyes white with excitement, “Rook, your with me, grab the high rise bag. We'll tie in at the center stair well.” The rookie fumbled but got the compartment opened and shouldered the 70# bag of hose and fittings.

Carl and his young charge made their way through the haze and into the front of the building, several people passed them on their way out coughing and retching. The center of the building had been carved into an atrium and the heavy timber beams that were removed now reinforced the edges of the five floor mezzanines.

Glass elevators road out of two lobby areas on the north and south sides and all had grounded properly once the alarms had sounded but the sprinkler system had been disabled while welders worked on the remodeling.

Some smoke had already infiltrated the atrium and Carl was hoping the smoke system was active. They made there way into the South fire stairs and to the third floor landing. “Okay Rook,” he had bumped face masks so he could be heard, “let's tie in here, we'll play the hose out from here.” The young firefighter nodded and they opened the bag. Carl spun the end cap off of the stand pipe while the rookie played out the hose. After he had joined the wye with the hose attached to the connection, Carl joined his rookie on the fourth floor landing. Carl keyed open his portable radio, “Virg, where's my water?”

“Comin' now Cap.” the radio crackled.

“Okay Rook, crack that nozzle and listen for the gurgling behind the air hiss.” The Rook nodded but Carl knew that if he didn't that he'd be fighting the hose as it tried to straighten itself out. The young fireman did as he was instructed and he heard the hiss of 3 stories and then 150' of air as it was pushed through the TFT nozzle and started to sputter. “Cut it!” Carl shouted and the firefighter pushed the lever forward. The hose had a satisfying rigidity. Carl knew Virg well enough to know he had at least 200 psi backing him up. It made the hose more difficult to maneuver than the prescribed 150# but it ensured a good supply of water. Carl placed his hand on the rookies shoulder, “you ready John?”

John Charon swallowed hard and nodded and then he crouched and opened the door onto the open fourth floor and his breathing quickened as he looked at the thick black wall moving towards them followed by a dim orange glow. Where the flames rolled out from behind and spilled along the grid work of heavy timbers supporting the fifth floor; it reminded Carl of the old ice trays as the water spills from one end to the other. “Let's get it John!” and the rookie pulled back on the nozzle's lever and Carl braced him against the reaction as the stream sputtered and then shot forcefully into the billowing wall. They would do all they could to contain it, buying time until more companies joined them.

Carl figured with the heavy timber construction they had some time before they had to think about backing out. The black smoke rolled inward around where the stream pierced into its heart. “Okay Rook, let's move it up a bit and they advanced until they were being wrapped in the toxic and skin melting cloud but the rookie kept the stream directed at the dim glow and was working the hose in tight circles. Carl felt a swell of pride but as he looked up he saw “snakes” of orange shoot past over their heads. “Rook, pencil it, the ceilingand dammit, slow your breathing down!” John followed his direction but the little serpentine flames increased and there was a low groan,

“Shit!” Carl tackled the rookie and the black cloud turned into a boiling orange wall as the flash over enveloped them. It was only seconds before he dragged the nozzle away from the rookie and opened a protective cone of water over and in front of them but he could feel the skin on his neck drawing tight. “Let's get out of here Rook!” he shouted and tried to keep the water cone between them and the worst of the flaming assault. John had made it to the landing and was pulling hose back helping Carl to retreat.

Carl was almost there before he saw the flaming wall advance and a ball of hot gases morphed into a face and stared at him. Carl couldn't believe it, he'd seen strange, even bizarre things, in fires before and he wasn't prone to anthropomorphism but it definitely looked like a face. He studied the apparition as it appeared to study him, he narrowed the stream and strafed across the face with it. The face's mouth gaped as if in a scream and retreated back into the roiling liquid inferno. Carl was just stepping back when he heard a growl like a hundred distant lions and a loud cracking of timbers snapping. He was just turning to jump into the relative safety of the fire stairs when he felt the sickening sensation of of momentary weightlessness and fell, slamming into a broken timber. He tasted blood in his mouth and the stabbing pain of ribs shattering followed by a slide toward the growing lake of fire below him. Carl grappled desperately for a purchase on the collapsed flooring and watched the nearing liquid flames he suddenly remembered the most chilling line from “The Inferno”. As the hero enters Hell, the sign reads, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Dante clung to a split between boards in the flooring and found himself suspended between life and death, struggling desperately for relief from the suffocating serum welling in his throat. Carl hung in limbo for just a moment before the sloping floor bucked and shook Carl free to finish his fall into the flaming lake.

Carlito woke as he gagged and coughed, splattering the inside of his face piece with blood and tissue. The darkness retreated from his field of vision and he started to take in his surroundings, all the while straining to through rattling gasps in his attempt to move air into whatever functioning lung tissue he had left.

His radio crackled to life and he heard what sounded like distant screams and the rookie's voice sounded the alarm, “Mayday! Mayday! Cap's down, fourth, nothird floor. It all just fell” and the static rose to drown out the desperate call for help.

Carl looked up and chuckled at his own hopeless situation. The “lake” of fire was a sheet of flame rolling out from under the third floor timbers. From above it had looked like a swirling pool of consuming fire.

Lust

The Vibralert on Carl's mask started to buzz and rattle warning him of his air supply being nearly depleted. He pulled the offending equipment from his face and leaned forward to vomit blood between his legs. The ringing in his ears faded and he became aware of the sounds around him. Most prominent was the groaning of the timbers and stone walls as the fire continued to feed on the dying structure. Carl was suddenly distracted and fascinated by the sounds of flaming creosote dripping from the floors above. It made a zipping sound followed by a crack like a small caliber gun as it splashed into the steaming water that was gathering around him. He could also make out the thumping of master streams flailing against the burning floors above him. “Hm, they've gone defensive,” he thought realizing that no one would be entering to save him now. The whole scene was hellish, dimly lit and raining fire into a growing stew of dark and sweltering waters. Carl was racked with another violent and excruciating cough as he bent over and spat another large and gelatinous wad of blood and tissue into his lap. He sucked in air with a loud and rattling gasp and as he looked up he saw his rookie kneeling beside him.

“John!” Dante rasped, “what…?” another racking cough choked off his words.

“Cap, you're not dead yet, help is coming,” Charon rose, “I'll show them the way in; lead them to you.” The rookie left so fast Carl was wondering if he had actually seen him at all.

“I'm hallucinating,” he told himself and he leaned his head back waiting for his last breath.

“Carl? Oh God Carl, I found you!” It was Beatrice making her way towards him, he knew he was suffering the storied “life flashing before your eyes” but she was so beautiful he took comfort in her presence.

As she made his way towards him, almost floating even in the labyrinthine tangle of fallen timbers and floating rings of fire. She reached out a pale white hand as if to touch his face and screamed out in surprise and fear as Carl saw an apparition of himself grasp her swan like neck and pull her into a crushing embrace.

“No, don't!” Carl choked out his words as his phantom self began to rend her gown and grope Beatrice ignoring her protests. She was weeping and pushing against the demonic assailant as Carl could do nothing but watch himself molest and terrorize the woman he loved.

Carl watched in abject terror as Beatrice lost her fight and her pale naked flesh was raked with the teeth and ragged nails of his doppelganger. Beatrice's lithe and flawless body thrashed in the crushing arms and her head fell back with a blood curdling scream as the being's enormous sex ripped into hers. She sobbed and cried throughout the assault and he Carl's horror grew as the apparition changed into the hideous visage of a beast with the head like a bull and a serpentine tongue that lolled from it's malformed mouth to encircle a nipple before the beast bit into the soft flesh of her beautiful white tit, drawing blood and another horrifying scream from Beatrice's mouth.

Dante struggled to his feet and advanced on the beast intent on spending his last moments locked in battle to save Beatrice from this horrible rape. “Damn you! Leave her alone!” and Carl lunged at the creature only to be thrown back by and iron like forearm across his face.

The beast lunged into Beatrice one last time and threw his own head back into a chilling, growling howl as he emptied into her ravaged sex. He discarded her limp form as so much rubbish and Carl watched disheartened as she fell writhing back into the steaming water, blood oozing from her wounds and her gaping labia. The latter streaking the cum that leaked from her. The beast turned to Carl and pulled him up by the shoulder straps of his air pack. He leaned in and Carl wretched at the smell of his sulfurous and acrid breath. “Don't you see?” the beast growled, “I am you.” Carl screamed a rattling and gurgling protest as the beast let him drop back against the timber he had been leaning on.

“Carl?” a weak cry came from Beatrice. Carl sobbed as he watched helplessly while her once flawless flesh, now bruised and bleeding sank into and was swallowed by the black waters. A flaming swirl of flammable liquid filled in the final ripples as if to seal her tomb.

Fraud and Deceit

“That was methat was me,” Carl mumbled to himself repeatedly and he wished for a chance to see Beatrice more than for life itself. He hurt and was tired but as he started to fade there was what he could best compare to the sound of someone sucking the last of their drink through a straw as he saw the water recede from around him. Suddenly he was falling again as his platform gave way and he, the flaming debris and the water fell into the concrete cellar of the old mill building.

“C'mon! Take me already!” he shouted at God or whatever was drawing out his tortuous demise. He was suffocating, he could feel it more now and he panted more than breathed; it wouldn't be long. It was dark here. He could make out shadows and he weakly fumbled for his flashlight that hung on his left shoulder harness. The beam came alive and a narrow beam speared into the darkest recesses, he saw movement again. “Oh God, no more” he lurched in a rib crunching cough and more blood poured from his mouth.

In the midst of the circle formed where the beam of light collided with the back wall was two heavy timbers leaning together in a “X” like formation. Carl sensed movement and heard desperate and distant sobbing and protesting as he saw Beatrice's writhing and naked form being dragged into the light by shadowy but somehow feminine forms. She was still beautiful but as the “creatures” transfixed her to the “X” Carl agonized over her bruised and battered body, knowing he had done this to her. With her legs pulled taught on the cruciform her ravaged sex was prominent, still leaking the blood tinged semen. His lusts had driven him to hurt her deeply with each loveless fuck that she surrendered to even when she wasn't ready. Her eyes met his, even in the dark and they were filled with regret and yet they still showed her love for him as she surrendered herself to whatever was to come. Carl buried his head in his hands and sobbed.

He jumped as he felt a tender and feminine hand stroke the side of his face. He looked up with bleary eyes to see the pretty blonde mother he had taken in his first betrayal of his marriage covenant. She said nothing as she leaned in and kissed him, forcing her tongue into Carl's bloody mouth. She leaned back and pulled her robe from her shoulders and smeared the blood down her throat and over her small breasts.

Carl looked past her and watched as Beatrice hung her head. “Don't worry,” hissed the apparition, “you told her you were working another shift. Remember?” The stillness was split by a hissing and cracking and Carl looked up just in time to see a lash cross Beatrice's breasts and leave a searing welt. Beatrice screamed and sobbed at the tortuous blow but then returned to hanging limply against her bonds, she had given up. The apparition took Carl's right hand and pressed it to her tit and he felt it burn through the palm of his heavy glove. “Tell her you have to meet with the chief,” she hissed and another lash fell across Beatrice, this time marring her thighs and vulva. She cried out but barely lurched. The tortures had taken their toll and she was defeated.

The apparition's nude form rose to it's feet and faded into the shadows only to be passed by another shadowy figure coming towards him. “Her” features melted and defined into the young female rookie he had bedded; he had narrowly escaped a sexual harassment charge. She ripped apart her uniform's top and dropped the Dickies jeans, stepping from them without so much of a misstep. She came to Carl and knelt straddling his broken form and pressed a full tit against his mouth, “Suck it like you used to,” she hissed, “tell me you're divorcing your wife for me.” The voluptuous demon kept her tit crushed into Carl's face and cackled hideously as Carl witnessed more lashes falling against Beatrice's tortured body. She writhed as each new punishment was laid against her tender flesh but her cries were almost inaudible. The rookie's smiling face twisted into a gaping maw with needle like teeth filling the gray gums. She leaned forward and raked a scalding tongue across his blood soaked neck and then hissed in his ear, “she's taking your punishment. Lie, lie some more so we can have our fun now.” It threw its head back and let loose another chilling cackle before rising and verily fading into the dark.

Each girl he had cheated on his wife with came out of the dark in turn and each lie he had told them or told Beatrice to explain his absence resulted in the remaining feminine forms raining down repeated lashes on the only woman he had truly loved. Soon she was more welt than flesh, she barely twitched with each new lash and she didn't raise her head again.

“Stop it!” he managed to choke out, “please leave her alone!” He pleaded but nothing changed, he could just sit and look upon her ravaged and beaten body as it hung limply from her restraints; grotesquely highlighted by the cold beam from his flashlight. He really couldn't breathe now and he knew he was dead. The darkness closed in and all was blackness and silence.

Ascent

“Cap! Cap, can you hear me?” the voice tore into his darkness and Carl's eyes fluttered open. There were lights crisscrossing the darkness behind the form leaning over him and something was on his face. Carl pawed at the offending object and the form leaning over him pulled his hands away. “Cap, it's oxygen, leave it be.”

“Virgil?” Carl managed to whisper.

“Yeah Cap, it's me. We're getting you out of here,” Virgil looked grim now that Carl could see his face. “But CapCarl, you have to stay with me, focus on your breathing.” Carl groaned and pain shot through his entire frame from a half dozen firefighters lifting him into a Stokes basket. The oxygen bottle was laid between his legs and he watched as the ropes from the corners were locked into a carabiner and the rescuer clipped himself to the rig. Soon he was lurching and swaying in the air as the top side crew started their hoist. Carl rolled his head to the side and looked at the “X” where he had watched Beatrice beaten into unconsciousness, nothing remained of her ordeal.

Once at the ground level Carl was handed along a gauntlet of firefighters until he got to the paramedics that had another stretcher waiting. Once again Carl felt his body tear and burn as he was removed to the gurney. His coat and shirt was cut from his chest and four pads were affixed to his hairy chest. Carl smiled weakly as he mused about the pain he'd endure removing the electrodes. One medic listened to his chest as another prepped his skin and inserted a 16 gauge catheter into his antecubital vein. He was loaded into the MICU again racked with pain as the stretcher's frame collapsed and folded under neath the pad. He knew it was bad and his experience as a paramedic confirmed his fears as he listened to the report that the attending medic gave.

“Biocontrol, Medic one seven five. We have a 33 year old male. Hypotensive with a BP of 86 palpable, respirations 40 and pulse is 130 and thready. Paradoxical retractions on left side and muffled heart tones. Breath sounds absent left and diminished right; suspected hemothorax with cardiac tamponade. We have started IV of normal saline wide open, non-rebreather at 15 liters and ekg showing sinus tachycardia. Were heading priority one, code three your location. Did you copy?”

“Affirmed medic one seven five. Attempt needle thoracotomy, fourth interstitial up to four insertions. Get here as soon as you can.”

“Medic one seven five received.”

Carl was aware of the medic rustling around and was surprised by the cool wetness of the provodone and alcohol being swabbed over his rib cage. It hurt as first one then two more 14 gauge needles were pressed into his side but he felt almost immediate relief as he could suddenly take in more air. The firefighter medic leaned over Carl's face, “easier to breathe Cap?” Carl nodded. “I've got what looks like almost 50ml out of that lowest needle. Just breathe, okay?” Carl nodded again as he relaxed slightly and he faded into unconsciousness.

Return From Hell

Carl's next awareness was of clamoring voices, bright sterile lights and electronic beeps and whirs. “Where am I?” he rasped which startled a nurse that had leaned across him to titrate his IV. The doctor stepped into his view and Carl became aware of his head being immobilized by a padded vice like HIS.

“Captain Dante,” the surgeon began and Carl turned his eyes to the doctor's, “you shattered three ribs and bled into your chest. We have relieved the pressure but had to remove the bottom lobe of your left lung to stem the hemorrhage. I'm optimistic that you'll have an almost complete recovery. I'm afraid marathons are out,” he finished with a sardonic grin. Carl didn't find it funny. “You have some friends here, you up to seeing them?”

“Please,” Carl rasped. The nurse finished with whatever she was doing and stepped back from his view. A tired and worn Virgil Dalton leaned into his field of view. “Virg!” Carl coughed out, “thank God for you. I was done.” And suddenly Carl had to pant for air sucking down the bag on the non-rebreather mask.

“Keep it down Carl, people might get the wrong idea,” he smiled.

“Where's the rookie? I've got to thank him,” Carl struggled to get out these words too. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to talk.

Virgil Dalton's face went grim, “John Charon is dead Cap. He was killed in the initial cave in.”

Carl struggled against the straps that held his head back, “what the fuck are you saying Virg? Damn it he called the mayday, he found me, he went to lead you guys in!” Carl was racked by another fit of coughing and wheezing.

His thrashing drew the attention of the nurse who ran over and pressed his shoulders back against the bed, “Mr. Dante, be still or I'll have to sedate you.” Carl relented and quit struggling but glared at Virgil.

“Cap, you gave the Mayday, I heard you myself. We had to knock the fire down before we could make entry. John's body was found during the overhaul, the stair runners had collapsed. Killed him instantly. I'm sorry Carl, he's dead. YOU made the radio call.”

Carl thought back on his ordeal, “no, he's wrong. John was theremy radio was lost in the fall.” The thoughts kept rushing through his tortured mind and he began to leak tears. Virgil was desperate to take Carl's mind away from the rookie, he knew that his friend would carry that death with him the rest of his life.

“Cap,” Carl looked at his friend's face as Virgil struggled to look optimistic, “I'm sorry but I have to get out of the way, someone important wants to see you.” Virgil squeezed his friend's hand and then retreated from his view leaving Carl to wonder what blustering chief needed to make an appearance.

“Carl?” came a voice more like the cooing of a dove than a person, “oh God Carl, you're awake.” Beatrice stepped into his view. Even drawn and tired with eyes that had obviously been crying, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He studied her, anticipating to find tell tale signs of her torment, there were none. She leaned over Carl's face, looking into his tired eyes and squeezing his hands in her soft cool grasp.

“Beatrice, oh sweet Beatrice, please forgive” his words were cut off by a tender kiss to his blood encrusted lips. Warm salty tears fell from his eyes as she laid her hand on his heart and pain ebbed from his body.

Beatrice rose from the lingering kiss but kept her hand over his heart. Carl raised his own hand and held hers close to his chest. Weakly he tried to speak and again she silenced him with a kiss, “Of course I forgive you, I always have. I have always loved you, come back to me.” She kissed him softly again and the chill bled from his frame and warmth took its place. Carl encircled her neck with his free arm and held her face to his chest. He kissed the top of her head and he wept.