WEST WARWICK, R.I. - Christopher Travis felt certain he would die.

The fire had plunged the club into darkness, and the ghoulish shrieking had begun. Travis is a big man, a 6-foot-tall construction worker. But from somewhere, a blow smacked him face-down onto the floor.

People were trampling on his hands now. They were falling on top of him. He started to cough. Every breath burned.

He thought he knew the floor plan of The Station from the many concerts he had seen there. But he was in a sea of blackness now. A despair as thick as the smoke settled over him.

Where am I? he thought. Which way do I go? Will I make it out alive?

There was never any question in Travis' mind that he would see Great White on Thursday night - the night 96 people would die in an inferno ignited by the heavy metal band's pyrotechnics.

Though he is 37 now, Great White had stayed in his personal rock 'n' roll pantheon since he first put their cassette in his boombox as a hard-partying teen-ager growing up in southeastern Massachusetts.

He had fallen in love with Great White by accident. It was March 25, 1984. He was 18. He and his friends traveled to the Providence Civic Center to see a Judas Priest show. Great White was the opening band. Travis had never heard of them.

But when they got on stage, the lead guitarist blew Travis away. The guitar was loud, charging, had attitude. On the drive back home, he and his friends talked about Great White, not Judas Priest. The next day, Travis went out to buy Great White's first album.

Travis wanted to be like the hard rockers - Motley Crue, the Scorpions, Kiss, Van Halen - whose posters covered his walls. He grew his hair long and parted it the middle. He stepped out for concerts in leather vests, a heavy metal fashion statement of the 1980s.

After every show, he pasted the ticket stub into an album. He also collected guitar picks. One of his most cherished was one a friend had gotten from Mark Kendall, a guitar player for Great White.

When he married in 1993, his wife made him take down the heavy metal posters. But after a painful divorce two years ago, his single friends began inviting him to nightclubs where they still played the music that he had listened to as a teen-ager.

Late last year, his friends egged him into coming to The Station for a double bill featuring Dirty Deeds and Believer - AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne tribute bands. It was there that he noticed a Day-Glo pink sheet announcing the Feb. 20 show: "Great White w/Fathead. $15 in advance. $17 at the door."

He was beside himself. The day the tickets went on sale, he eagerly got into his red pickup truck and drove the one hour from his home in Lakeville, Mass., to the club in West Warwick to buy them.

In the weeks before the show, Travis had his eight Great White albums on heavy rotation in his truck's CD player. He is a construction worker for National Grid, the utility company, and his work requires him to travel across New England. On the road, he would crank up the volume and sing along at the top of his lungs.

On Thursday, Travis worked a short day. He came home, shaved and traded his sweat shirt and coveralls for black jeans, a black T-shirt and an orange-and-white Harley Davidson jacket. A friend was supposed to join him. But the friend's jaw was wired shut from a bar brawl. He didn't want to be seen that way. So Travis went by himself.

On the ride to West Warwick, he played two Great White CDs - their greatest hits and their album Psycho City.

He arrived at The Station at 10:30 p.m. The parking lot was so full that he had to park behind a gas station down the street. He was amazed. He didn't think Great White still had so many fans. Great White had only a few of its original members, after all.

He said hello to the bouncer at the front door and persuaded the girl at the ticket booth to let him keep his stub. Inside the one-story building housing the small nightspot, one of the opening bands, Trip, was finishing its set. Hundreds of people were dancing and cheering. The air was moist from a lot of perspiring people in a small place.

Waitresses were threading through the crowds with trays of drinks. Perhaps too many, Travis thought. Some people seemed to be staggering. A few bumped into him.

Travis bought a cola - he doesn't drink alcohol - and made his way to the front of the stage. He thought members of Great White might be milling about there. He wanted to meet them, particularly the tattooed lead singer, Jack Russell. But he didn't find anyone. So he went outside and walked around their tour bus. Still no luck.

He went back inside and took a spot near the middle. It was too crowded up front. And anyway, there was an attractive brunette who happened to be standing next to him. He decided to stay put.

A popular local DJ, Dr. Metal, mounted the stage just before 11 p.m. to introduce Great White. He threw promotional T-shirts and hats into the audience. Then the members of Great White strutted onto the stage.

When the band launched into the strains of "Desert Moon," the crowd raised their drinks and roared. Travis pumped his fists.

Let's shake this town baby

Come with me

I need a little lovin' company

C'mon now

I know where we can go

This is the time

T'stay out all night

I've gotta fire

Like a heavenly light

Travis knew the opening lyrics cold.

But before Russell sang a word, a set of pyrotechnic canisters behind him sprayed sparks up at the ceiling and diagonally toward the walls. This sort of special effect was a staple of metal shows. But Travis was a little surprised to see it at a club as small as The Station.

The sparks landed on foam soundproofing material at the back of the stage. A fire broke out, but it looked like no big deal. A blast from a fire extinguisher ought to put it out, Travis thought, and the show would go on. Russell apparently had the same thought, tossing a cup of water at the flames.

But seconds later, the fire was licking at the ceiling. Travis looked around and said, to no one in particular, "We got to get out of here."

People were calm, at first. He let a few women step ahead of him. Then he headed toward the horseshoe-shaped bar at the back of the club. He knew there was an exit somewhere around there.

There was no reason to rush, he thought. The fire's at the other end of the club. We have time. Twenty seconds later, the club went dark. Screams rose from the compacting mass of human flesh. Travis felt bodies pressed around him. And then he was knocked to the floor.

He felt lost. Bodies tumbled over him. He pulled his jacket over his face, trying to filter out the thick smoke. Somehow, he pulled himself up onto his hands and knees. He crawled until a hand bumped up against a wooden barrier.

He wasn't sure if it was the side of the horseshoe-shaped bar or the wall. But he used it as a guide, placing one hand after the next, thinking this might get him somewhere. But at the same time, he worried that he might just go in a circle, or maybe back toward the inferno.

He started to treat the flow of bodies over him as a compass. They must be moving away from the fire. Move where they're pushing you, he thought.

His eyes stung from the smoke. His lungs burned. People at his side were clawing him. He smelled flesh burning. He grew so alarmed that he let go of his jacket and started pawing the walls in desperation. I'm running out of air, he thought. I might pass out.

Then it happened: He thrust out his hand, and instead of hitting wood, it hit air. He was on the top step of a side exit. He took his first breath of fresh air in two minutes, two minutes that had seemed like forever.

He tried to move, but his legs were pinned under the crush of bodies. But the cool air entering his lungs shot a bolt of adrenaline through him, and he used his hands to pry his legs loose, tumbling out onto a snowy driveway.

He pulled out a few people next to him and then ran to the front of the club to help people trying to escape from the front door.

They were tossing chairs through a glass breezeway and screaming as they stumbled out, bleeding from cuts. Travis saw people with their hair on fire, people with winter jackets liquefying, people with skin so melted it hung in sheets. He saw faces blackened and blistered.

As the rescue trucks began arriving, Travis stumbled back to his truck and drove to Kent County Memorial Hospital, a few miles away. Doctors treated him for minor burns on his neck and for smoke inhalation.

He got back into his truck and drove to a club in Providence called Nobody's. He knew they had copies of the alternative newsweekly there. He wanted to be sure he had a copy of the article it had published the day before, a story about the concert he would never get to see, a story written before 96 people had died, when Great White was just another aging 1980s rock 'n' roll band swinging through one more small town.