The Atlantis Prophecy

24

HERC AWOKE with a start in his bed later that afternoon at the nursing home. He had dozed off after the Griffter's son and the nun had left. He lay still pondering everything they had discovered, wondering if he should have said more.

Because there was certainly a lot more he could have said.

Slowly he reached his shaking hand under his bed and pulled out an old dagger with Masonic letters. It had been passed down through the generations, and he was told it once belonged to George Washington. He wondered if that was true. The only reason he kept it under his bed these days was to make sure some orderly didn't steal it.

He had intended to give the dagger to the Griffter's kid but forgot. His memory was slipping, along with just about everything else.

He heard footsteps and slipped the dagger under his gown as two young orderlies appeared at his door with a wheelchair and Nurse Brenda chirped that it was time for his physical therapy.

As they wheeled him down the hall, he noticed that he was feeling a bit queasy. Damn nursing home food.

"I know you want to keep the feeding tube in, sweetie, but your mother is trying to tell you she wants to leave this earth," Nurse Brenda was telling the daughter of the woman down the hall as they passed by.

Forget the feeding tube, Herc thought, they just needed to give that woman some water. She was going to die of dehydration, not dementia.

Suddenly Hercules realized they had passed the physical therapy room, and when he looked ahead they pushed him through two double doors to the parking lot outside where an ambulance was waiting.

"Hey, where you taking me?" Herc said as the orderlies lifted him up and dropped him on a gurney inside the ambulance.

A blond doctor with a syringe inside welcomed Hercules as the doors closed and the ambulance moved off. "I'm disappointed we missed Dr. Yeats," the man said. "But maybe you could tell us where he's going?"

Herc said nothing, although his gown was wet. He must have pissed in his pants. That's because he saw the other guy strapped down in the ambulance-young Danny Z, his mouth gagged and eyes wide.

"Don't know who you talking about, Doctor. Now please tell me where we're going."

"For a ride, Mr. Hercules," the man said with some amusement. "If you help me, you might get off. If you don't, then I'm afraid you'll suffer the same fate as your friend here."

Danny Z started to scream as the doctor slipped a long needle into Danny's neck.

"A body is a terrible thing to waste," the doctor told Danny as he slowly pushed the syringe. "So I'm only going to melt your brain."