He tiredly rubbed his eyes and with hatred glared at the book that was on the table in front of him. "How I wish to throw you at someone," Joe hissed to it, already having a possible victim in mind, but deciding against it. He started to copy a graph which meant nothing to him, but would possibly mean a lot to his physics teacher. His hands were shaking slightly, so the lines were crooked and his handwriting left much to be desired.

It was eight in the evening, four hours had passed since he came to a local library to write his report on physics, but yet he had only two pages written. Everytime he tried to concentrate on his work his head would start aching badly or his thought would run away into another direction against his will. He was ready to give up and pretend to be really ill the next day in order to skip school again. In any case, it wouldn’t be a total lie – even though he had slept, he still had a temperature and his head still felt heavy, so the last thing he wanted was to study.

"It would be so good to lie down for a couple of hours..." Joe lazily thought as he rested his head on his books and closed his eyes. He could hear noises, different sounds coming from everywhere: of pens and pencils scribbling on paper, pages being turned over, the buzz in his head. He put his chin on his hands and through half-opened eyes looked around. Except people who had come to find a good book to read, the rest of the visitors of the library, most of whom were youngsters, were painstakingly looking into their books and then writing something down, biting their lips in zeal. "Swots…." Joe thought and shivered.

He glanced at the young man of about 19 years who was sitting opposite him. He’d been sitting there, his pen in his hand constantly moving, for two hours already. Joe felt envy as he noted the page was numbered 16 on which the guy was toiling. "I wish a wind blew all your work away," he gloatingly thought as the bloke started the 17th page.

Joe looked down at his own lonely two pages, "I have a good reason to be inaccurate today, so I can at least justify myself. After all, I'm not well and there are a lot of problems that have come like a bolt from the blue…problems...blast it."

He bitterly sighed and switched his attention back to his report and took up the pen in his right hand. "Because of instability of electromagnetic field…" he read and frowned. "These are the ravings of an idiot…but Wellman likes it. A loony..."

After another ten minutes of torturing himself Joe stopped to look at what he’d written. He couldn’t read a single line, his usually neat handwriting was getting worse and worse. "Damn it," he swore as he put his hands on his forehead. He felt his temperature raising again. Incredible as it may seem, he was almost happy to discover it as it would mean no school tomorrow and no torments any more.

He was about to shut all the books that were in front of him when he jumped in his seat as his cell phone started to ring. Everyone turned to look into his direction and hiss ‘what a shame, this a library, be quiet, such a hooligan,’ at him. And the guy who was writing already the 22nd page pointed his finger at a note on the wall which read ‘no mobile phones’ and adjusted his thick glasses, his face wearing a disapproving expression.

"Sorry," Joe mumbled, feeling embarrassed. He quickly pressed the power button and silence filled the library again. "I forgot to turn it off."

"Shhh! Don’t talk!" the guy hissed at him, showing brackets on his teeth. "Be quiet. Everyone is studying here, not pretending to be doing so."

"Shut your mouth!" Joe hissed back, amazed at how aggressive he was today. He looked at the display and saw his home phone number. Paul had called. Wondering what was so important, Joe hurried to collect all his books and return them to a librarian. He poked a tongue at the guy and left.

On his way out he got his cell phone out and dialled his home phone number. To his utter surprise no one answered. "Strange," he mumbled. He clicked the redial button and waited. Finally after some moments someone picked up the phone.

"Hi, it’s me, what’s…." Joe started before Paul had a chance to say ‘hello’, but then he froze as the receiver shouted, "Joe, wherever you are, stay there!!! Ant…."

Joe heard short beeps. He knitted his eyebrows, Ants? What ants? He quickly redialled the number, making his way towards his car. Lost in his own thoughts, he hadn’t noticed a man walking towards the library and bumped straight into him.

"Hey, mind where you’re going!" Frank Hardy exclaimed.

"Same to you," Joe automatically replied, never paying any attention him. He opened his mouth as he heard someone pick up the phone, but then he frowned again as the line went dead before he had a chance to speak.

"You could have apologised, you know," Frank remarked disapprovingly.

Joe raised his head to the sound of his voice, "Oh, Frank, hi. Sorry, I didn’t see you."

"Never mind. You ok?"

"Kind of. There’s something strange going at home, I'm trying to find out what, but there are problems with the line or something…." Joe replied, mostly to himself. "Ants…Hm…."

Frank looked quizzically at him, it seemed to him that Joe was acting somewhat strange. "What are you saying?"

"Sorry? Ah, no, nothing serious. I mean, Dad called, told me to stay where I was and added something about ‘ants’ and hung up the phone. Strange, don’t you think?"

"Ants? Is there an invasion of ants at your house?" Frank wondered.

"Maybe," Joe shrugged his shoulders, "but why shout about it like he did when I called him? Bit of a mystery. Ok, I'm off. Sorry again, I didn’t mean to bump into you."

"Nah, don’t worry. Oops, almost forgot. One more thing before you go. I am not sure if you have heard of what had happened last night. One man was murdered and from what I've heard from my Dad it was Antoneskou’s doing. Since he was kind of after you and your family not so long ago if you hear something from him, will you inform my Dad?"

"Antoneskou?…" suddenly Joe’s eyes went wide, "Oh, hell….Ant! He said ‘ant’…" without saying anything else he darted off, got into his car and that was the last, shocked Frank, saw of him.

Frank followed him with his eyes, taken aback by Joe’s strange behaviour. "What did I say?" He waved his hand in the air and continued his way to the library, thinking about Joe’s sudden reaction to the news about Antoneskou. Suddenly he stopped as he guessed. "He must have not finished the sentence. He told him to stay where he was because of Ant…Antoneskou!"

Frank rushed back to his car where he had left his cell phone and quickly called his father, briefly telling him about his meeting with Joe.

Joe was tearing alone back home at full speed, trying at the same time not to exceed the limit, though to catch a policeman would be great. Please, God ,let me be wrong, I must be wrong, I can’t be right because…. His thought were interrupted by the sound of horn of a car which Joe had almost crashed into, never stopping at the red light and avoiding the possible grave accident just by miracle. His head was literally ready to explode. His thought were becoming worse and worse as he remembered the phone talk with Paul, his scared voice and the way they were interrupted. He’s okay, he’s just fine. It seemed that his nightmare was coming true. No, no, it’s not…. New and new waves of anxiety were washing over him and he could barely control the vehicle.

He felt he’d been driving for hours, but his home was still far away. But in reality he’d reached his house within five minutes. Realising the danger of the situation, he preferred not to pull the car into the driveway and stopped it not far from the house. Getting out of the vehicle, he looked at the only window of the house that had lights on. It was the room on the second floor which was Paul’s. It seemed to Joe that he had seen a shadow move along one of the walls.

Joe was biting his nail, irresolute. His confusion, fear for Paul’s fate and doubts about Antoneskou were eating at him. One part of him wanted to wait for the police to come and let them handle it, but the other part was screaming at him, telling him to go to the house and check everything.

Maybe, I'm just assuming it’s bad. Maybe he meant something else...but, why didn’t he answer the phone then? Oh Jeez… Joe bit his lip in nervousness. Maybe he needs me now….

Finally he gave up and quietly made his way to the front door. As he took the door handle he found the door open. His inner voice was telling him to get away from the house as far as possible, but his mind prompted him to peep in. With a sinking heart he slowly opened the door and looked inside, but saw nothing but a dark corridor. Everything was silent.

"Dad?" Joe asked, yet afraid to come in. He desperately wanted to hear Paul’s voice in reply.

"Upstairs," came the short reply.

"Oh thank God," Joe heavily breathed a sigh of relief as he heard his voice, forgetting about his intuition or fear, he entered and turned to close the door. He felt as if a weight has been lifted off him. "You had me scared, I really thought something had happened. Why didn’t you answer when I called?"

Just as he closed the door his gut instinct told him it was the most stupid thing he’d ever done. The way ‘his father’ was walking downstairs was rather unusual – Paul never stamped! And whoever was approaching him had a heavy tread. Boy, you’re in trouble! Something deep inside was screamed at Joe. He instinctively felt that behind was someone dangerous. And that someone couldn’t be Paul.

Dear Lord, Antoneskou!! Joe’s eyes widened. I was right…. Somebody help me!!

Before his fear could take the best of him and paralyze him, his self-preservation instincts worked. Not yet seeing the man behind him, he raised his right arm and hit the man with his elbow with all the strength he could muster. As he turned around, his eyes grew wide. He had seen the man only once in his life and on a photo, but that was more that enough to recognize the chalk white face with angry black eyes and the thin figure of Luis Antoneskou.

The hook was delivered straight to Antoneskou’s face and his hands flew to his face, but his gun was still in his right hand. Obviously, he hadn’t expected Joe to make the first move and thus hadn’t reacted to the blow on time.

Taking advantage of the situation, while Antoneskou was still holding his hands on his face, Joe balled his hand into a fist and swung at the criminal’s solar plexus, sending him sprawling to the floor. The blow was so hard that Joe himself couldn’t keep his balance and fell on top of the man by inertia. Letting out a cry of rage, Antoneskou grabbed Joe tightly by the shoulders and tried to shove him off, but Joe was ready for this and, gritting his teeth, rashly hit him right between his legs. Antoneskou, grimacing in pain, instantly unclasped his hands, giving Joe the chance to try to get away.

As quickly as he could Joe picked himself off the criminal, who was rolling in pain, and wanted to make a dart from him, but the man grabbed his ankle and hissed, "No way!" With that he pulled him down, knocking the teen to the floor. Joe cried out as his head banged against the hard floor and he saw stars winking in front of his eyes. Dull pain almost paralyzed him from head to toe.

Get up, get up!! his mind was screaming him. Joe saw motley dots in front of his eyes as he opened them with great difficulty. He shot a glance towards Antoneskou and saw he was on the floor, still trying to get up.

Overcoming the unbearable headache, Joe raised his leg and kicked the man in the face with his boot, sending Antoneskou back to the floor. Joe scrambled to his feet and, tottering, looked around. He saw everything double. He shook his head to get rid of the dizziness. Joe’s heart was threatening to jump out of his chest as fear started to settle in: the way to the front door lead past Antoneskou. Think!!! he knew he had to run for his life no matter what. He desperately looked around and realized there was only one variant left – the kitchen which was on the left.

Where’s the police? What’s taking them so long? he desperately thought to himself, running to the kitchen. And where’s Dad? Why isn’t he here to help me?…

Dreading the answer, he made himself get rid of any bad thoughts and concentrated on getting away from Antoneskou – and fast! He was already close to the kitchen when, to Joe’s horror, Antoneskou fired. He froze for a brief second, wondering if the bullet had hit him, but then his eyes caught site of the hole in the wall near him. Joe’s insides cringed and felt his hair stand on ends – the bullet missed him only by an inch!

He ran into the kitchen, feeling almost despair: the kitchen door couldn’t save him. But at least if he closed it he could get time to grab knives and folks and other cutlery and then throw them at Antoneskou to defend himself. What he needed was some time, then the police will come and save him from this maniac...

God save gracious me, long live noble me…. He pushed the door to shut it. It was almost there when it was pushed back from the other side. Joe didn’t foresee it and so didn’t have enough time to jump back and the door gave him a sock on his face. It hit his forehead and nose hard, but strange as it may seem he didn’t feel any pain. He just felt that everything around him had stopped, he didn’t feel his heart beating, he didn’t hear himself breathing. Slowly he raised his hand to his forehead and when his fingers touched it his hand become sticky with something warm and viscous. He looked down at it and suddenly felt very sick. He hated the view of blood, it always made him want to run to the toilet. He could feel himself getting sicker and sicker and he’d probably throw up if all of a sudden his head didn’t explode with pain. He screamed in agony, throwing his hands on his head, trying to stop the blinding pain which was so severe that he felt his legs give away under him. Joe suddenly felt very weak and couldn’t maintain his balance any more. He fell down, his head thudded into the kitchen table.

The new pain almost blinded him. He wanted to scream in agony, but all that came out when he tried was a squeak. He couldn’t understand any of his thoughts because of the wailing his brain was making inside of his head.

Barely conscious, he looked up at Antoneskou the image of who was doubling. The man stood at the entrance, aiming his gun at him. In the black barrel Joe saw his fate. "And you will never get out of here…. You’re gonna stay here forever…." he heard the words from his nightmare which was coming true. He was half-laying on the floor, defenceless and unable to stand up and fight for his life, feeling so weak that he knew it was a lost battle.

"You, little bastard, did you really think you’d get away from me?" Antoneskou hissed, wiping blood from his split lip.

Joe felt his head growing heavier and heavier with each passing second. "Why do you want to kill me? What have I done to you?" he managed.

"Haven’t I told you to get away from Bayport? Haven’t I warned you?" Antoneskou asked, narrowing his eyes. "You should have listened and none of this would have happened to you or your so-called dear daddy! He’s to blame for your untimely death! He’s told you about how he wasn’t you poppa!"

Joe never heard the reply, the rumble in his head was so loud that it was driving him insane. The image of Antoneskou was also very dim, the only thing he could see perfectly was the barrel of the gun which was pointed straight at his forehead. This is the end, this is the end….just like in my dream….I'm gonna die….he’ll kill me…. Even in the darkness of the room Joe managed to see the rage in the man’s eyes.

"I've no time for chit-chat with you," Antoneskou said and gave the teen the last evil grin. "Good-bye, Joseph…."

The last thing Joe heard was the sound of a shot and then he fell into eternal blackness, leaving his battered body and not feeling any pain any more….