“Well, the sheriff’s office is keeping an eye on me anyway. This’ll just make their job easier.”

What he didn’t tell them was that Allen was sick and tired of panicking when he couldn’t remember where someone had parked the car. The distinctive black-and-silver pattern would make it easier to find.

But when Billy met Steve’s brother, Bill Love, a few days later and saw the van he owned, Billy traded the VW for it. Then Billy traded the van to a friend of Steve’s for a motorcycle that didn’t run, but Steve, who had his own bike and who was expert at repairing motorcycles, got it in working order.

Steve discovered that at times Billy rode the motorcycle like a demon and other times he was afraid to ride it at all. One afternoon when they were riding in the countryside, they passed a sharp incline of shale and rock. Steve skirted it and went ahead, but then he heard the roar of an engine above him. When he looked up, he saw Billy at the top of the cliff.

“How’d you get up there?” Steve yelled.

“Rode up!” Billy yelled back.

“That’s impossible!” Steve shouted.

Seconds later he could see that Billy had changed and was now trying to get down, acting as if he didn’t know the first thing about riding a cycle. Several times the cycle went one way and he went the other. Finally Steve left his own. cycle below, climbed up the sheer face of the hill and helped Billy , walk the cycle down.

“I can’t believe you rode up there,” Steve said, glancing , back, “but there’s no other way.”

Billy looked as if he didn’t know what Steve was talking about.

Another time, when Steve was alone with Billy, they went walking in the woods. After two hours of climbing hills, they still faced a peak up ahead. Steve knew he was stronger and a better athlete than Billy, but it was too much even for him.

“We’ll never make that, Billy. Let’s rest and go back.”

But when he fell back against a tree, exhausted, he saw Billy suddenly gather incredible energy and run full speed up the steep hillside to the top. Not wanting to be outdone, Steve scrambled his way up. Up ahead, he saw Billy at the top, arms outstretched, shaking his hands and fingers as he looked down at the view below He was talking in a strange language Steve couldn’t make out.

When Steve got up to the top beside him, Billy turned, looked at him as if he were a stranger and then went running down the hillside toward the pond below.

“Oh Jesus, Billy!” Steve shouted. “Where are you getting the energy?”

But Billy kept running, shouting something in that foreign language. He dove fully clothed into the water and swam quickly across the pond.

Steve finally reached Billy, who by now was sitting on a rock on the far bank, shaking his head as if to clear the water from his ears.