Talon Vance, 13, lived in an apartment complex in suburban Colorado Springs with his mom and Aunt. Other relatives lived nearby. Typically, he spent much of the week with his father, half brother, half sister, and grandparents, all of whom lived together not far away in a different town. All of that would change in August 2022: Talon’s mother, Rebecca Vance, had hatched a plan to disappear from Colorado Springs and go permanently off-grid.

Talon’s paternal grandmother, Marilyn Burden, still seems shell-shocked by his sudden departure. Her extended family lives in a ranch-style house on a small cul-de-sac; when I stopped by for dinner last September, there were plenty of people on the street, and lights were on in every home. Eric Burden, Talon’s father, stood in his driveway speaking to a friend. He ushered me inside and introduced me to his mother, and we sat down at the dining room table.

Just over a year before, on August 1, Rebecca had dropped by out of the blue around lunchtime with Talon in tow. She handed Marilyn a photo album and other mementos of Talon, who Marilyn had helped raise and who shared a bedroom with her other grandson, Ashton, when Talon was there. Rebecca, she said, told her they were leaving town, that they “had to move to be safe.” Safe from what? Marilyn asked. Rebecca wouldn’t explain. And she was vague about their destination: she said that she, Talon, and her younger sister, Christine, would be driving to West Virginia, where her father lived. Marilyn didn’t think Talon had ever met that grandfather. Then, to forestall the possibility that Marilyn would ask Talon about the trip, Rebecca whispered to her not to bring it up, because he doesn’t know—he thinks we’re just going camping.

Another relative was told a different story. Christine said to their stepsister, Trevala Jara, that they would be heading into the wilderness to live off the grid. Trevala, who saw Christine every week, knew that Rebecca had spent much of the pandemic glued to her computer, growing increasingly obsessed with conspiracy theories and the end of the world. She feared vaccines, technology, and the power of global elites, and thought that the only escape was to get as far away from other people as she could.

“At first, Christine told me she wasn’t going with Becky,” Trevala recalled. “She thought it was crazy to do it, mainly because they didn’t have the experience.” But then one day, in late July 2022, Christine told Trevala that she had changed her mind, that she would accompany her sister and Talon to support them.