It was Ray who lured me into the van, the van that would carry me to my death, to my rebirth. From my small front yard in Lone Pine, California, on my tenth birthday. My mother sent me to the mailbox. My grandmother had mailed me a package, she said, and I should check if it had arrived yet.

Ray was on the footpath. I never asked him what he’d been doing out on the street in front of my house. He was just there, a kid about twelve, poking cards into the spokes of his bicycle so they’d make a noise when he pedaled.

He stopped short when he saw me. “Hey,” he said, abandoning the bicycle as he walked toward me. “What’s your name?”

I didn’t answer. My mom always told me never to speak to strangers. I kept walking toward the mailbox, opening it with anticipation. My grandmother always sent me the most elaborate gifts, and they magically always appeared in our mailbox on my birthday.

“Daniel?” my mother called from inside.

“Coming!” I yelled back, closing the empty mailbox in defeat.

Ray shrugged. “You waiting for something?”

“A package,” I said. “It’s supposed to arrive today.”

“Are you Daniel?” Ray asked.

“Yeah,” I said slowly.

“My dad’s delivering packages!” Ray said excitedly. “Come on, his van’s parked right out here!”

I looked back at my front door, hesitant. Mom always said to never leave the front yard. But the van was right there. And it had my package from Grandma. I wanted that package.

“It’s okay,” Ray said, walking to the nondescript white van without looking back at me. He opened one of the doors and stepped in, offering me his hand. “See?”

I looked back at my house again, less than fifty feet away.

“Maybe I should get my mom,” I said.

“If you’re a little baby,” Ray said. “We might be gone by the time you come back, though.”

I puffed my chest out, offended. “I’m not a baby! I’m ten!”

I got into the back of the van. Ray pulled the door closed behind me. There were no packages. Just a man, a man whose face I didn’t even see, and a sharp pinch in my neck as he injected me with something that made the world go away.

I woke up in a pine box. The irony. I didn’t know where I was or how long it had been. I just remember feeling scared. I just remember calling out for my mom.

Stephen Randolph.

That was his name. The man who took me was a very sick man, a man who should have been in a mental hospital for life. He saw things and heard voices that had convinced him he was a prophet of God, that it was his job to save the children of the world by delivering them to heaven.

I thought it was all a load of shit, but I was ten years old. I had no power. I had no currency. I did what I was told.

Ray and I were Disciples of God. That’s what Stephen Randolph told us when he beat us in the night. When we cried for our mothers. When we begged to go home. He didn’t like it when we begged to go home. He would hold our heads down in a bucket full of ice water when we begged to go home.

We were the only boys. I wasn’t even supposed to be there — it was just Stephen and Ray — but Ray begged for a brother. I was Ray’s new brother. He named me — Damon — and Daniel Collins was never seen again. Stephen became Father. And we were a family of three, moving from place to place, stealing souls all along the way.

It was our job to lure other children in. Girls, always girls. Pretty girls with shiny hair and little dresses that were edged with frills and lace. Father would choose the girls from the safety of the van, and we would have to scoop them up like little tadpoles in our net.

The girls never lasted long. We always needed to replenish the stock.

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Once we got a little older, Ray and I used to play this game.

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Father would take us to the park and wait in the van while we scoured the place for potential targets.

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We’d see who could convince a girl to get into the van first.

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I always won.