We never celebrated Halloween. My family were so Protestant that they rejected any ritual or tradition that was not explicitly detailed in the Bible.

Even though we never dressed up as witches and wizards, we believed in demons. You might say it was a requirement of the "family business."

They could hear an axe swing against one pine tree, then another, randomly and drawing nearer. This was punctuated with bursts of maniacal laughter.

My paternal grandfather was a traveling evangelical preacher who had seen and cast out demons. He’d jump on the trampoline with us, and then when we were all exhausted, he’d regale us with tales from the Bible or stories from his youth.

Family tradition

He'd grown up the third of thirteen children. One of his most memorable stories was about his father, a former Pentecostal preacher who also had a talent for ridding people of the demonic.

It happened when my grandfather and his brothers were teenagers. The family had met a middle-aged husband and wife who owned a forested island in Florida. Eventually the woman came to my great-grandfather with a problem: Her husband had demons. Could my great-grandfather help?

He could. My grandfather watched as his father cast out the man's demons.

The axe falls

My grandfather and his brothers camped on the island that night to watch over the couple, who were now friends of the family.

There were four or five of the brothers gathered around a campfire singing gospel songs they’d learned or written and popping corn. Everything was dark except for the fire at their center and the stars above them.

Then chopping soundsinterrupted their singing. It sounded like someone was cutting a tree down somewhere — which was odd, considering that they were on an island that nobody lived on except the middle-aged couple, who were certainly sleeping right now and not chopping anything.

Nevertheless, they started to sing another song.

Sound and fury

The sounds became stranger. They could hear an axe swing against one pine tree, then another, randomly and drawing nearer. This was punctuated with bursts of maniacal laughter.

Whatever it was at first seemed to be several miles away, and then two, and then only one. Now it was a quarter-mile away. The brothers had stopped singing, and they waited until they were sure that the creature — man or evil spirit — was quite close.

The brothers put their heads together and formed a plan to surround it. If it were a trespasser, they’d catch him and tell him he wasn’t allowed to be chopping trees here! They convinced themselves that they were not scared, because God was on their side — and they figured there were more of them and only one of whatever it was.

Spiritual combat

They spread out and closed in around the laughing man, who continued to chop at the trees, coming nearer to them. When they knew the voice was at their very center, they rushed at it. The creature broke into one last, long laugh.

Whoosh! They were all pushed back as something went up out of their midst. Faint laughter rose to the top of the pine trees. It stayed up there for a moment, then fell back to the ground outside their circle.

The sound of the axe chopping at the trees resumed, but this time it began traveling away from them until it faded away. They knew then that it was the demon their father had cast out of the man that day.

They returned to the campfire. Their popcorn was burnt, and they all felt a little unnerved.

In the morning they looked around the forest, but they could find no sign of any tree being cut into. After that, they would see other demons, but that particular devil was never heard from again.