Cold Relics

Teddy, I finished transcribing the scribbles one might call handwriting that were in the sketchbook the search team found last week. No easy task, mind. Poor munter got desperate at the end, but it’s messy all around. Nothing some phone app could easily digitize. I think we’re done with the book at this point and it can be shipped to the American’s family. No answers yet as to what happened to him. Guy might’ve been out of his mind and walked a distance to toss himself in the rough waters, I suppose, but odd choice to drop all his gear at the tree first. But, heck, it is the only noteworthy landmark on the island other than the weather station. No evidence he ever found the building.

I just can’t explain why he dropped his pack and wandered off. The water and food still on him could’ve kept him going until the rescue boats arrived.

I finally got a chance to see his passport, too. Full of stamps from the countries that still use them. He’s been all over the world, including some less than safe places, so it’s hard to believe that a relatively peaceful if not isolated place like Campbell did him in. Ah, well. I don’t claim to know how people think.

Going home for the weekend, so don’t bother responding to my work email. If you’re in Wellington on Sunday, let’s get a pint and sort out this story, yeah? And, this goes without saying, but keep this under wraps. You have a bad habit of “misplacing” computer documents. The Americans are all about their trendy mysteries, and last thing that island needs is more tourists looking for clout, whether they go through the proper channels or not. Like our friend did.

[Attached File]

The following is a transcribed series of “journal” entries written in a sketchbook discovered on remote Campbell Island in the far south, over 600 kilometers from the New Zealand mainland. Its owner is a missing American backpacker, Trevor Miller, whose visit to the location was neither authorized or requested. He flew from Sydney and landed in Queenstown on April 5th, 2024. His last known place of residence was a hostel outside of Dunedin. Security cameras show him departing from a pier on an unidentified fishing boat a week after his arrival. The search for the vessel’s owner is also ongoing.

Six days later, on April 18th, a call from a satellite phone was received at the United States embassy requesting urgent help. The island was otherwise unoccupied. Two rescue boats arrived within forty-eight hours, and drones were used to sweep the island, but Mr. Miller has not been found. Only his pack, sketchbook, and several other belongings were discovered near the island’s one tree. A campsite was not present. Miller is not believed to have owned a smart phone, only a basic satellite phone with a number registered in 2002.

The sketchbook includes artwork from many remote locations, and only becomes a journal on the last few dozen pages. While it does devolve into rambling and random thoughts in places (that I have mostly excluded), the majority of it shares a coherent story and tells us much about the author.

[The first of the writing is under a simple sketch of the island’s landscape, with the tree a small element in the background. This ‘journal’ is one continuous text, so an exact time frame of events is difficult to determine.]

I wanted to like this island. I’ve been to many, and I always wonder the same thing when I arrive. It’s probably a strange first thought to have.

How would this place fare in a zombie apocalypse?

All I’m saying is, the world’s a mind-bogglingly big place. There are so many corners to put your feet on, always somewhere new over the horizon. I’d admit that I’ve become obsessed with geography, and things like extreme points. The areas that stand out, yet are usually ignored. Furthest place west or east, for example. Antipodes. “Most remote” whatevers are my favorite.

My name is Trevor Miller, and I’m only writing this because I’m not sure right now if I’ll make it out of this one. I’ve had some close calls over the years, given all the hard-to-reach spots of the world I seek out. Places you need six flights and a boat or horse ride to get to. All so that I can see areas few people will ever visit, or think about. I don’t want to cheapen my experiences, either. I try to make each trip mean something. Anyone can spend dozens of hours getting somewhere, take a rock and a snapshot, and leave.

I don’t do that. I don’t even carry a phone with a camera, just so I can’t be tempted. I may not be a great artist, but when I find a vista that’s just right and feels earned, I’ll sit down and draw it. Only when you take the time to look at every element do you appreciate each truly unique landscape. The shapes of the hills and coastline, the rocks, the way the land touches and interacts with the ocean. The cloud formations that will only be arranged just that way once in a lifetime. The local wildlife, the spread of the grass and flowers. The trees.

One day, maybe once my inheritance runs dry, I’ll settle down and share my art with the world. I feel like people will only appreciate it if I release my large collection all at once. It’s kept in a storage unit back in Oregon. I only go home once a year or so. If I don’t make it back, don’t let them empty out my unit and throw everything away. I’ve spent so many years on my art. I must have drawn places no one else has.

I backpack around the world. Most of the isolated locations I go to are spur of the moment choices, or vistas I discover when I let myself get lost. Other times, I plan a trip. Campbell Island has been over a year in the making.

I became a bit obsessed with this place when I scouted it out at one of my internet café stop ins, because it is home to a single tree. The most remote tree in the world, existing in its lonesome halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. I’m not someone who cares much about trees normally, unless they happen to be uniquely large or old, but one of my biggest regrets is being born too late to see what was formerly the world’s loneliest tree.

That would be the Ténéré Tree that was once deep in the Sahara Desert, fed by water a hundred feet beneath the surface. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, a drunk driver killed it in 1973. Such a shame. Leave it to humans to destroy everything nice and unique in this world. Campbell Island’s tree would at least be the second-best, even if it was supposedly planted by a person. Unlike the king of lonely trees, which existed for centuries all on its own.

Campbell Island’s resident does have one redeeming factor, though. It’s a Sitka spruce, among the giants. Under normal conditions. Being from western Oregon, I grew up going to parks where the world’s tallest trees touched the sky, the spruce among them. Seeing a familiar conifer so many thousands of miles from home, out in the cold ocean, instantly went on my bucket list. I had to draw it, feel its bark, sit under its shade. It didn’t matter if it was planted and never would’ve ended up there otherwise.

Problem was, like many islands, access is restricted. I understand and respect any nature preserve, but I’m not one to take from a place or damage it. I visit somewhere to experience and capture it. And if I can save time, money, and required social interaction by finding an alternate means to spend a few days in someplace new and in beloved isolation, I’ll take it. If it isn’t clear by now, I don’t really like people. Especially crowds. I’ll take every opportunity to avoid a tour group, or be stuck on others’ time. Winter was also approaching in the southern hemisphere. Cold temperatures don’t bother me, but long nights do. Dark skies take away time I could spend drawing and exploring strange and foreign lands.

Queenstown was beautiful. I don’t enjoy most of the cities I visit, but I do have a soft spot for mountain or lakeside towns, and it was both. After spending a few days resting up at an AirBnB, I got a ride down to Dunedin, found a cheap hostel, and started asking around for a boat to Campbell. It was easy to find a fishing crew that could take me to one of the closer southern islands, but most of the men just laughed when I told them I wanted to go far south, to one uninhabited island in particular.

I was close to giving up, until I scouted out a bar for any less reputable or desperate-for-money men willing to make the trip. That was when I stumbled on a drunkard who overheard me talking to someone else about the trip. He’d never been that far out, but after I asked around, he sounded trustworthy enough, at least on other expeditions. Despite problems with drinking and debts, he was known by other backpackers to get people anywhere they wanted to go in a country as protective of its nature as New Zealand.

Better yet, he was willing to accept $1,500 now and the other half upon return. I get how easy it is to find yourself robbed or reneged on while traveling, but my gut about others has never gotten me into serious trouble before, and most people are going to be on their best behavior once you involve the promise of more money after the service. It’s not like I was trying to score weapons or drugs. I just wanted to visit an island that was a pain in the ass to get to otherwise. It didn’t take much convincing, since he needed cash ASAP.

He didn’t understand why I wanted to go out there, but didn’t need to. Not like he could get inside my head and feel what I do whenever I get to spend a couple days in remote isolation. We get going the next morning, and he’s sober when I show up at the dock. His boat is old, but quite large for a crew of one, so I figure it can hold the amount of fuel we’ll need for a round trip. He tells me he’ll give me my sixty or so hours on the island while he fishes a few dozen klicks off the coast. All he wants in return, if I happen to see any, is a penguin skeleton. Hell if I know why. Do you even ask when you hear a request like that?

The old rickety ship is no yacht, but I’ve had worse. I even get my own broom closet sized room with a cot, and he spends most of each day blasting satellite radio music of all genres. He just plays whatever he feels like, a bit of everything.

Endless ocean in all directions is a familiar habitat, and quickly gets boring after some initial excitement. I wish I understood celestial navigation and all the other techniques ancient people employed to find new lands, but at least the southern constellations, like always, give me a sky far fewer people in the world get to see nightly. And he’s got GPS and the weather is mostly clear the whole way, so we aren’t slowed by the long night hours.

Being in the ocean under a moonless, starry sky is… well, there’s nothing else like it. I’m always wondering what’s swimming around under the boat in that inky blackness, and how deep the water goes. Then, when you eventually come up on a big rock that has just lingered there in the middle of nothingness for millions of years… I dunno, it’s like the closest thing we have in this era to being adrift in space and stumbling on an empty alien planet.

I’ve been almost everywhere, but this was my first visit to this country. I should’ve come sooner. It’s a captivating place, the last remnants of a submerged landmass called Zealandia, over 90% of which is now underwater. Meaning that whatever can still poke above the waves used to be mountain ranges a few dozen million years ago. Campbell Island was once a peak at the far southern tip of what was recently (on a geological scale) a large microcontinent.

We arrived around noon, and it wasn’t exactly a breathtaking sight. I’d been to islands that left a better first impression. After I was dropped off on a beach at the northern end, I found myself alone again in a strange land at last. The best feeling.

I feel compelled out of a sake of story completion to briefly describe the island. Even though if I don’t make it, whoever finds this sketchbook probably knows more about it than I do. It’s a little over 40 square miles, its tallest peak reaches around 1,600 feet, and it has a peninsula in the west and two fjords that nearly cut the island in half, with the one in the south much larger than the northern one. Like most subantarctic islands, vegetation is more about the lichens and wiry coastal shrubs, though this place is also known for its strange wildflowers with huge leaves called megaherbs. And its single invasive tree. I know there’s an unmanned weather station somewhere, but I don’t have much interest in man-made structures during my remote visits.

Okay, admittedly, I think I actually wanted to describe the island out of fear that I’m losing my mind. I need to rationalize this place as a real, natural, normal chunk of land in the ocean. Because something isn’t right here.

As soon as I stepped onto the beach and took a deep breath of the chilly and salty air, I put in the coordinates to the spruce on my GPS unit and started my hike, the waypoint being the middle of the barren island. First thing I always do is get to wherever is furthest from water, to see if it’s a spot where I still feel like I’m on an island at all. Campbell is not one of those places.

Finding the tree was also anticlimactic. Resting near the southern fjord, its canopy blends in with the green fields around it, and I assume because of the lower annual sunlight, poor soil, and lack of rainfall, it is not an impressive Sitka spruce. Instead of being a giant towering over the island, it is a stunted, stout thing that looks like a large piece of broccoli. Most of the local bird species seem to ignore it, like they don’t possess the concept of a tree.

Even so, I had still made it to the most remote tree in the world, and after touching it and having a protein bar under its shade, I stepped back and got to drawing it while I had daylight. The island was quiet, the loudest sound being the rustling of grasses in the wind. Any bird noise was in the distance, and I couldn’t hear any insects. As I capture my landscapes and study every curve and point of interest, I think about how few people have walked here. It’s as if I own the island, like I’m the only one allowed to be here. This is the high I chase.

As the sun begins to set as early as I expected it would, given the time of year, I try some of the local liquid by sipping Six Foot Lake through my lifestraw. Then I use the water and my propane cooker to boil noodles with vegetables and spices, giving me a filling meal under the twilight sky. Followed by a pleasant sleep under stars that I can see through my tent. Lovely. For a brief moment.

And I write all of this to help me remember my only nice day here.

The nightmare began when I woke up and realized that my tent was some fifty feet closer to the tree than I remembered. It freaks the shit out of me at first, but I start thinking. There’s no way I took the spikes out, moved the entire tent, and hammered them back in while sleepwalking­, which I’ve never done as far as I know. I look for the original holes from the spot up on a hill where I swear I had parked my gear, but I can’t find them. Not that they might not be there, hidden under the grass and megaherbs. What am I supposed to do, spend all day tracking down my exact prior location to make sure I’m not delusional? I have better things to do, so I assume I’d just been mistaken and misremembered my spot after exhausting myself the day before.

Things get worse. Shortly after a warm breakfast of jerky and powdered eggs, I hear approaching voices. Many voices. It sounds like they’re being carried by the wind, making them hard to pinpoint, and the words don’t come in clearly enough to decipher. But I know what’s going on. Somewhere on this island is a tour group, here to gawk at god knows what and ruin my day. Or worse, spot me and report my misanthropic ass to the authorities.

For a while, I hang back behind a big rock, where I have a good view of the tree down in the valley, and wait for the tourists to inevitably swing by and have a picnic under the world’s most remote overgrown shrub. Until they’re done with their checklist, I wouldn’t be able to settle anywhere to enjoy the solitude and draw some more. So, I wait. And wait.

An hour goes by. And then another. I can still hear the voices, moving around me, getting louder and quieter. Laughter and inane observations pollute the air. I can’t tell how many there are, but they’re annoying. Eventually, I get tired of waiting around and go looking for them. If they see me, whatever. I’d pay a fine and never come back to a place I only planned to see once anyway.

I know they’re nearby, a mile away at most. I get up higher and look around in all directions, seeing nothing, wishing I had binoculars. I double check my surroundings, and this time, I spot them. An absurdly large group for the size of this distant island, at least a few dozen strong. Their clothes are brightly colored and many of them are wearing shorts and shirts, even in this weather. They’re walking away, rounding another hill as they continue to chuckle like idiots, or take selfies and look for cell signals or whatever it is tourists do.

I take a seat and get back to waiting. I watch the hill, knowing there’s a small peninsula beyond it. Eventually, they’ll have to double back or come around the other side. Unless their boat happens to be at the bottom of a sheer cliff. But why am I so worried? It’s not like faces stand out to tour guides, right? I could tell them I was always there, and happen to be forgettable. Not like they would believe I was out here on my own. Then I could follow them around for a bit, maybe get some free food, and disappear again as they head out.

But some part of my brain is already asking, is this normal? No group that big is going to be on a boat for several days to see this island. Then I second guess myself. Nah, maybe there’s an Antarctica cruise passing by and they got here on a tender. A stop along the way. Late in the season for it, but, sure.

At this point I just mostly want to know what they’re doing on “my” island, so I walk over, get around the hill, and… I don’t see them. Nothing but the edge of a tall cliff and endless ocean. Somehow, I must’ve missed them.

No, there’s something strange here. A pile of shoes, messily tossed into a mound of their own. Enough to be everybody’s. There’s no way, I’m thinking. No way they all jumped from this height into freezing water for a sudden swim. Is there even water down there? How’s the tide?

I crawl over to the cliff and look down, making sure the ground is sturdy. Around seventy feet down, there are skeletons.

A lot of skeletons. Piles of bones. Covering the rocky beach as low-tide waves brush at the tips of fleshless corpses. The sight is so strange and unexpected that at first, it doesn’t even really hit me that they aren’t people shaped. They’re birds. Large birds, hundreds of them. Penguins. Like an entire colony gathered up in place and all dropped dead at once.

No sign of the tourists.

I return to camp to process the last few hours. I realize that I may have been seeing things, hallucinating. Or having a bizarre waking dream. It gets me feeling anxious, all out of sorts. I have no appetite and stress is getting to me.

I think I’m going to go check that spot again at sunset. If the shoes are still there, I could pick some up. Feel them to see if they’re actually solid.

[There is an erased and marked out paragraph here, it’s impossible to tell what it once said.]

I’m not surprised. No shoes. Not sure why, but I might be losing my mind. I doubt the bone pile as well. If it’s real, it’s now covered up by high tide. I have a feeling I also only imagined it. My boat pilot doesn’t have a satellite phone, so I’m stuck here until he picks me up two mornings from now. Just gonna breathe and try to take it easy until then. At least I still have the island to myself.

I’ll move the camp before it gets any darker. A change of scenery might help. I hope I don’t have a brain tumor, or worse.

[There are two pages of sketches, depicting a campfire and camping gear, likely made to kill time and let Trevor get his mind off things.]

Damn it and what the fuck?!

I woke up at dawn close to the tree, again. And this time my entire campsite had moved. I was at least a half-mile away, and somehow, I… what, took it all down and set it back up in my sleep? This has to be some severe form of hallucination, or losing time, or God knows what. Why does this tree seem to have a supernatural pull on me? I’m going to set up on the opposite side of the island tonight, get as far away from that thing as possible.

Maybe I never should’ve come here.

[The next page of writing is faint and imprecise, written by a weak hand.]

I feel

like shit

Whole day gone

Hate this island.

Was running out of the good canteen water and wanted to save the rest for later, so started day with a bottle filled at a pond near the tree. Looked clear and safe enough, drank from worse. Tasted strange but that isn’t unusual.

Next thing I know, I’m throwing up, in serious pain. Never had the filters fail me like that. There could have been a chemical in the water, but can’t explain why. Island is almost untouched by man.

Even after I lost my breakfast, I still keeled over and lost all feeling in my arms and legs. Then I experienced the worst trip in history. No real high, and I was just… alone with my thoughts, in pain, with a twisted sense of time.

I was paralyzed on the ground for hours, staring up at the sky, breathing but unable to blink. The clouds go by in fast forward, hundreds of miles an hour. Either I’m imagining them, or I’m skipping though the hours, like my brain is only awake for one moment each minute. And meanwhile, the sound of the wind is compressed by time and comes all at once, in a booming rumble.

By the time feeling returns to my limbs, I’ve experienced over five hours of misery. And then another one before I’m fully functioning again. Pretty much all of my daylight, erased, spent on hard rocks and staring at the clouds while writhing in agony… yet not even actually moving. Hands are still weak.

Used what strength I still have to move the camp, but I couldn’t make it to the far end of the island. At this point, doesn’t matter. I’ll be picked up in the morning and can leave this place. Worst I’ve ever visited.

I used a spare tent stake and rope to tie one of my legs to the ground. It wouldn’t be impossible to get free in my sleep, but maybe the effort would wake me up. I don’t know. I haven’t eaten any of the local plants, so I’m thinking it’s the tree doing this weird shit to me? Even though it’s supposed to just be a normal old spruce, if not a unique one.

I better not lose this peg. It’s my last spare. I only have five left total, since the others I carry just in case have all gone missing.

Going to sketch random places from memory until I fall asleep. Done with drawing this island.

[There are several pages worth of small, low-effort art. I can’t identify any of the locations. I suppose this isn’t a surprise, given that they’re all isolated areas and remembered from Trevor’s past, but I did find myself questioning how accurate the sketches might be. Or if they depict real places at all. It’s unclear if he was aware of this, but each landscape, no matter its location, features a tree like Campbell Island’s in the distance, fully penciled in like a shadow or silhouette. Consciously or otherwise, the tree is stuck in his head.]

Am I still alive?

I think so.

Heart’s been pounding all night, feels like.

My nerves are fucked, but I can hold my pencil steady enough now to write from a seaside alcove I found, and there’s enough sunlight to see my words. Been hiding here for a few hours, waiting for it to leave me alone. Don’t come to this island. Not unless it gets napalm bombed first.

I woke up around three in the morning. My sleeping bag was a mess and all my shit was knocked over, like I had been thrashing around, trying to get free so I could get back to the tree again. My body couldn’t figure it out, but that’s okay because the tree found me instead.

Loud snapping sounds were what jolted me awake. Over and over, I hear these cracks like bones being popped off or something in the distance. I’m freaking out in my tent, heart already racing, but I know I’m safest in there. This island has no big predators. The most dangerous animal would probably be a rampaging seal, scooting around on land.

Then the sounds stop and there’s a loud groaning howl. Never heard anything like it, and I’ve slept in bear, wolf, and lion territory.

The ground starts to tremble as some massive thing thumps its way towards my tent. I can hear a constant crackling of wood as an ungodly creature comes straight at me. It’s not hunting, has no need to search me out. It knows exactly where I am, and there’s no point in hunkering down. I free my leg, leave the tent, and run, from what I’m not sure.

I move as fast as my legs can take me, going up rugged hills, tripping over rocks. Whatever’s chasing me keeps up, is always right at my back. When I finally reach a valley clearing where all that’s ahead is tall grass, I look over my shoulder and see the giant shadow of a tree top, blowing in the wind. But the moon is low enough in the horizon to light up the trunk.

I’m in a living nightmare. The tree is a hunter, a monster, some demon that escaped from a forest in hell. It has no face or humanlike features. It’s appropriately closer to a carnivorous plant in appearance. It has a large, gaping, vertical mouth that splits it down the middle, with rows of serrated wooden teeth. The weight of its limbs should’ve ripped the trunk in half, but the beast is strong enough to have both working jaws and a structure that can support itself. Its roots are out of the ground, gnarled, gangly, and wriggling, giving it dozens of spiderlike limbs for mobility.

I’m unsure if it has eyes, or how it senses the world around it, but looking back at it seems to make it angrier. It opens its giant crushing snap trap of a mouth, and there’s nothing but more wood inside. It can’t lunge since it would just fall over, so instead, its roots crawl towards me, aiming for my legs. I jump backwards, barely escaping, and push my addled body into a sprint. Now that I’ve seen the terror pursuing me, I move even faster. It lets out another roar and resumes the chase.

Somehow, I’m now outpacing it, and its bark-crackling skitters fade into the distance. I keep running until I hit the beach and duck into a recess in the cliff. It’s as good a hiding place as I’m going to get, and I figure it’d have a hard time getting to me. Seeing as how it’s a tree monster and all.

Right. A tree monster.

Christ. Now that more time has passed and I read these words, I can see how insane this all sounds. It was just another hallucination. Has to be. Thing is, what happened a few hours ago felt so real that I couldn’t not believe it.

Maybe

this was just the second half of a chemical overdose. One that was so strong at the start that it paralyzed me. I’ve tried datura and ayahuasca both once in my life, just to say I did, and my experiences were so bad that I swore off nearly all drug use afterwards. If I’m prone to bad trips…

Question is, what the hell did I ingest? I haven’t gone native enough to try any of the weird megaherbs that are everywhere, so it couldn’t be them.

Having a chance to think, I got two explanations, one nuttier than the other. Assuming it’s not severe food poisoning, exhaustion, or dehydration.

Either the tree is the sole apex predator of the island and an undiscovered carnivorous plant that can emanate psychic waves of some kind, or part of it has psychotropic properties. The leaves? Its bark? Something too small to see? Or maybe its pollen. This is far from the right season for it to be pumping the stuff out, but it might build up over time in the area, concentrating, caking everything like dust. Could explain why any water near the tree would be rich with it.

In any case, I’m out of here. I wrote as I returned to my campsite to pack up, trying not to think about this island anymore. I checked on the tree, from a safe distance. Still where it’s supposed to be. It never came to life and chased me. Just a drug-fueled nightmare.

I’m back at the beach for pickup. Not much more to say. God awful rock. Would not recommend a visit. There could be money to be found in reporting my “discovery” to some New Zealand scientists, but I doubt it’s worth the trouble. I want out of this hemisphere.

Still waiting.

Waiting some more. Guy’s two hours late.

Well. Shit.

[A sketch of the view from the coast. The lines are harsh and angry.]

Screw it. If I’m swearing off NZ for a while anyway, they can ban me from wherever all they want. I just turned on my satellite phone and asked for a rescue. Explained my whole situation, told them my ship captain is either off drunk in the ocean or back at the bar having forgotten about me.

I know they’re mad. I could hear it in their voices. Even so, they’re sending me a boat and gave me some “survival tips” to try out until they get here. My food should last. They also want me to find and wait at the island’s weather station since they know where it is, and can meet me there.

Thing is, their directions weren’t very clear. But I guess I have plenty of time to look for it.

After the person I was talking to seemed to relax a bit, he told me this wasn’t the first time someone had come out here on their own, though it’s rare. I’m guessing the others wanted to see the tree, too. I would’ve ended up on this island eventually, regardless of the damn tree. Place beckoned me, feels like.

I think the effects of the pollen or whatever are finally wearing off. I could kill some time and write about what I know of this island. Remind myself again that it’s just another blip in the ocean. Nothing to be afraid of.

As far as we know, assuming the Māori or Polynesians didn’t make it this far south first, the island was discovered by Frederick Hasselborough in 1810, captain of a sealing ship. He would mysteriously drown off its coast shortly thereafter. After the local seals were all hunted, the island was on occasion used for whaling over the years, some scientific research, sheep herding, and during World War II, was the site of a coastal watch station. Along with the weather post that used to be temporarily manned for some seasons, the island has only seen minimal, sporadic inhabitance.

Did I get that all right? Whoever finds this book if I don’t make it can correct the record if I’m wrong.

The tree is thought to have been planted around the turn of the century by a New Zealand governor, perhaps in an effort to start a lumber trade, but this has never been confirmed. I suppose it’s possible, however unlikely, that the tree is actually even older than that and just hadn’t been discovered for the first century of the island’s known existence. It does kind of blend in with the green surroundings, and is in a valley far from any other landmarks. It would have once been even shorter and less noticeable.

It does make me wonder, whether it’s somehow been here for a very long time or was indeed planted by someone, why its closest relatives in a native land are thousands of miles away in the northeast, across the Pacific.

I should’ve paid more attention to the stories I skimmed over about the island, from other backpackers that came alone or in small groups. I only glanced over remarks like, “felt like I was being watched,” or, “had really weird dreams while on the island,” and, “I found the tree, and I swear, I felt a negative energy coming from it.” I don’t take comments like this seriously, so I didn’t read over any of these experiences in full. Not that they would’ve kept me from visiting.

Well. None of that made me feel better. It’s almost over just the same. Going to take it easy until rescue arrives. Body still has some recovering to do.

[A messy, chaotic sketch of a horrifying tree creature covers the next two pages, making it the only full spread drawing in the book. The lines are so dark and forceful that the paper is torn in places.]

No

No, I did not draw that nightmare. Maybe my hands did while I had one, but it was no waking work. And yet I swear I slept peacefully last night, if not uncomfortably. I should rip it out and throw it into the ocean. I want to.

But, damn, I need to plan out my options. It terrifies me, but I actually, really might not make it home. So maybe I should keep this art, if it can be called that. In case someone finds this sketchbook, they might believe what I’m going through. See the madness that’s taking hold of me.

There’s something else going on here, more than just hallucinogenic pollen. I’m not sure if I am acting out in my sleep, or only forgetting things, because looking back, I’ve lost time on the island. The days are short, but they feel even shorter than they should be. Am I having blackouts?

I’m as far from the tree as I can be, yet it makes no difference.

Could I cut it down? It would take a long time, assuming I can even find a jagged enough rock. A boat might get here by the time I’m actually done.

Then again, I’m not confident I can last one more night here.

Running and hiding might not be a solution. I need to work up the courage to study the tree. Try to learn something about it. I have to be rational. There’s no logic in being afraid of a god damn tree, unless you’re in Australia.

But first, the inexplicable things continue. I got delayed on the way to the tree, and lost a little more of my mind in the process.

I haven’t been watching my footing that much here, and I trip over an exposed tree root. I’m already in a bad mood, so I get up and give it a kick with my boot. Then I realize something.

I’m about a mile away from the only tree. So why is there a root here?

I must be mistaken. It has to be the top of a buried rock. I get a closer look, and it’s unmistakably a tree root. I slice into it with my pocket knife, and see that it’s alive, and healthy. I can’t shrug this off. I know some trees can form huge colonies, like aspens, but it wouldn’t be just roots covering miles of land.

There has to be a reason. It’s just one segment of a root, a fluke. Maybe it’s the remnant of a large shrub. I get on my knees and dig. Just a foot deep or so in the dirt, I see another root. I pick up chunks of dirt and expose more of the rugged tendril, pointing in the direction of the tree in the distance.

I move to a different spot, do more digging. More roots, in thick clusters in places. They wrap around rocks, cause barren spots in the grass where megaberbs can’t grow, and are seemingly endless. I must’ve dug a couple dozen holes across a swathe of land, and all the roots radiate from the tree. Is the entire island covered? If the tree is alive in some way normal trees are not, are the roots like a sensory organ?

Thinking too much. Coming up with insane ideas. Just need a good luck at the tree. Have to see how ordinary and boring it is.

[The final illustration in the book is disturbing, and I’ve been asked to not share it with anyone until the investigation is complete. Sorry about that, mate. But don’t worry. Our artist describes the scene in detail, fortunately doing this part of my job for me.]

I have no more words. I can’t begin to explain any of this.

Was it all me? Have I completely lost my mind?

I don’t understand. I can’t wrap my head around what’s happened to me, or the tree. Or this island. It’s cursed, haunted, taken over by something evil.

I hated drawing this. But I had to. I don’t have a camera, so this is the best I can do to try and share my discovery. If I did this, if someone finds the evidence, know that I’m sorry. I wasn’t conscious of it. Swear to God. Who I doubt has been to this place anytime recently.

I hadn’t walked around the tree since the first time I looked at it, the only other time I got near the thing willingly. So I can’t say how long this horrific sight had been hiding behind it, out of view.

When I approached the tree, nothing looked unusual. Until I started walking around it, to the side facing a hill. Then I see a firepit. It’s mostly ash, surrounded by small rocks. A few bits of wood, burnt to cinders. It must be from some previous backpackers. I just missed it the first time.

But I no longer trust my thoughts. I feel lingering dread and doubt. I go to the firepit and feel the remaining gray wood. It’s not smoldering, but it is still warm. I already know that I made a fire last night, and maybe the one before, too. No, I don’t remember doing it, but it makes more sense than someone else just happening to be on the island as well, unseen. But why would I make a fire out here? Not for warmth, that’s what I had a tent for. Not to make a smoke signal, especially if I was doing it at night.

Was I doing some kind of cult-like or tribal shit out here? Performing rituals? Worshipping and making sacrifices to some tree deity? I was definitely burning dead branches and leaves. Breathing in the fumes.

Why me? Just because I don’t like and try to avoid people, do I deserve to be punished? I’d never want to hurt anyone, animal or human. What I saw when I got up from the firepit and turned around isn’t me. I swear it isn’t. Whoever finds this journal, don’t condemn me. Please. I wouldn’t do this.

I wouldn’t use my missing tent spikes to nail bird corpses to the side of a tree. No healthy, sane person does that. How did I even get my hands on these birds? I’ve never been great at sneaking up on animals. And where did the blood go? I don’t see a drop. Did I drain them, or did something else soak all of it up?

I’m seeing things now. Feel like I’m floating. I just want to wake up.

And, as my drawing shows, it wasn’t only seabirds.

I have no idea when my boat pilot came ashore to look for me, or how I overpowered him, lifted up the big guy against the tree, and nailed three pegs into him. What must have he seen at the end? A deranged, raging beast that was much stronger than he looked? Or did some other side of me invite him over to the fire and get him drunk first? Or poison him with what’s also ruined me?

This god damn tree. It’s making me feed it. Or I do it willingly and forget afterwards. Being on this island has broken my brain. I’m not sure what’s real anymore, and I don’t have a grip on what little here is real.

I can’t let anything bad happen to the people on their way to rescue me. That’s now the most I can do. They don’t deserve to get hurt. This has to stop, before it happens again. I don’t have much I can use, but I’m going to cut or burn down this bastard of a tree if it kills me.

I’ll hide this book where the roots can’t reach. If whoever finds it has any power to do so, and I didn’t succeed, then please, quarantine the island or at least erase that spruce from existence. Whatever happened to it, or wherever it came from, it’s no common tree. Again, I’m sorry. For coming here, for being unlikeable, all of it. But I’ll still try to do one good thing.

[The last words in the sketchbook are some personal remarks to family and information like phone numbers and addresses. Out of respect for the missing, I didn’t include this portion of the discovered journal.]

Response from Teddy:

Oh, man. Dalton, if this is a joke, then you need to start writing a horror movie. If it’s all real, if only from this guy’s perspective, then I’m not sure what to say. I’ve only been to Campbell once. Felt like the end of the world down there if it was on a flat plane. But an evil demon tree? There has to be an explanation for delusions like that. Anyway, I did the proofreading and I’ll forward this to the boss. Anxious to see what he’s gonna say about it.

Do you want to summarize the attempted rescue, for the record? I have a feeling that those above us aren’t paying much attention to this, yet.

I’m up for that drink. I’ll help you get your story straight for a write up on Monday. Least until we get too shickered to remember what we’re on about.

Response from Dalton:

Good seeing you again yesterday, mate. As promised, here’s a rundown of what me and my crew saw when we got to the island.

The other team went ashore to begin the search while we circled the island. We found an abandoned fishing boat crashed against rocks on the north side, big enough for week-long voyages. A little banged up but salvageable after a tow, hadn’t been there more than a few days. Too dangerous to board at its resting angle, but we determined no one was inside.

On our second pass, we located its mooring point about three hundred meters away. Looked like the rope had snapped on first glance, though when I got a closer look, I wasn’t so sure. The threads were frayed similar to sudden breakage, but it could’ve also possibly been cut over time with a small knife.

During our third and final pass, we found something else: a little makeshift flag, a piece of orange fabric stuck onto a tent support rod, sticking out of a pile of rocks on the beach. I went ashore and found the sketchbook hidden among those rocks. Flipped through it, and thought it was a strange art project at first.

After having read its contents, I get why its owner hid it on a rocky beach. In his mind, he was afraid the tree could “find” it.

We then get called inland by the other team, who want our help looking for a missing American and local fisherman. There’s no sign that either of them went to the weather station. No evidence of fires, food containers, or even a campsite. The place had been wiped clean. If not for the empty boat and the sketchpad, we would’ve called off the search sooner.

As everyone else is scouring the island for any hint of them at all, I start flipping through the book and stare at its unsettling drawings. They aren’t high quality or anything special, and certainly not from a seasoned horror artist. Yet the events and assumed hallucinations they illustrate do suggest something very unusual and distressing happened here over the past few days.

The art gets me to start reading what parts I can of the messy journal (again, good job, Teddy), and I see mentions of monster trees, forgotten ritualistic sacrifices, nightmare acid trips, and an island-spanning root system.

We weren’t there on the government’s dime to investigate anomalous flora, and the tree is of course protected, but even so I did convince a few of us to devote some time to looking for roots extending far from their source. We dug thirty or so small holes and saw… nothing out of the ordinary.

There’s also nothing to note about the tree itself. No bodies, no dead animals, no blood, no tent spikes. There are a few holes in the trunk, but it’s impossible to tell if they’re fresh or made by survey teams over the years.

We noticed some real, but superficial damage to the tree. A sharp-edged rock was used to chop into its trunk, only getting two or three centimeters deep. Given that said rock was partially buried within throwing distance of the tree and looked like it had landed with a hard impact, it may have been thrown.

The small scar in the tree is leaking a dark, sticky sap that caused a burning sensation on my finger when I unintentionally touched it. I’d actually be worried about this after reading the entire journal, but I cleaned all of it off and haven’t noticed any symptoms over the week, not even a rash.

And that’s really about all I can report from my end. The search turned up no trace of the missing. Six hours on the island, with drones and dogs, and we found next to nothing. Where this goes from here is now up to the brass.

I’m not claiming that the tree is “innocent” (maybe it has mutated and can produce a psychostimulant), but this sounds more like a prolonged panic attack or mental episode. Something undiagnosed and triggered by a period of isolation. If this story gains traction, I can see it becoming New Zealand’s version of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mystery. Whatever happens, we shouldn’t forget that the two real people at the center of it all have disappeared. Poor blokes.

Response from Teddy, one week later:

Dalton, I know we’re back to our usual menial work, but I figured you’d still be interested in the lab results concerning the Campbell tree. The bark, pollen, lignin, sap, and leaf samples all have some odd alterations to the DNA structure and markers. Not to the point where it should have psychotropic cells, or make the tree sterile or incompatible with its species, but enough to suggest that it is a hybrid or mutated over time. One of the lab boys joked that maybe the “damn lonely thing wasn’t getting any responses from lady trees” and made itself more potent to compensate. I called him an idiot, and he knows that’s not how it works, but I don’t know… Still kind of makes you think about evolution or adaptation. It’s been by itself for at least a century, so, who am I to assume.

Speaking of age, a sample of its rings showed some abnormalities, too. The layers are more numerous and denser than expected. Could have to do with the weather and sunlight down there. Nothing major, just mentioning it.

Response from Dalton:

I heard another scientific expedition was approved and some big names were mentioned, but it’s hard to find details. Boss is being aloof, like it’s some big secret. I asked if I could be on the team, just out of curiosity, and didn’t even get a response. The sketchbook even got confiscated by some other department, so we should keep the digitized files in a safe place. Vibes are off around here. Wouldn’t be surprised if we soon get asked to delete everything.

Response from Teddy, three days later:

Well, you were right. I was just “asked” to erase my files, and now the department heads are concerned about leaks. Do you have any idea what’s going on? I’ve worked here a decade and have never seen an attempt to scrub files like this. I can’t get answers. What did they find down there? I’ll do what they say and wipe my data, but I really want to know what they discovered that has them in a panic. There are rumors at the office that travel to the island just became totally prohibited. This can’t all be from one stunted spruce, can it?

Response from Dalton:

Teddy, I recommend you let this go. Yesterday, there was a late-night emergency meeting in our conference room. I don’t know who our bosses were talking to, but I happened to be working late as well and tried my best to listen in. Most of what they were saying made no sense to me, and I was only there for a minute or so, what with security having been tightened.

But one thing they said stood out, and I swear I heard it. They were talking about the ultrasound results, how they scanned the entire trunk of the tree. And then someone’s voice rises and I hear, clear as day before he gets shushed, “aren’t you going to mention the seven bodies?”

“Seven?” I remember thinking. “How many people have disappeared on this island?”

I overheard a few other things, including the possibility of sending armed soldiers to Campbell, but it wasn’t until I got home after a long day that I got a chance to piece it all together and realize where those bodies are.

If this has happened before, Mr. Miller and (probably) the boat pilot are just the latest victims. Victims of what, exactly? Of the island, sure, but what happened to them? How did seven human-shaped masses get inside of a tree?

Lowly government employees like us are never going to find out, Teddy. If you want to keep this crappy job, try to forget all about this whole thing. Don’t go looking into it, don’t let this get out, delete your work, and never go back to that island. It’s either the tree or that entire place that’s cursed. God forbid they brought back something more than just a few small samples.

And if you absolutely must talk about this one last time…

Meet me for a pint this weekend. Usual place.