The Corpse Tree
Armani is beyond elated. “Are you seeing this?” He chortles, prancing around the sinkhole in unfettered glee. “What are you all waiting for? Did we get footage of the sinkhole appearing? Were any cameras rolling when this was…? Why are you all standing around? Go!”
The loss of the cabin has not put a damper on his enthusiasm. The same is not true for Leo Gries, who is appalled to learn that the destroyed bungalow was his. “Didn’t you test the ground?” he yells at the surveyors, visibly shaken. “If I’d been inside, I could have been killed!”
One of the scientists speaks up, looking rattled himself. “The chances of a sinkhole of this size…we ran every test we could, and there was no way this was—”
“Well, run them again! Test the whole island!”
Goatee stares down at the hole, face pale. He mutters something about a drink and staggers away.
Askal hasn’t stopped barking since the tree was unearthed, only calming down when I hug him. He’s shaking.
Reuben Hemslock stands at the edge of the hole, fixated on the twisted tree and its grotesque fruit with the biggest grin on his face. He takes off his sunglasses. “I’m going down there,” he says. “Hook me up.”
Gries turns. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”
“I’ve climbed down worse places, man. I’m not afraid of some dead dickhead on a tree. I want two cameras—head, face shot. Tape up the mic, don’t clip it—strap everything tight so nothing gets dislodged while I’m down there.”
“Reuben!”
“I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this for twenty years! You said you’d let me handle the show my way, so shut up and let me get you the ratings I promised!”
No one is listening to Leo Gries’s protests. The crew is already outfitting Hemslock with cameras—one attached to a helmet on his head, another wired to face him—and hooks secured around his waist to help him rappel down. He tugs hard on the ropes tethering him to safety, nods. “Keep rolling, no matter what happens,” he tells the cameramen, and then leaps backward, effortlessly, down into the sinkhole.
“At least take some of the security team with you,” Leo Gries yells after him.
“Not waiting for them,” Reuben shouts back. “And I’m not gonna film this twice.”
Already there is a mad scramble among the safety crew to don similar protective gear, even as the actor lowers himself farther into the hole. Hemslock’s bodyguards have gathered around the sinkhole. A few have their guns trained on the corpse.
“Do not shoot the damn tree!” Armani shouts, no longer pleased. “We’ll need more footage of it before the day’s out—I swear to God, Reuben—”
“Steve, they’re doing what I’m paying them for.” Hemslock angles himself toward the withered tree. “What a way to start the show!” I hear him exclaim as he begins recording. “This is how the Godseye welcomes me, literally on the first day I set foot on this island—with this beautiful corpse bouquet.”
He keeps up the chatter, as Leo Gries and the others wait by a hastily set up workstation. Twin screens show the live recording—one focused on Hemslock’s face and the other receiving feed from the camera on his head. The latter perfectly captures the gnarled tree as Hemslock gradually works his way toward it. The former shows the delighted expression on the man’s face as he draws nearer.
I watch through the monitor as the camera swings downward, toward the hole below Reuben’s feet. “That’s a long way down,” he notes. “I think I can see the ground from here, and something tells me I’m going to be exploring that before long, too—but that’s a journey for another day.” His viewpoint returns to the corpse tree before him. The other members of the safety crew are scaling down the sinkhole as well, their own cameras connected to more screens for us to observe with.
“Now, will you look at this beauty,” we hear him whisper as he clings to the wall adjacent to the body, close enough for him to reach out and touch.
“Judging from the look of this, I’d say this is a balete—a parasitical tree that envelops and then kills their host’s foliage, leaving a hollow center instead of a real trunk. It’s a common enough species in the country, but the balete on this island looks to be a unique breed entirely. After all, how many trees can boast using the dead for its foundation?”
He’s right. At first the body looked like it had been ensnared by the branches. A closer inspection afforded by Hemslock’s camera shows that the corpse is the tree. It has no visible legs; its lower body appears to have fused with the roots surrounding it, so there is no clear distinction between where the corpse ends and the trunk begins. I can see strips of clothing still clinging to its person, tattered and nearly blackened with age.
“My God,” one of the film crew says.
Hemslock is undaunted. “Almost looks like this thing was carved out of its trunk, doesn’t it? The skin looks severely wizened, almost like bark. The corpse barely looks human at this point, if not for that face.”
“But as odd as it sounds, this is exactly what I came here hoping to find. Many of the myths surrounding the Godseye delve into a strange, hauntingly symbiotic relationship between the trees and the supposed god who lives on this island. People used to worship balete trees here—they believed them to be the sacred groves of duwende, or the so-called fairy people. But here in the Godseye, the story gets even more fucked up…
“Hey, can I say ‘fuck’ or is Steve gonna bleep it out? Let me do it one more time, so he can choose.
“But here in the Godseye, things get even stranger.”
The camera view swings closer to the corpse’s face. Withered and desiccated, it looks halfway between a mummified skeleton and an embalmed body. Its eyes are long gone, leaving empty sockets and hollow shadows. The nose and mouth remain distinct, like a thin membrane has been stretched over its chin and cheeks to preserve its features.
Its lips are stretched and pulled wide, distorting the face’s shape; its jaw is distended, like it died screaming. For the first time, we can see thin branches spiraling out from the corpse’s mouth, like he’s been impaled lengthwise through his body.
“According to the legends surrounding the Godseye and the island of Kisapmata,” Hemslock continues, “balete trees are natural coffins. The locals would bring their loved ones to this island with balete saplings and bury them together. If the deceased is deemed worthy, or so the tale goes, the balete grows around them. The roots will pull them underground to some hidden cave beneath the island where the god, this supposed Dreamer, sleeps.”
“And there the dead dream alongside the god, waiting for the day the god wakes—some say to heal the world; others, to destroy it and start anew.”
“Do it, Hemslock,” Armani whispers, as if the man can hear him. “Do it.”
Hemslock edges closer and reaches out a gloved hand.
The tip of his finger sinks into the cheekbone. “Hey, you,” Hemslock says. “Hey. How’s it hanging up there?”
The corpse gapes back at the rest of us through the camera’s viewfinder.
It moves.
The camera jerks away as Hemslock rears back in alarm. Gasps rise up from those gathered by the monitors. Through the other screens, I can see several safety crew members, hanging on their own lines, slowly inch toward the actor, intending to yank him out of harm’s way.
The corpse’s skull shakes. Insect legs stretch out of its left eye socket, and a large black spider slowly pulls itself out, climbing lazily up the decaying head.
Hemslock relaxes, chuckles. Nervous titters follow from the rest of the group.
“You got me there, old fella. You really got me.” Hemslock pokes at the face a few more times.
I exhale slowly, sensing instinctively that whatever danger there would have been had passed.
“For the rest of you back home, that is most definitely not a tree carving. Despite all the stories claiming otherwise, no balete trees of this species have ever been recorded outside of Kisapamata Island. Some locals assert that balete trees grow upside down within the island. All you can see of them, they say, are the occasional roots sticking out from the sand.”
He moves away, and the camera slowly pans to reveal the whole of the balete tree in its terrifying glory once more. “It isn’t technically upside down,” Hemslock says, “but it’s not every day you find a whole tree growing underneath the ground either. Given the island’s porous soil, I’d say there may be something to the legends after all. We shouldn’t dismiss their stories. But here is the million-dollar question: Which of the so-called victims of the Godseye is this beauty? No one found Alex Key’s body, did they? Or—and this is an even bigger speculation—is this the body of Oliviero Cortes, the famed Spaniard himself?”
Hemslock continues to film for another hour before climbing out of the sinkhole unscathed, grinning from ear to ear. He’s brimming with energy, not lethargy. “I have a good feeling about this, Steve,” he says. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime shot. And we’re only on the first day.”
“You got in some excellent closeups,” Armani praises him. “That thing didn’t even faze you.”
Hemslock laughs. “This is the best in-your-face moment in all my years ghost hunting. We’re gonna make a killing off this show, Steve.” He strips off his gloves and tosses them to an assistant.
Hawaiian Shirt checks his pad. “We’re going to ask Lachlan and the others to take a sample of the soil growing near the tree, plus whatever DNA they can scrape off the body itself to send for analysis. Maybe we can find a match during post prod, trace for any living family members.”
“I’m betting money that it’s the Spanish explorer,” Hemslock says assertively. “Obviously not the local woman who was supposedly sacrificed. They only found Key’s lower body, but they did find part of his hand. Unless he’s got three limbs, this isn’t him. You saw those pieces of rusted metal? That’s gotta be armor, man. Cortes, or maybe another fellow conquistador. A few of them went missing during that expedition. Out of the five ships Magellan commanded, only eighteen men survived the voyage back.”
“Impossible,” Leo Gries says. “You’re telling me that we may have found the body of someone that historians and governments have spent centuries looking for, just like that?”
“Why not? It’s a known fact that Cortes went missing in the Godseye.” Hemslock points a finger at the large cave in the distance. “Still don’t believe the legends after everything, Leo? Didn’t you come to this island hoping for the impossible? Don’t you want to figure out what happened to your wife?”
Leo steps back, his face turning red. “Don’t bring my wife into this.”
Hemslock lifts his hands. “Hey, whoa. No offense meant. But you’re lying to yourself if that isn’t what you’re here for. Like that isn’t the reason you’re producing this show with me. And what you’re here for closely aligns with what I’m here for. I want to solve all the mysterious deaths on this island and throw it back at the naysayers who tried to sabotage my career. And you get your answer when I get mine.”
Leo stares back at him, troubled.
“That sinkhole appeared for a reason. This island wants you here. It wants us to solve its mystery as much as we do, tell the world its story.” Reuben Hemslock turns to me. “You’re the Kisapmata expert. You agree, right?”
I stare back at him. “The Diwata doesn’t like people on His island.”
“Why not? Doesn’t it need three more deaths to gain back its power, or so the curse goes?”
“He will take more than three lives the longer you all stay.”
It feels like the crew is watching us, holding their breaths, waiting for the actor to respond to my lack of courtesy. A frown briefly mars Hemslock’s face, but then it broadens into a wide smile.
“I like you,” he says. “You’ve got guts. Hear that, Leo? We better not stay too long. Time to crack this case wide open.”
“I want as many DNA samples from this thing as you can get,” Armani calls out, his good humor restored. “Scrape all the flesh off the body you can, send it to Marvin’s team ASAP. I want to know who this man is! If you’re right about this, Rube, then we’re one step closer to the treasure they say is buried here!”
“It would be easier if we could exhume the corpse,” someone from the scientific team says. “If it’s not too brittle. Would be fascinating to put it through an MRI scan, see if there’re any more secrets we can find within it.”
“Can we stick it back down there once you’re done, though? I want more for our drone work.”
“Not if the tree’s fused to it, as Mr. Hemslock believes. But we can try.”
That Hemslock escaped the sinkhole unscathed has boosted morale; soon other teams descend into the pit. Leo Gries remains by the workstation, staring in disbelief as Straw Hat, the friendly editor, begins reviewing the footage they’ve acquired so far. “I don’t believe it,” he mutters from time to time, though no one is paying him any attention.
Reuben has decided that the next place to film would be within the Godseye itself, by the stone altar within. The crew takes a shot of the exterior, and then more around the altar. Leo Gries stares at it and shudders. “What was this for?” he asks me.
“It was one of many places where sacrifices were offered.”
“One of many places?”
“Seems like there are others within the cave,” Hawaiian Shirt says. “The team hasn’t found them yet, though. There are a couple of sketches from Key’s journal that show how the ritual’s done. No idea if it’s accurate, but we’ll run with it.”
“Get on the altar, Steve,” Reuben says.
“Me? Why the hell would I—”
“Just humor me.”
Grumbling, Armani lies down.
“This is how they performed the sacrifice, according to what we’ve found so far,” Hemslock says. He moves, placing Armani’s hands and feet over the small holes on the sides of the stone. “They were bound like this, probably with rope.” He points toward a larger hole at the center of the altar, between Armani’s legs. “I’ve got a pretty good hypothesis about this one. I’m guessing that if the god accepts the sacrifice, it grabs the victim and drags it down through here.”
“How?” Gries asks, appalled. “The hole isn’t big enough for a human to get through…unless…”
“Unless the god doesn’t care if they’re in one piece when they do,” Hemslock says, grinning.
With a grunt, Armani pushes himself off the altar, still scowling. “Get someone else to do the reenactment next time.”
“It won’t be as much fun.”
Outside, I spot Chase taking photos of himself with his phone, flexing and grinning at the screen. Once done, he wanders back near the sinkhole, watching the crew circle their way around the tree, trying to figure out the best way to take out the corpse without destroying the roots that have grown around it.
“I promised Dad I wouldn’t take any pictures that would reveal anything about the show,” he whispers when I join him. Askal has calmed down but won’t stop looking at the tree below us. “But I wasn’t expecting this. Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
“It’s not a good sign.”
“It’s not, like, some publicity stunt, right?”
“You’re more familiar with that than I am.”
“Yeah, it just feels freaking unbelievable that this happened, and I can’t tell anyone. Did having so many people here cause the sinkhole?”
“I don’t know. Kisapmata’s never had this many trespassers before.”
“Kisa-what? Oh, right. It’s what y’all call this place.”
His dismissive tone irks me. “It’s what the island is called. At least care enough to learn how to say it.”
He frowns at me. “What’s your problem? Coming here to film ghosts wasn’t my idea, you know. Take it up with the actual people in charge.”
“Then why are you here?”
His phone buzzes again. “Well, my dad is one of the showrunners involved.”
“Do showrunners always bring their kids?”
“I want to be here. So what?” He scowls at the still-vibrating phone in his hand, then ends the call without picking it up.
“Aren’t you answering that?”
“It’s my phone, and I’ll answer it when I want.” Chase turns to Melissa, who stands placidly nearby. “Who are you?”
“Your father asked me to stay with you,” Melissa explains calmly. “In case you need anything.”
“I don’t need anything, and I definitely don’t need a babysitter!”
“Gosh, that puts me in a real conundrum, because your dad’s paying me to keep an eye on you. And his paychecks are the only ones I’m taking home for this gig, so…sorry. My girlfriend’s birthday is next month, and I’d like to take her somewhere fancy when I get back.”
“Check this out,” Straw Hat says suddenly. “Leo, you seeing this?”
Chase lopes back toward the table, curious despite himself, and Melissa, Askal, and I follow. Straw Hat, it seems, has found a camera that was trained on the cabins when the sinkhole first appeared. Leo is already replaying the tape.
At first there is nothing out of the ordinary. The cabins stand as they were supposed to, with no inkling of what was to come. And then the camera flickers, darkness flitting through the screen for a few moments. When the veil lifts, the sinkhole is there.
“I’ve run it through ten times now,” Straw Hat says. “The camera was most definitely not turned off. If you listen closely, you can hear sounds of the ground giving way at the 25:54 mark. It almost looks like someone threw a blanket over the lens for a couple of minutes.”
I stare at the screen as he replays it again. The darkness that fills the camera lens feels familiar. “Or someone moved in front of the camera deliberately,” I say.
“Impossible. This camera’s mounted to one of the trees overlooking the cabins. We were only supposed to use it for extra shots. Someone would have had to climb all the way up there, and even then, we would have seen who it was.”
“We can’t move it!” one of the scientists within the sinkhole yells. “Mr. Hemslock’s right—we’ll have to chop down the tree to get the corpse out of the hole.”
“Under no circumstances are you to damage the tree!” I hear Armani yell back. “We’ll find out who it is the old-fashioned way!”
Leo’s face is inches from the monitor, as if a closer look would solve the mystery. “Faulty equipment?” he asks. “Or maybe sun glare that caused it to—”
Suddenly, from inside the darkness, the monitor before us breathes out a word, a whisper.
Leo, a woman’s voice says.
Gries swears and jumps back, and Straw Hat upends his chair trying to get away from the monitor, pausing the video by accident in his haste. Chase leaps back with a yelp, sending some of the other crew running toward us, Reuben Hemslock included.
“Did you hear that?” Leo shouts, pointing accusingly at the camera. “Did you hear that?”
“Play it again,” Hemslock says eagerly. “Play it again.”
But the whisper does not repeat in subsequent viewings, even when they use their expensive headphones and when they use equipment designed to draw out the most inaudible of sounds. Again and again, the darkness fills the screen; again and again, it says nothing.