What the Heat Shows

"Concrete I understand. Pour it, level it, let it cure. It's the things I can't explain that keep catching me off guard."

The screed bit into my palms as Uncle Jamie and I dragged it across the wet concrete, smoothing the surface into something approaching level.

Sweat ran down my face in steady streams, stinging my eyes, dripping off my chin onto the grey slurry below. The sun had turned vicious sometime during the past few hours, beating down with the kind of intensity that made you understand why people in hot countries took afternoon naps. Every muscle in my back screamed protest, and my shoulders had moved past aching into a dull, persistent burn that promised worse to come.

But there was something satisfying about the work. Simple. Physical. A problem with a clear solution — pour the concrete, level it, let it cure. No portals, no resurrections, no lagoons doing unspeakable things. Just basic construction, the kind of work I'd been training for since I was old enough to hold a hammer.

Glenda had joined us partway through, her initial hesitation giving way to genuine enthusiasm as she learned the process. She squatted beside me now, her hands coated in a fine layer of grey dust, watching as we made another pass with the screed.

"What do you think of them?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the concrete.

Glenda studied the levelled surface, her brow furrowing in concentration. "It looks mostly even. Maybe a bit more over there." She pointed toward Uncle Jamie's end, where a slight ridge had formed along the edge.

A soft laugh escaped me, the sound strange after so much grim silence. "I meant the new people."

Glenda's expression shifted as she understood, her gaze drifting toward the direction Karen and Chris had disappeared earlier. They'd gone off exploring, following some trail of interest that only they could see — fertile soil, Karen had said, though I couldn't imagine what counted as fertile in this barren landscape.

"They are well-educated, especially Karen. I can understand why Luke brought them here."

The words sat with me for a moment, turning over in my mind like stones in a tumbler. Well-educated. As if that was the primary qualification for surviving in another dimension. As if degrees and publications would somehow protect you from the strangeness that lurked around every corner of this place.

"You really think that..." I started, but the words died in my throat as a sound cut through the afternoon stillness.

Barking. High-pitched, excited, unmistakably canine — but not the confident woof of Duke or Henri's more hesitant yips. This was something else entirely, something new.

I looked at Glenda, my eyebrows raised in silent question. Her face had transformed, recognition lighting up her features with a joy I hadn't seen since arriving in this place.

"Lois!"

She was on her feet before I could react, jogging toward the source of the sound. A golden retriever crested the nearest hill, coat gleaming like burnished copper in the afternoon light, tail wagging with the manic enthusiasm that only retrievers seemed capable of. The dog bounded toward the camp, a furry torpedo of excitement aimed directly at the tents.

I glanced at Uncle Jamie, who had settled back on his haunches, his hands grey with concrete residue. His expression could have curdled milk.

"Not another fucking dog," he muttered, the words pitched just loud enough for me to catch.

The sentiment wasn't entirely unfair. We already had Duke and Henri to worry about — feeding them, keeping them out of trouble, managing their presence in a place that offered no pet shops or vets. Adding a third dog to the mix felt like another complication in a situation already drowning in complications.

But watching Glenda's face as she approached the retriever, the pure, uncomplicated happiness radiating from her — it was hard to begrudge her this. Everyone needed something to hold onto. For Glenda, apparently, that something had four legs and a tendency to jump.

"Lois, down!" Glenda instructed as the dog launched herself at Joel, who had emerged from the tent with Duke and Henri in tow.

The command had limited effect. Lois bounced backward in surprise, tail still wagging, then immediately resumed her assault on Joel's personal space. Duke circled the newcomer cautiously, nose twitching, while Henri took one look at the chaos and retreated back into the tent. Smart dog.

I pushed myself to my feet, my knees popping in protest, and watched the canine introductions unfold. There was something almost comical about it — the careful sniffing, the sudden play-bows, the constant motion of wagging tails. In a world where nothing made sense, at least dogs still acted like dogs.

"We need a road."

Paul's voice cut through the moment, pulling my attention away from the animals. He was trudging down the final slope into camp, his face set in an expression of weary frustration. Dust coated his clothes, his hair, every visible inch of skin. He looked like he'd been rolling around in a flour mill.

Lois abandoned her new friends and bounded toward Paul, tail wagging with renewed intensity. Even covered in grime and clearly annoyed, he crouched down to scratch behind her ears, his fingers disappearing into her golden fur.

Glenda moved to intercept, catching something Paul tossed in her direction. Keys, I realised — car keys, glinting briefly in the sunlight before she closed her fist around them.

"Wait, my car's here?" The surprise in Glenda's voice was genuine, her eyes widening as she held up the keys.

"Yeah," Paul replied, still focused on Lois. "It got bogged just over the hill."

A smile crept across my face before I could stop it. The ute's engine troubles had been bad enough, but at least we'd managed to get it back to camp. Glenda's car, apparently, hadn't been so lucky.

"We definitely need a road," I remarked, assuming Paul would see the humour in the situation. Two vehicles, both defeated by dust within hours of each other. There was a pattern forming, and it wasn't a good one.

Paul's head snapped up, his expression anything but amused. "I wouldn't be laughing if I were you. You wanna be the one to collect the stuff from the car or dig it out of the dust?"

The smile died on my lips. Right. Of course. Every problem in this place demanded a solution, and solutions meant work, and work meant more sweat and aching muscles and hours spent fighting against an environment that seemed determined to bury everything we built.

"Honestly," Glenda huffed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "This camp is like living with a bunch of children sometimes."

She started walking in the direction Paul had indicated, her strides purposeful and irritated. Lois and Duke fell into step behind her, tails still wagging, oblivious to the tension crackling through the air.

Uncle Jamie nudged me with his elbow, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. "I don't think she has any children," he said, his voice low.

"I heard that!" Glenda's response carried back to us despite the growing distance, sharp enough to make both of us wince.

The walk to the bogged car wasn't long, but it felt longer under the weight of the afternoon sun. The landscape rolled away in gentle waves of brown and red, the same monotonous palette that had become the backdrop to our entire existence. In the distance, the mountains rose against the sky like sleeping giants, their peaks hazy with heat shimmer.

Then the BMW came into view.

My spirits lifted at the sight — not because the car was in good condition, but because it was a car. Another piece of the world we'd left behind, another familiar shape in all this strangeness. The charcoal paintwork was barely visible beneath its coating of ochre dust, transforming the sleek European engineering into something that looked like it had been excavated from an archaeological dig.

"Fuck! You've done a good job, Paul," Uncle Jamie commented, crouching beside the buried back wheel.

The tyre had sunk deep into the soft earth, the dust swallowing it up to the hubcap. The other wheels weren't much better — the whole car had settled into the ground like it was trying to disappear, to become one with the landscape that was slowly claiming everything we brought here.

"It all happened so quickly," Paul said, embarrassment colouring his voice.

"I bet it did," Uncle Jamie chuckled, his candid nature finding amusement where Paul clearly couldn't.

I joined in the laughter, the sound escaping before I could catch it. Uncle Jamie had always been like that — blunt, honest, completely unconcerned with sparing people's feelings. It was one of the things I'd always admired about him.

"You're not staying, Paul?" Glenda called out as he started walking toward the portal.

Paul paused, his hand still resting on Lois's head. "I don't think Luke's done yet," he replied, the words heavy with implications I couldn't fully parse.

Then he was moving again, his figure shrinking as he headed toward the portal, leaving the rest of us standing around a car that had become part of the landscape.

I crouched beside Uncle Jamie, running my hands along the rim of the buried wheel. The dust was soft here, almost powdery, the kind that would shift and fill any hole you dug faster than you could empty it. Like trying to bail out a boat with a colander.

"Think we can dig it out?" I asked, already knowing the answer wasn't going to be encouraging.

Uncle Jamie demonstrated by plunging his fingers into the soft earth, watching the particles flow back into the depression almost immediately. "Not with our hands."

No. That much was obvious. We'd be here until sunset trying to scoop our way down to solid ground, and by then the dust would have reclaimed every inch we'd cleared. The stuff was relentless, determined to swallow anything that stood still long enough.

"Shovels, then?" I suggested, my mind already running through the inventory at the Drop Zone.

Uncle Jamie took a deep breath, his chest expanding beneath his dust-streaked shirt. I could see him working through the problem, calculating effort against outcome, weighing options that were all varying degrees of terrible.

"A shovel might work. It's probably the best we can do," he conceded, the resignation in his voice matching the slump of his shoulders.

"I'll go grab them," I offered, already pushing myself to my feet.

"Hold on." Uncle Jamie's hand caught my arm before I could take more than a step, his grip firm. "Go check the Drop Zone first. The shovels we've been using are covered in cement. It might make it a little more challenging for us."

Right. The concrete work. We'd been using the same tools all afternoon, and they'd be crusted with dried slurry by now — useless for digging until someone took the time to clean them properly. If Luke had left fresh shovels at the Drop Zone, that would save us an hour of scraping and chipping.

"Sure," I replied, nodding quickly as I straightened up.

The path to the Drop Zone had become familiar over the past two days, my feet finding the route without conscious thought. The landscape rolled away in gentle swells, each crest revealing more of the same — dust and rock and sky, an endless repetition of browns and blues that should have been boring but somehow never quite managed it.

The sun pressed down on my back like a hand pushing me forward, its heat soaking through my shirt and into my skin. Sweat gathered at the base of my spine, trickled down my temples, collected in the hollow of my throat. The air tasted of dust and something else, something mineral and ancient, like breathing in the bones of a world that had never known rain.

My thoughts drifted as I walked, cycling through the events of the day. Karen and Chris, with their strange acceptance of this place. The concrete slab, slowly curing in the sun. Lois bounding into camp like a golden comet, bringing with her a joy that felt almost obscene in the midst of so much displacement. The BMW sinking into the earth, another casualty of a landscape that refused to be tamed.

And underneath it all, the constant hum of questions without answers. How long would we be here? Was there really no way back? What would happen when the supplies ran out, when the concrete was gone, when Luke stopped delivering boxes of civilisation through his impossible doorway?

The Drop Zone appeared over the next rise, marker stones catching the light, supply piles casting long shadows across the dust. I was maybe fifty metres away when it happened.

The air in front of me shimmered.

Not the usual heat distortion — this was something else, something that made my eyes ache and my brain stumble. The landscape rippled like a reflection in disturbed water, and for a moment I saw something else layered over the familiar emptiness.

Buildings. Structures rising from the ochre earth, their lines clean and purposeful. Paths connecting them, cleared of dust, revealing hard-packed ground beneath. People moving between the structures, their figures small but distinct against the backdrop of organised settlement. Gardens, maybe, or cultivation plots — patches of green breaking the monotony of brown and red. A community. A civilisation. Something that had grown from nothing into something real and permanent.

I blinked, and it was gone.

Just the Drop Zone. Just the dust and the supplies and the endless empty landscape stretching toward mountains that never seemed to get any closer.

A mirage. Had to be. The heat playing tricks on my exhausted brain, conjuring images from wishes I hadn't even known I was making. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the afterimage that lingered at the edges of my vision, the ghost of a future that might never exist.

The walk resumed, each step bringing me closer to the task at hand. Find the shovels. Dig out the car. Keep moving forward, one problem at a time, because that was the only way to survive in a place like this. You couldn't think about the big picture, couldn't let yourself dwell on the enormity of what had happened. You just focused on what was in front of you — the next concrete slab, the next bogged vehicle, the next meal that needed cooking.

But as I reached the supply piles and started searching for tools, I couldn't quite shake what I'd seen. The vision — hallucination, whatever it was — had felt real. More than real. It had felt like a glimpse of something that was waiting to happen, a potential future hovering just beyond the present moment.

Uncle Jamie was right about one thing. This camp was temporary. These tents, this desperate scramble to establish basic survival — it wasn't meant to last. Whether we found a way home or built something permanent here, change was coming. The only question was what form it would take.

My fingers closed around a shovel handle, the metal cool despite the heat, and I pulled it free from the pile. Clean. No cement residue, no crusted concrete. Luke had come through after all.

I grabbed a second shovel, balancing both across my shoulder, and started the walk back to the bogged BMW.