Kierra

She gets up in answer, walking to the door. Tigger beats her there, meowing up at her and rubbing against her legs.

"Later Tiggs."

She walks out without giving him a pat. How rude.

I swoop him up and give him a hug, rubbing one of his ears. He purrs for me, letting me know that he's comfy. Setting him down and heading out the door, my sibling's waiting on the porch for me, her arms crossed and leaning against the railing.

"You spoil that cat, you know that?"

I smile and lock the door, trying to ignore her bad attitude. I know it stems from me saying she couldn't go meet her friend but I can't help if I don't trust some dude I don't know. We all have our shortcomings, trust is mine.

Of course, now is when I regret the black shirt as I look down and notice that Tigger is shedding again. Frowning a bit, I start pulling off white hair as I step off the porch. After years of having him, you'd think I'd have learned by now that having a cat with white fur doesn't go well with dark fabrics.

We head out past my old jeep wrangler and into the woods. First I take her to the spot where I was bitten. There isn't even any blood to show that it had happened. She questions that, and I tell her my shirt and coat had probably soaked up most of it. The windbreaker that had been left yet now gone to who knows what critters nest.

We sit and talk for a while, then get going again, this time heading towards the mall. We have to go by a couple houses first. Although I think calling them 'houses' is kind of pushing it a bit, since no one lives in them and they've been abandoned since before we moved in.

One of them, a one-story ranch much like ours, is burnt out, only the small garage survived. The building next to it was more like a large shed, not a house. My bad. We've never really checked it out before, seeing as how I figured someone would have come by to look at it by now. No one has though.

I walk towards the garage, the sliding door not quite shut all the way, leaving about a two and a half foot gap at the bottom.

"Hey, Faline, help me out here."

"What are you doing?"

"I want to lift it up, see if anything's inside."

"Are you crazy? What if it falls?"

"The fire didn't get this far, it's perfectly fine. Now come on, help me out."

She grumbles but helps me lift it. The dirt driveway is covered in small plants and weeds, but nothing too big to get in the way. With me on one side, and her on the other, we lift it the rest of the way up. My one-armed lifting abilities are not the greatest.

It's all about leverage boys and girls.

It's a bit rusted, but not too bad. When it's all the way up, we step back. It's dark inside, but after a few moments, our eyes adjust to the interior.

Inside are what looks to be tables against the walls, everything covered in dust. The ground inside is concrete, of course, while the tables are metal, painted some dark color. I can tell they're painted due to some chipped and peeling places. Some tools and yard management items hang on the walls, a few shelves. There are boxes on the floor, their bottoms water damaged.

"What do you think are in the boxes?"

I ask her, but she's looking intently at one of the back corners. I follow her gaze and see a rather large dog house, shaped like a small house and everything. I frown, hoping the dog wasn't in the fire.

"Do you think the dog survived?"

She asks, but I have no real answer. Then I get a thought.

"What if it belongs to the dog that bit me? That would explain where he came from."

But not why he didn't have a collar, but I don't mention that. I walk in, heading towards some boxes on the right side. Faline looks around for a light switch, or, I think that's what she's doing, looking around the walls the way she's doing.

The boxes are folded shut, not taped. Good. I open the closest one to find clothes. What looks to be men's shirts. There's no writing on the box; no name, nothing. I move onto the next box.

"I don't see a light switch, nor a light bulb, how did they see in... Oh, wait, what's this?"

She clicks something, and several tube-like light bulbs turn on all along the ceiling. I blink rapidly, my eyes squinting against the bright light. You could see pretty fine before, but now it's brighter in here than outside, fewer shadows.

Faline begins to walk beside the tables, lightly touching the items on them. I open another box, and like before, this one is folded shut, no writing. More clothes, this time it looks like pants, mostly jeans.

"Hey, check this out."

I move over to where she's standing in front of a very dusty long table, rummaging in a plastic crate. Pulling items from it, she hands me an old picture. It's about six by five just by the frame. The picture inside looked like it was much bigger at one time.

A man and woman are featured. The woman looking at him with a smile, her hand reaching out towards him. He looks like he's concentrating on something off to the side.

Her hair is a light blond and looks long, her eyes an icy glacier blue. Wearing a small green sundress decorated with ribbons, her skin shows sun-kissed. From what I can tell about him, his hair is black and goes to below his shoulders, eyes look green from the angle the picture was taken. He's tall, probably around six-feet or more, where the woman looks to be around my height, maybe an inch or so taller. His shoulders are wide, and he looks well built. Can't really tell by his clothing.

A baggy T-shirt and faded, ripped jeans. His face is rugged, tanned, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. He looks kind of sad to me. Very handsome, but sad.

The next item handed to me is a wood carving. It looks weird till I have it turned the right way. It looks to be a symbol of protection, I think. I'm not caught up on Wiccan or Pagan symbols. On the bottom, it's dated; made twenty-six years ago.

"I wonder why they didn't take their stuff?" She asks me.

"Maybe they didn't want it. It happens. Grief does weird things to a person."

She pulls out more wood carvings. One's a type of bird in flight, the detail precise and fine. The next a bear with a small cub. I can't tell what type of wood was used, but the patterns of the wood add to what's carved. The spirals and dips add texture and dimension to the bear and her young.

Faline pulls out a few more, but the one that really catches my eye is the wolf. The lighter whirls of the medium add definition to its fur. The wolf is standing with his muzzle raised as if caught in a howl, his song captured forever in wood.

It's beautiful. The date on the bottom of this one was dated twenty-seven years ago. There's some smoke damage on this one, almost as if it were colored in smoke. I set it aside and move to more boxes.

My sister and I spend hours in the garage going through things. Several tubs and more boxes hidden along shelves. I'm setting books back in a box when I glance at my phone clock. 5:16 pm.

"Uh Faline, we need to get going if we're gonna make it to the store. It probably closes at six, which means we only have half an hour to get there and take a look."

"What time is it?"

I glance again.

"5:17."

"Damn."

She stuffs the items back in the box she had opened. We have most of the boxes on the tables. Just looking in here, it didn't look like that many, but we found there were lots more.

Faline had gotten over her grumpiness after the first few boxes, then she got too nosy, er, curious, to be upset. Thank God. My arm is twitching a little from all the lifting, I rotate it and my neck. The arm then begins throbbing, traveling up my neck and to my back, the muscles pulling and having spaz attacks. I push on and ignore it.

She turns off the lights, it gets real dark, real quick. We walk out and shut the garage door, leaving about a three-foot gap. Outside, I look up at the sky, the colors of purple and dusty pink are clamoring against the clouds.

Inhaling deeply, I smell that it'll probably rain later. We take off at a fast pace, not running exactly, but a very fast walk. Maybe a jog for Faline with her short legs.

I'm just rounding a tree when I see him. The wolf-dog. His mouth is opened, tongue lolling out. He looks up at me and my sister, who's a couple of feet off to my side.

Black fur shines in the fading light, eyes gleaming at us as an ear twitches back. Looking from her to me, he barks at me, startling her and I both, but then he turns and runs away.

Blowing out the breath I didn't realize I was holding, I turn to my sister. She looks at me, an eyebrow raised.

"Was that the dog that bit you?"

I nod, my hand going to my shoulder. It had stopped throbbing, it was now more like a dull ache, still jumpy though.

"He's beautiful."

I nod again and start walking, we're almost there.

***

Faline

5:39 pm

"He's beautiful."

Kierra nods and starts walking again. We're maybe five minutes away from the mall parking lot. The dog was pitch black, not a dark brown, but true obsidian. His eyes were the color of seawater; a mixture of blue and green.

"Kie, did you see something around his neck?"

"Yeah."

"What was it? It didn't look like any collar I've ever seen."

"It's a necklace."

"A necklace? Why would you put a necklace on a dog, but not a collar?"

She shrugs as we come up on the concrete expanse. It's pretty cool how they built it; a 'single' long building as you would see with any strip mall, with a parking lot surrounding it and half the lot being up against the woods. Then there's the back lot that has an empty overgrown plot of land that no one's done anything with.

There are still cars parked at Spergmen's and, from what I can tell, J.P. Lenny. The woods are at the end of Spergmen's, where we came through. There are also a few cars in the middle, where you would enter into the original mall part.

All the stores had been taken out a couple of years ago since more and more people went to Cherryvale Mall instead. But now it seems there's a single store there. A really big one. 'Farmington Coats'. Oh, yippee.

Kierra stops midway through the parking lot, looking at the building. She looks bored and kind of disappointed. Can't say I blame her, I am too. Come on, a coat store? That's lame.

I hear her heave an exaggerated sigh. After all that walking though, I suddenly have an urge. Grabbing her by her good arm and missing her small wince, I pull her towards the store.

"What are you doing?"

I don't answer her till we get to the doors. Sliding glass doors, go figure. I turn to find her glaring at me, then she cocks an eyebrow.

"If we don't get in there right now, I'm gonna be doing the pee-pee dance out here."

Eyes widen, then she bursts out laughing. I frown at her.

"It's not funny, I really have to go. Now."

She keeps laughing, but steps on the sensor pad to open the door. I walk through in front, wanting to hit her. Hard. Glancing at a sign that's hung on one of the large windows, I learn that they're actually open till 8PM.

As we walk in, the sliding doors make that 'swoosh' sound as they close behind us. Looking around, I notice that it's not just coats they sell, but all sorts of clothes. Sweet, but first; bathroom.

I look around the ceiling for any signs. Can see plenty of advertising sales, specials, clearance, and sectioned off clothing, but no restroom. Kierra nudges me and points to a far wall, sure enough, RESTROOMS is labeled.

Thank God. I hurry towards them with my sister a couple of steps behind, probably lagging so she can look around. I see the men's room first, they have it closed off for cleaning. Praying to the restroom Gods for the women's to be open, an older woman, probably in her seventies, walks in front of me heading in the direction I am. I move to go around her when Kierra grabs me.

I glance back, about to bitch at her, but she catches my eye and shakes her head, grinning. I growl at her. She cocks an eyebrow. Yeah, slight role reversal there, but I really have to go. Turning back, the old lady goes in. It's open! Yay for me.

I head in after her, sibling waiting outside. Luckily, it's the typical three-stall room, and the old woman and I are the only ones needing the bathroom, so I'm able to use it right away. Afterwards, my hands get washed, dried, then the room is exited. All before the old woman is done.