“Fair enough.”  She was driving them in a circuit around the mall, looking for any signs of habitation.  There were a few dozen cars still parked within view, some with doors wide open or broken windows and old blood stains.  Others still closed tight and mostly undamaged.  Almost all of them had dents and scratches on them.

As they reached the end of their circuit without coming across any sign of life, friendly or otherwise, Helen pulled up right in front of the double glass doors leading into a major chain store.  The two of them exited the truck and spent a little time surveying the area, watching and listening for any motion at all.  Other than a few birds, nothing moved.   Allistor tried the door and found it unlocked.  There were actually two sets of doors, outer and inner.   A quick test of the inner doors unsurprisingly showed them to be unlocked as well.

He stepped back outside and opened the back door of the truck, letting Fuzzy out.  “Stay behind me, okay, lil buddy?  We’re going to explore the great big cave.”

They all entered the first set of doors, then the second.  Fuzzy caught his own reflection in the glass and licked at it, but he made no sound.  Allistor scratched his ears to thank him.

Inside the store, they found themselves in men’s clothing.  Allistor looked around the wide open expanse full of shelves and clothes racks, and fear gripped him.  There could be a dozen canids within fifty feet of him, and he’d never see them coming.   A quick look at Helen showed a similar worry written all over her face.  She whispered, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea?”

Allistor didn’t answer right away.  He crouched down in front of Fuzzy and asked, “You smell anything, buddy?  I mean, I know you smell lots of things.  There’s all kinds of perfumes and people scents in this place.  But do you smell anything that might eat us?”

Fuzzy looked at him for a moment, then licked his face.  The smell of snake corpse was unpleasant, but Allistor took it as a good sign.  Standing straight, he looked back at the doors, considering.

“Fuzzy says we’re good for now.  Grab some belts off that rack over there.” He pointed, and Helen moved to comply while he went back to look at the doors.  He’d worked retail for a brief period as a kid, and had been responsible for locking similar doors when he worked the evening shift.   As he expected, the right side door of each set had a lever you could pull down that dropped a pin into the floor, and another for the top of the frame.  He quickly locked both of those, leaving only the left-hand doors.   The outer door could only be locked with a key, which was discouraging.   But the inner door had a deadbolt-like knob that could be turned on the inside.