The Howling II by Gary Brandner

nights, Karyn slept fitfully. She was waiting, straining to hear even the smallest sound from downstairs that did not belong. All she heard were the normal creaks and snaps a house makes as it cools off at night, but her imagination gave them strange and sinister implications.
    During the daytime she stayed close to the house. When she walked even as far as the mailbox she watched carefully behind her. No one followed.
    Finally she began to relax a little. Maybe, just maybe, she had imagined those things - the watcher, the night sounds downstairs. Maybe everything was going to be all right.
    Then her plants began to sicken.
    The Boston fern was the first to show symptoms of trouble. While making her rounds with the watering can and spray bottle, Karyn noticed several of the little saw-toothed fronds, curled and brown, lying on the floor under the fern. When she examined the plant more closely she found dying fronds, and the remaining, living fronds had lost their resiliency. She moved on to the spider plant and saw that the bladelike leaves no longer held their proud arch. The pointed tips on several were beginning to turn brown. Her pet, the philodendron, seemed robust still, but even its leaves looked duller than they should be.
    Karyn heard Mrs. Jensen out in the kitchen. She called to her, and the housekeeper came out wiping her hands on a towel.
    “Yes, Mrs. Richter?”
    “Have you been watering the plants?”
    “I never touch those plants. You asked me not to, as I remember.”
    “Yes, that’s right. Thank you.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Yes, that’s all.”
    Karyn read the woman’s resentment in the set of her shoulders as she marched back to the kitchen. She’d make it up to the housekeeper later, by praising the dinner or something.
    Karyn walked around and looked at the plants again. There was no doubt that something was wrong with them. Even the strong philodendron. The trouble was that sick plants looked the same whether they were overwatered, underwatered, or suffering from any number of horticultural maladies. Karyn had always been careful about the watering, and she had seen to it that each got its proper amount of light and was kept within the acceptable temperature range. The soil had been specially blended at the store where she bought the plants; the nutrients she added at specified intervals came from there too.
    She had heard the theory that plants can pick up the psychological vibrations of their people, and react to them, but she considered the idea ridiculous. All the same, something was definitely wrong with her plants, and Karyn resolved to watch them closely.
    In the next 24 hours they got much worse. By then there was a generous scattering of dead brown fronds under, the fern. The spider plant drooped sadly, its leaves turning yellow and curling in on themselves. The philodendron had completely lost its glossy good health. The leaves had paled and hung limp from the vine. The whole plant sagged against the post as though it were an effort to remain upright.
    Karyn decided to wait no longer. She carried the three plants out to her little Datsun and drove off for Plant World on Aurora, where she had bought them. She felt just a little foolish rushing them off like sick children, but they were her responsibility.
    She pulled into the parking lot at Plant World and carried them in one by one. She was relieved to find an understanding woman at the counter, and not some smartass who would have to make jokes.
    “My, they do seem to be feeling poorly, don’t they?” the woman said.
    “It just happened in the last couple of days,” Karyn said. “What do you think is wrong with them?”
    “I’d hate to take a guess. Mr. Bjorklund will be back this afternoon. He’s awfully good with sick little fellows like these.”
    “Would it be all right if I left them here? I could come back tomorrow and talk to Mr. - “
    “Bjorklund,” the woman supplied. “Of course you can leave them, dear.