Her name is Rowan, she's the new nurse here at Birkwood Asylum. She sat in the nurses lounge room, bored, before She pushed her glasses up her nose.
She heard a scream. The scream was distant and brief. A girls scream. She cocked her head, listening. The only noise after was the creak of her chair as Rowan shifted in her seat.
After listening intently for several seconds, Rowan wasn't sure she had actually heard anything at all.
Imagination, she told herself. She would have preferred that someone HAD screamed. She was restless.
During the off season, from April through September, she was the only full time nurse assigned at Birkwood Asylum.
She sighed, looked down at her magazine that lay in her lap-and heard another scream. As before it was distant and brief, but this time it sounded like a boys. It was merely a shriek of excitement or even a cry of alarm; it was the sound of terror.
Frowning, Rowan got up from the comfortable recliner and headed down the hall.
She couldn't have heard a scream. All the other nurses went home and the patients were in the Patients Lounge, and that was in a different direction the screams came from.
She headed into the children's room. It was empty, and she was by herself. The door slammed behind her and Rowan's head snapped to it.
Her hand flew to the door knob. It was locked.
When she turned, however, she discovered she wasn't alone anymore. And suddenly she wasn't the least bit bored.
