To Fetch a Pail of Water?

The neighbors always remembered the rhyme.

Jack and Jill went up the hill...

No one remembered why.

Jack was nine the first time he watched Jill smile over a body.

It was a rabbit she'd found in the woods. She'd broken its neck with her bare hands, then carefully braided flowers around it before calling him over.

"Isn't it pretty?" she'd whispered.

Jack had thrown up.

Their mother told everyone Jill was simply imaginative.

Their father stopped asking where the neighborhood pets disappeared.

By sixteen, they had discovered something neither expected.

They liked killing.

Together, they were unstoppable.

Jack was charming. He could make strangers trust him in minutes.

Jill was patient. She knew exactly how to make people disappear.

Victims were lured to abandoned hiking trails, old wells, forgotten cabins.

The newspapers blamed cults.

The police blamed drifters.

The siblings blamed no one.

They kept score.

Twenty-three.

Thirty-eight.

Fifty-one.

Every New Year's Eve they'd carve another notch into the old oak tree behind their farmhouse.

Jack always laughed.

Jill never did.

Then Jack fell in love.

Her name was Emily.

She made him laugh without blood involved.

She asked about his dreams.

She wanted children.

She wanted a life that didn't smell like bleach and decay.

For the first time, Jack imagined growing old.

He told Jill they were finished.

"No more."

She stared at him for so long he wondered if she'd heard.

Then she smiled.

"Of course."

Emily vanished three days later.

The police found only one shoe beside the creek.

Jack knew.

He didn't need evidence.

He knew.

He confronted Jill in the basement.

"You killed her."

"No."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I expect you to know me."

Silence.

Then—

"I killed her because you loved her."

Jack froze.

"You were supposed to love me."

She tilted her head.

"We're partners."

"We're family."

"We're forever."

Jack swung first.

The hammer struck her shoulder instead of her skull.

Bone cracked.

She laughed.

Actually laughed.

She pulled a hunting knife from behind her back.

"I've been waiting for this."

The basement became a slaughterhouse.

Shelves collapsed.

Glass jars exploded.

Blood mixed with old stains neither sibling had bothered cleaning.

Jack drove her through the workbench.

She buried the knife beneath his ribs.

He smashed her face into concrete.

She bit off part of his ear.

Every wound felt practiced.

Every attack anticipated.

No one knew you better than the person who had hidden bodies beside you.

Finally, Jack wrapped both hands around her throat.

"You killed everyone I ever loved."

"You were... all... I needed..."

He squeezed harder.

Her eyes bulged.

Then...

She smiled.

One last time.

Jack frowned.

Why...

Why was she smiling?

Click.

His foot pressed down on something beneath the blood.

A pressure switch.

He looked down.

Too late.

The basement erupted.

Jill had packed the foundation with homemade explosives months ago.

She hadn't planned to survive.

She'd planned for him not to.

The farmhouse collapsed into itself.

By sunrise, nothing remained except smoke, ash...

...and the old oak tree.

Sixty-three notches scarred its trunk.

Police assumed the siblings had died together.

The case was finally closed.

One week later...

A little girl wandered into the abandoned property.

She noticed something buried beneath the tree.

A rusted tin box.

Inside were dozens of Polaroids.

Every victim.

Every smiling face.

Every corpse.

And at the very bottom...

A folded nursery rhyme written in neat handwriting.

It wasn't the one everyone knew.

It read:

Jack and Jill went up the hill.

Jack came rolling after.

Jill stayed smiling all the while...

Because she planned the chapter.

The little girl frowned.

Behind her...

Someone giggled.

Soft.

Patient.

Familiar.

She turned.

No one was there.

Except fresh footprints leading away from the ruins.

Only one set.

Barefoot.

Wet with blood.