Uncensored version:

Uncle's funeral was a small affair. Only a handful of close family attended, and those that did did so begrudgingly. I never knew the man, but by all accounts, he was ornery as hell, and what friends he did have "weren't what you'd call 'churchgoers'," muttered one aunt darkly. "He was mixed up in some bad business. But we all get what we deserve in the end."

In any event, we were burying an empty coffin. There was almost a sense of relief as it was lowered into the ground. I got the impression there was no love lost. The funeral was more for putting old demons to rest.

The ranch fell to me, since nobody else would take it. Three hundred acres of secluded pasturage. It almost seemed too good to be true. I drove out there, the truck rattling along pitted backroads. It was as the police had left it - the silent farmhouse, scattered with bottles of dark red wine, as if interrupted mid-revelry. The barn, where uncle was presumed to have met his end, was a blackened shell, scorched beams festooned with police tape, and everything reeking of sulfur.

One of the cows saw me and raised her head with a long, morose moo. Poor thing. The farm had been abandoned for days and her udders hung heavy beneath her, in desperate need of milking. No wonder she looked distraught. She stomped and paced, trying to angle her rear end away from the bulls that had taken an interest.

"Don't worry, girl, we'll get you drained soon," I say, opening the paddock gate.

The animal clomped urgently towards the barn, braying and whimpering as her bloated udders scraped through the dirt. She barged through the ruin of the barn door and rushed to one corner, scraping at the ashy ground with a hoof. I knelt beside her and brushed away the soot, and there I found lumps of melted candlewax placed around a symbol scorched into the ground. A blackened book lay buried beneath the burnt straw. As I flicked through the singed pages, polaroids fell into my hands. The images were blurred, distorted, and disturbing.

My stomach twisted. There was Uncle, caught in the middle of some... ritual. By the terror on his face, it was clear something had gone horribly wrong. Around him, black-robed figures ran, screamed, jeered as flames licked up from the pentagram to ignite the barn, swelling and twisting his flesh as horns ripped from his scalp and his fingers melted and ran like bubbling candlewax into cartilaginous hooves.

Slowly, I looked up from the photos to the heifer, noting the glimmer of awareness screaming behind those big, brown, vacant bovine eyes. A tear trickled down his snout.

"Some things are best left buried," I whispered. I tore the polaroids to pieces and let the wind carry them away.

I tried to forget what I'd seen. The man was dead. He'd tangled with things he didn't understand. There was always work to be done on the farm and with the herd, so it was easy to put him out of my mind.

I plowed the wreckage of the barn until no trace remained. Years have passed and still nothing grows on the land where it had stood. And Buttercup, our prized milker, remains. Such an unnaturally long life for a cow, and yet she remains as productive and fecund as ever. I put that out of my mind. I take good care of her, though she's always testing the fences regardless, always trying to find an escape with that big brain of hers.

I like to keep her udders half-full at all times. It's harder for her to escape that way. And of course, the bulls keep her occupied.