FADE IN:
EXT. RURAL SLAUGHTERHOUSE - NIGHT
A lightning-torn sky over a decrepit plant.
The sign flickers: “BLESSED BEEF CO. — We Pray Before We Slay.”
Wind rattles a sagging gate. In the distance, a herd of cows stands motionless, all facing the plant.
Home on the Range plays softly on a distant radio.
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT
RICK (50s, foreman with a gut and a grudge) sips beer and watches grainy CCTV feeds: exterior pens, kill floor, corridors.
A steel-toe boot kicks a muddy door open. DALE (30s, tired, blood-smeared apron) leans in.
DALE
Clock says it's time to kick gravel and travel.
RICK
We can't go nowhere until the burger gets boxed!
He points to a monitor: the cows, eerily still.
DALE
(uneasy chuckle)
They do that frozen statue thing again?
DALE
What’s up with Sir Loin? Why’s he just standin’ there starin’ at the camera?
He leans closer to the monitor, squinting.
RICK
Yeah... it’s like he’s eye-fuckin’ us.
(leans forward, smirks)
Hey, look — Moolinda and Moo-Dee are doin’ it too.
Dale exits. Rick kills the music, listening to the storm.
EXT. HOLDING PENS - NIGHT
Rain needles the tin roofs. Dale’s flashlight slices through mist.
The beam lands on dozens of eyes. Glassy. Unblinking.
DALE
Stop freezing up ya bastards, you haven't even seen the freezer yet...
A low, guttural moo — too deep. Wrong.
Dale swallows, raises his radio.
DALE
(into radio)
Rick, they’re — I dunno, they’re just —
Static hisses. Then a distorted cowbell jingle through the radio, faint and taunting.
Dale lowers the radio. His light drops to the mud: hoof prints circling. Fresh. Then nothing. The herd is gone.
DALE
What in sam fucking hill?
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT
Rick peers at the monitors. The pens: empty.
RICK
Where the hell...
A wet thud lands somewhere above. The fluorescent lights flicker.
A slim stream of blood trickles along the window frame, worming downward.
Rick racks a pump shotgun — chamber check, ready.
RICK
You stupid fucking beasts, gonna be hamburger one way or t’nother.
INT. KILL FLOOR CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS
Emergency lights strobe the long corridor. Chains sway. Hooks clink.
Rick steps through, boot heels echo against concrete.
Another thud above. He looks up.
A splatter of blood hits his cheek.
His flashlight crawls across the ceiling vents... then down to Dale’s arm, severed at the elbow, still clenching a flashlight lodged in the floor grating.
RICK
Jesus... Dale?
The dangling flashlight suddenly turns — pointing toward the double doors to the kill floor.
A cowbell answers from beyond the doors. Once. Twice. Slow. Ritual.
INT. KILL FLOOR - CONTINUOUS
Rick pushes in. Darkness. Steam. The huge hook conveyor looms above, motionless.
He edges forward, breath loud in his ears.
From the shadows, a massive cow’s head slides into the beam.
In its mouth, hooked like a bit, hangs a butcher’s hook running through Dale’s eye sockets.
On its head sits Rick’s baseball cap.
RICK
What in tar nation?
(Trembly lipped)
My God the Mootriarch!
The cow steps to one side — revealing Dale’s body, branded with a fresh, blistered “B” over his chest, swaying on a hook.
A second cow — Moolinda — emerges, horns dripping with blood. The matriarch.
Behind her, the herd assembles, filling the shadows. Hooves scrape concrete. Tails twitch in perfect rhythm.
RICK
Yah, yah, BACK!
He fires — BOOM. The shot echoes. The mootriarch only flinches and lowers her head.
The overhead conveyor chugs to life on its own. Chains jerk.
Sir Loin surges forward, ramming Rick into the track.
Another shoves the hook into his shoulder, lifting him.
RICK
(screaming)
Are you fucking with me right now! This is how I go out?!
The herd moos in deep, synchronized waves — a chant.
The mootriarch paces under him, eyes like polished stone.
Rick rises toward the grinder shroud — a humming maw.
His fingers smear blood across the frame as he passes Dale.
The country radio crackles to life somewhere.
RADIO (O.S.)
♪ Oh, give me a home… where the buffalo roam… ♪
RICK
(choking)
Not like this!
The conveyor jerks. The grinder whines.
SMASH CUT TO:
EXT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE - DAWN
The storm has washed the world clean. Birds dare a few notes.
The marquee now reads, scrawled in blood and mud: “BLESSED BE THE COWS.”
In the parking lot, a calf stands amid scattered gear.
It chews lazily on Rick’s name tag.
From inside the plant, the radio drifts on the morning breeze.
RADIO (O.S.)
♪ …where seldom is heard a discouraging word… ♪
The calf’s cowbell jingles once.
The herd watches from the misty field — rows of silent jurors.
FADE OUT.
TITLE CARD: WHEN THE COWS COME HOME… THEY COME FOR BLOOD.
END.
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It’s really gory but we’ll written