Homestead is a 2022 short story written by Delilah Dawson, published by Titan Books as part of the anthology Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey. Set in the Old West, it centers on Lucy, a rancher's wife who finds herself alone and confronted by untold alien horrors at the same time that the birth of her first child begins.
Plot[]
Rancher's wife Lucy, heavily pregnant with her first child, awakes in the night to the sound of her dog, Dash, barking frantically. Alone on the property while her husband Robert is away in town, she rises to investigate. Dash runs off as soon as she opens the door, but otherwise nothing seems a miss and Lucy returns to bed. Waking again in the morning, she finds Dash has yet to come home. As she sets about tending to the animals, she finds mysterious scorch marks on the side of the barn. She also discovers the horses within acting strangely — mares Belle and Beau seem agitated and afraid, while stallion Devil is lethargic and weak, slick with sweat and his belly swollen. Continuing with her chores, Lucy notices from a distance several strange objects that have been revealed in the muddy bed of the nearby lake, which has been receding steadily on account of the ongoing drought. As day fades into night, Lucy notes that Robert has failed to return from town as promised, assuring herself that he will be back tomorrow.
She is awoken once more in the night by the sound of her pigs squealing in terror. She rushes to investigate, arriving just in time to see one of the animals gruesomely burst apart. A hideous snake-like creature emerges from the corpse, and Lucy quickly kills it with a pitchfork, its highly corrosive blood melting the fork almost immediately. Shocked and horrified, Lucy flees as more of the pigs begin to explode from within; she takes Belle from the barn and rides away into the night as Devil also gives macabre birth in the barn behind her.
Lucy makes for the nearest neighboring farmstead, that of the Gundersons, a friendly German couple, but on the way her waters break and she realises her child is going to be born imminently. Arriving at the Gundersons' property, she finds the ranch eerily quiet. Investigating, she discovers yet more strange objects in the muddy lake bed nearby, some of which have seemingly peeled open like flowers, while the corpse of Mr. Gudnerson lies nearby, a hole ripped in his chest. Retreating to the farmhouse, Lucy finds Mrs. Gunderson is also dead, her body lying in their blood-soaked bed, ripped to pieces. Her terror mounting, Lucy prepares to flee once more, in spite of the first pains of labor that now wrack her body. However, she discovers Belle lying comatose outside with something attached to her face. Attempting to take one of the Gundersons' horses from their barn, Lucy finds they too are all dead, having burst from within just like her pigs.
Now trapped and seeing dark, insectoid creatures lurking in the surrounding grass, Lucy arms herself with the first weapon that comes to hand — a scythe — and prepares to face them. Taking refuge in the midst of the Gunderson's stampeding herd of terrified cattle, hoping their numbers will give her some protection, she is attacked by one of the creatures and manages to wound it, but the scythe is destroyed by its acid blood in the process. As the creature prepares to finish her, it is suddenly bisected by an invisible Predator, which then drops its cloak and reveals itself to a stunned Lucy. When it advances on her, she desperately beats it with her fists, and the hunter steps back once more, seemingly respecting her show of defiance, before disappearing again. Fresh contractions overcome Lucy, and as she curls on the floor in agony she hears the sounds of her savior slaughtering the remaining creatures lurking in the darkness.
With her labor moving into its final phases, exhausted and overcome with shock, Lucy retreats to the Gundersons' house, witnessing the Predator's ship depart from the lake as she crawls to the door. Inside, alone, she condemns Robert aloud for his absence as she is forced to deliver her own child. She barely has time to register the fact it is a stillbirth before a host of snake-like creatures erupt from her stomach, just as she hears Robert calling for her outside.
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