The aliens had to be stopped, which Ben knew would be pretty tough even if he had a whole army on his side. If no one believed him, it would be almost impossible. He had to get that proof.
He eased his phone very gently out of his pocket. The fence was made of wooden slats and just to Ben’s right there was a small gap between two of them.
Even though it was cold, Ben was sweating. He was also trembling, though that had nothing to do with the cold, and as he held the phone up to the gap, he almost dropped it. Luckily, his grip held firm and he pressed the button. There should have been enough light from the spaceship to ensure the picture came out, but he couldn’t be certain the phone was pointing in the right direction.
Ben changed the angle of the camera so that he could take a different shot and was just about to press the button again when disaster struck.
Next-door’s cat jumped out of a tree and onto the top of the fence. It startled Ben so much that he slipped and fell backwards. Fortunately, he landed quietly on the grass, but less fortunately, his phone had flown out of his hand and landed somewhere in the yard.
From where he was lying, Ben heard some alien clicks and croaks, then he saw a flash of light, and what looked like a laser beam shot out over the top of the fence. Thankfully, the cat was very quick and jumped out of the way just as the beam went past its ears, but it was very close. Yet more proof of the aliens’ power, only this could have been deadly.
Ben lay as still as he could, which wasn’t easy as there was a sharp twig poking into his back. The cat must have made the aliens decide to leave, because a few seconds later the glowing red light faded away and he was left in complete darkness.
Just to be sure, Ben stayed still for another few minutes. The pain from the twig was pretty bad now, but he reckoned it was a small price to pay. If he’d been discovered by the aliens, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be just the cat that they destroyed.
Eventually, he decided the coast was clear and crawled over to where he hoped his phone might have landed.
He felt around with his hands, trying to find it, but it didn’t seem to have fallen where he would have expected it to be. He widened his search, but gave up when he put his hand on something soft, squishy, and wet. Thankfully, it wasn’t something the cat had done, it was just a large slug, but Ben decided he needed a flashlight. He knew he really should have gone to get one a while ago, but he was desperate to get the phone and hoped it would have been easy to find.
Ben tiptoed back to the house and grabbed a flashlight from a small closet under the stairs. When he returned to the yard, it still wasn’t easy to find his phone. He shone the flashlight everywhere, and was just thinking that it might have gone over the fence, when he saw it. It was lying under a bush on the right-hand side of the yard.
Relieved, Ben grabbed it and went back inside to his bedroom.
“Please, please, please let there be a good picture of the aliens,” he said.
He took a deep breath and pressed the photo app on his phone.
The last picture he had taken came up instantly.
It was an awesome photograph of absolutely nothing.