Rimmer was panicking. It was something he often did in a stressful, dangerous situation. And who could blame him...he was about to waltz out into a zombie ridden town, armed with only a shovel that felt like it couldn't dig it's way through some soggy soil let alone a zombie's skull!

"Do we have to go out there?" said Rimmer, backing away from the open door, clutching his shovel for dear life.

"Well, yeah if we wanna escape" said Toni, tightening her grip on the baseball bat she'd found.

Rimmer gulped and made no attempt to move, the colour had long since drained from his face and his stomach was rolling and churning about like the contents of a washing machine tumbling down a hill.

"You're not scared are you, sir?" asked Kryten

"Scared" laughed Rimmer "Of course I'm smegging scared! We're stranded on a zombie infested planet with nothing but DIY tools and gardening implements for weapons and the one thing that stands between us and certain death is the wit, brains and cunning of Lister, who thinks a parsnip is some kind of albino carrot!"

"Well, at least I know Gazpacho soup is supposed to be served cold!" retorted Lister,

Sensing another 'Rimmer V Lister' showdown, Kryten intervened. "I think you're being slightly pessimistic towards Mr Lister's abilities, sir. I have full confidence in him being able to get us off this Godforsaken planetoid, and it would probably make the whole ghastly experience a bit more bearable if you kept your comments to yourself. I understand that being the natural coward that you are" Rimmer glared at him "this situation is hardly the most relaxing you've ever experienced, but your negative attitude towards anything and everything is getting rather distracting…" he smiled "So lets just to try to look on the bright side shall we sir?"

"The bright side?" snapped Rimmer "Kryten, our 'bright side' is darker than Tim Burtons imagination!"

"Still" said Charlie, "Kryten's got a point. We stand a better chance of getting out of here alive if we stay positive." She sneaked a glance at Rimmer "It'd make things easier."

Normally, if one of the others had said that to Rimmer, he'd have launched into another one of his now legendary rants, hurling all the insults he knew at them till his voice box refused to work, but because it was Charlie, he just smiled back.

"Ready to go then" grinned Toni, "I'm in the mood to go kick some zombie butt!"

"Me too" said Cat, waving his silver crowbar about "And for once my accessories match my ensemble – how lucky can you get?"

"Alright" said Lister, with grim determination "Keep your eyes and ears open, and if you've gotta defend yourself, go for the head. Okay?"

They cautiously stepped out back into the street and carried on deeper and deeper into the town centre. Their plan was to see if they could take a shortcut back to the houses in order to avoid all the zombies Cat had led away. Well, that was the plan. Pity it didn't go quite how it was supposed to.

Cat stopped "Wow" he said, gazing through the window of an expensive boutique, his eyes glazed, a joyous smile playing on his gorgeous lips "I'd look great in that!"

"Cat man, it's a skirt!" said Lister,

The feline turned to give Lister a strange look "So" he said casually "I have great legs…why not show them off? Share a little bit of the joy!"

Lister shook his head and walked off, leaving Cat glued to the window. He recoiled in horror "Urgh, who'd put an ugly manikin in clothes like that! It's a travesty!" The manikin then growled and stumbled forward, dragging it's decaying fingers down the glass and staring unblinkingly at Cat, who grinned "Just browsing thanks" he said before dashing off.

He'd barely gone a few steps before he stopped again, and slowly turned around. His eyes widened in horror and his usual sexy grin slithered off his face.

The others meanwhile, had their own set of problems to worry about.

"Smeg" murmured Lister as he saw what lay ahead of him.

As I expect you've already guessed, it was zombies.

Lots of them.

Hundreds; male zombies, female zombies, adult zombies, children zombies, old age zombies. The point I'm trying to make here is that there was an awful lot of zombies, and they were heading towards Lister and the others wearing a look favoured by fat Americans around a free 'all you can eat' buffet.

Before they'd even been given a chance to start panicking about the imminent zombie army, they heard Cats voice "Erm, guys. I think we have a small problem!"

'Small problem' being such a huge understatement that it ran its own self help classes for other understatements which think they just aren't understating the best to their ability.

Behind Cat stood another hundred or so zombies.

"Double smeg" said Lister,

Rimmer was torn between fainting, screaming or running around in a small circle, flapping his hands about in a nervous fashion. In the end, he opted to ask Lister what to do "What the smeg should we do?" he wailed,

"I thinkin' man" said Lister "I'm thinkin'!"

"Lister, now is not the time to try something new!" screamed the hologram, feeling a cold sense of fear wrap itself around his insides.

"Good point. RUN!"

"RUN WHERE?" Rimmer panicked as the many zombies closed in around them.

"Anywhere!" Lister screamed back at him,

"Oh that's ok then! How about over there!" Rimmer said sarcastically, with a nod of his head. "Oh wait - There's flesh eating zombies over there! Silly me!"

"Stop talking - Start moving!" Toni shouted back exasperatedly at the pair as she grabbed Lister, dashed and darted her way through the zombies and led the group ran down an alleyway which led to the town's mall.

"Oh fantastic" wailed Rimmer, collapsing against a wall as Lister and Cat closed and bolted the door they'd just ran through "Now we're stuck in a zombie surrounded mall, as if this situation wasn't enough of a cliché!"

He'd given up on trying to remain positive, he'd given up on trying to remain calm…from this point on it all 'doom, gloom and panic'!

He looked up as he spotted something shuffling about from the corner of his eye. It was a rather portly security guard, or to be precise a rather portly zombie security guard.

Rimmer sighed and banged his head against the wall "God" he said "You must really hate me!"