Buried Undead

Part title

Darkness was all there was after wondering if he, Arnold J. Rimmer, was next in line to be inexplicably hacked into. Whatever happened to him, it felt like no time had passed at all.

"Where am I?" he wondered. He knocked on a wall multiple times. He felt around and realised wherever he was felt cramped. Finally the comprehension of his whereabouts struck him harder than a lorry. "I've been buried alive!"

These so-called cured evildoers were still evildoing; they were using one of his worst fears against him. God only knew what the others were going through. But all Rimmer could think of was his own predicament and how he'd get out of it.

He repeatedly screamed for help — no-one was coming for him. "This is a nightmare. Nothing's worse than being buried alive! How can anything be worse than this?!" He heard someone clambering around outside. Someone was finally there to rescue him. He let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God! I didn't think you were ever going to save me!"

But whoever it was went past him. Right — smegging — past him. He knew he'd pissed the boys off on a regular basis, but this was just uncalled for.

"Lister, if that's you, you can forget about going on report for this! You're painting the smegging ship for the next eight weeks!"

No response. In fact, whoever it was couldn't actually hear him. Of course Rimmer didn't realise this and kept on ranting.

"Do you seriously think you can get away with blatantly ignoring a superior officer? That, miladdio, is a direct violation of space corps. directive eight-zero-five!" Or was it eight-zero-seven? Whatever it was, they were in violation of it. Then Rimmer stopped ranting. The thought occurred that perhaps his captor realised he was a hologram that couldn't be killed and had come back to finish the job.

"That's what they do, isn't it? Bury you alive, then make out that your a hologram, unbury you, take you to the nearest cliff and shove you over the edge!"

But there were no cliffs on this moon.

"Oh, shut up! What do you know?! You're just the left side of my brain!"

Rimmer heard footsteps. They were getting closer and closer by the second. He shrunk back as best as he could inside the tiny space he was in. He shut his eyes tight enough to give himself a slight headache. The footsteps continued on, gradually sounding as if they were getting further away until Rimmer could no longer hear them. Mollified, he let out a quavering exhale.

**************************************

Dave Lister stirred. "What's going on?" Quickly, he woke up only to be greeted by a laser pointed right at his love spuds; it seemed to have turned on as soon as he awoke.

Lister screamed and thrashed about, trying to escape to no avail; he was tied down. He realised flaying wasn't going to do him any favours. He needed to approach this with calm equilibrium. He jiggled his leg repeatedly; eventually, his boot flew off and landed right into his hands. He grabbed the knife he had hidden inside of it. Lister must have unknowingly contracted Felicitous Populi in that instant; he was able to sever the ropes.

He broke free, hopped out of the way and stood there a short moment to revel in his small victory. "Sometimes life is good," he said to himself.

The laser still ran; he didn't have time to try and figure out how to shut it off. He bolted off to find the others. He hurried down a corridor. Halfway through he found Kryten's body wandering around, bumping into walls. His head was missing.

"Kryten," Lister approached him. "what have they done to you? Where's your head?"

He began frantically moving his hands and arms about as if he were a headless marionette.