A crisis was narrowly diverted in Gainsville, Missouri, yesterday after a hunter mistook a large group of psytrance fans for a pack of flesh eating zombies.

Cletus Rednick, a thirty four year old “moonshine brewer”, was hunting “dinner vermin” in the forest due north of Gainsville when he came across the psytrance fans who were making their way back to the small Missouri town to catch a bus home after an illegal forest rave.

“I was out trying to catch a few rats, squirrels, toads and anything else I could get my hands on to make good eating for my family,” explained Cletus whose wife is also his aunt’s son’s sister. “That’s when I seen the bunch of critters walking through the forest.”

“I was sure they was zombies,” claimed Cletus through a mouthful of teeth that resembled an eighteenth century graveyard. “Their eyes was all glazed over and their clothes were ragged and dirty, like they hadn’t been washed or changed in months, just like mine. They also had this slow, scary walk like them zombies that I sees on the picture box.”

“I was so afraid, I only had my bb gun with me so all I could do was crawl into a bush and wait for those scary sons of bitches to pass,” admitted Cletus. “I done pissed my pants in that there bush, I was just so damn worried those zombies were gonna get into town and eat the brains of my able-bodied children, not so much my soft-headed children, their brains is all gone to mush anyway and I’m not sure if zombies really care for that type of thing.”

“I waited for over an hour for them to go, some of them moved so slow like they’d taken some sort of tranquilizer suitable for a large mammal, like a bear or a horse,” recounted Cletus who still had the look of fear in his unusually asymmetrical eyes. “That’s when I ran as fast as I could – which isn’t very fast cause I gots one leg shorter than t’other – to the Sheriff’s office.”

According to Sheriff Dan Breen, the residents of Gainsville aren’t used to “slick city kids coming round their place with their futuristic music and fancy haircuts” and that it was only after noticing the psytrance fans “eating eggs and bacon and drinking coffee instead of eating brains and drinking blood” that he realised they weren’t actual zombies.

Mayor of Gainsville Jack Goff has today banned all psytrance fans and outdoor music events from the town and its surrounding vicinity, indicating that anyone caught breaking these perimeters will “feel the full force of the law” or worse still be made to “squeal like a pig” and “bend over in front of a big and ugly inbred hick”.