in reply to Unexplained Zombies

Ask your admin what he/she means by "zombie". As mentioned previously, the usual meaning is that a forked child process has died but has not been reaped (with wait or waitpid). They may also mean your script is not exiting in some cases.

A 'ps' listing will show the difference (i.e. most ps's will show 'defunct' as part of a zombie's name or flag the output in some other way).