Pasta Heroes (15) - A short novel about noodles, rats and courage

Mutated rats with a taste for gourmet food escape from a laboratory in New York. While fast food chains remain untouched by the rats, restaurants like Pasta Heaven are getting overrun. Time for it's owner, Vincent, and his employees to grab a gun and go to war.

The details of the plan were discussed, meeting points were agreed upon, and weapons were organized. As their leader they chose Robert, the man with Elvis sideburns, because as it turned out, he wasn't just good at motivating, he was also the head chef of the Meridian, one of the most spectacular restaurants in the country. Someone put a bloody chef's hat on his head, cementing the choice. They even managed to pass their plan on to a cell at the end of the corridor in which female chefs were imprisoned. There were only ten of them, but since the gastronomy scene was dominated by men, they were represented overproportionaly in this prison, demonstrating their willingness to fight. It didn't take long until word got back that all ten of them had joined the newly formed army. Eventually the conversation moved to the subject of cooking. Vincent had never had a more interesting discussion in his life, they shared well-kept secrets, argued about the proper temperatures and cooking times, which herbs had to be combined in which quantities, and of course, the unanswerable question of which country had invented the best food. An Indian chef confessed to use mostly Swiss cheese in his recipes, something he would by physically punished for by his master in India. The head of a German restaurant admitted that his menu was based almost entirely on recipes from French cookbooks. One after the other was allowed to make a phone call and ask someone to post bail. When it was Vincent's turn, he stepped out of the cell and felt as if someone had pulled the floor away from under him. He staggered and just wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare, he didn't want to talk to Michael and hear about his Lenny's death. But he didn't wake up, and he had no choice but to start dialing Michael's number with trembling fingers.
"Lenny's alive," Michael said immediately. "He's in the hospital and a bit messed up, but he's fine."
"Thank God," Vincent said, clenching his fist with glee.
"He says that he can see everything he hears in colors, and that he can smell colors, but maybe he's just confused and needs to sleep a bit. Jack's with him, survived as well, I just don't know where the cat is."
"I haven't seen her since yesterday," Vincent said.
"I'll be there soon and get you out, I'm sorry that it took so long, but I had to check on Lenny first and my wallet with all my cards is still in the restaurant, I had to drive to Lennard and then to Ramona to collect money. But I am almost there, maybe half an hour. Unfortunately I have bad news, should I tell you now or later in person? "
"Tell me now ..." Vincent said and felt his heart drop again, believing that one of his employees had been harmed.
"A fire broke out in the kitchen, it burned down completely, and some dickhead from the insurance company was there almost as fast as the firetruck, documented everything and said that they won't pay because the fire was a consequence of the rat invasion, which isn't covered in our policy."
"All right," Vincent said, and was relieved that no one had died.
"The others are fine?"
"Yeah, I talked to everyone because of Lenny, no one got injured. Only Albert couldn't resist and tried to fry some chicken and got attacked in his own kitchen, but it's just a few bites."
"That was to be expected..."

Michael arrived with the bail money and Vincent said goodbye to the other chefs. On the way home he told Michael of tomorrow's plan.
"Thank God," Michael said, "I was worried we wouldn't have anything to do tomorrow."

It hadn't been easy to talk Lenny out of fleeing the hospital to join them, but after Vincent, Michael and two doctors had reasoned with him for over an hour, he had finally given in. Now Vincent and Michael were sitting in the back of a former catering truck with six men and two women, trying to encourage one another. One of the chefs was wearing a motorcycle helmet, one had a proper bulletproof vest, but the others were, like Vincent and Michael, quite unprepared. The chef's hats that some had put on were purely symbolic. Vincent hadn't managed to organize a gun on the fly, but someone had handed him an old revolver together with 200 bullets, while Michael had been given a Magnum. It wasn't only the buckling of the transporter that made everyone tremble. There were almost no restaurants left in the city, so one could assume that the storm on Mama's Finelli's would be gigantic.
"There will be so many goddamn rats," said one of the men with a chef's hat.
"Good, they're all gonna be in one place then," said a woman who was holding an assault rifle in her hand.
"I just hope that everything will be coordinated well, don't wanna be standing in a field of gasoline when someone lights it up."
"I heard," said the man with the bulletproof vest, "that they won't do that again, because the rats already know it."
"We're just gonna shoot them all, we are 60 people and have thousands of bullets, and we are just the bonus, Mama Finelli's has proven that they know how to fight the rats pretty well."
"Exactly," said the man who had been concerned but now seemed pretty motivated, "we're just here because it's a great opportunity to kill a lot of them!"
"Hopefully there will be enough for everyone", said the woman with the assault rifle.
"It will be like a walk in the park!" Vincent joined in and couldn't wait for the door of the van to open so he could have his revenge for his destroyed restaurant. He had to remind himself that this wasn't the landing in the Normandy, where they had dropped the soldiers right into the battle, he couldn't just storm out of the van and open fire. But he would get his chance, he knew it.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14

About the author: From riches to ragz: The story of a gambling nomad

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