Pasta Heroes (14) - 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 soldiers started running away from the door and towards the street. Smoke started to rise out of the broken door. Even through the boarded-up window smoke gushed slowly into the alley and spread like morning mist. More and more rats streamed out the door, some of them stopped and crawled up, dying on the spot. Vincent tried to tell himself that Lenny probably hadn't been in the building, when two soldiers with gas masks dragged a lifeless body out the door. It was Lenny, the pointy hair left no doubt. Jack followed him and barked a couple of times.
"Damn," said one of the soldiers and sprinted towards Lenny, as the police wagon began to drive away.
"Lenny," Vincent said softly, feeling a knot in his throat that was cutting of the air. Michael was staring through the bars and didn't say a word.

Vincent and Michael got a bit of sympathy from the two soldiers who opened the door after they had driven through a New York that resembled a war zone. They grabbed him almost gently by the shoulders, Michael was even allowed to climb out of the car on his own.
"If one of you admits having shot and that the weapons belong to him, the other one can go. But one has to stay under arrest," said one of the soldiers.
"Okay," Vincent said, "I was shooting and these are my weapons, I'm the head chef."
"Thanks," Michael said, "I'll be back as fast as possible and get you out of here." One of the soldiers opened the handcuffs, and Michael immediately ran to the street and tried to flag down a taxi. Vincent felt like yelling at the soldiers why the hell they hadn't let him go right away instead of driving him here, but he still had a knot in his throat that didn't let any words come out.

The police station resembled a carnival, though a rather sad one, it was crowded with people walking in every direction, bumping into each other, it smelled of coffee and sweat, and the sound of a hundred different voices shouting different things mixed with ringing phones filled the air. The soldier led him to a desk.
"Here's another cook," said the soldier to the policeman who was sitting behind the desk holding a messy stack of paper in each hand. "TEC-9 without serial number and a shotgun, he ceased fire but hit a soldier in the face."
"Yes, all right, just put him in the cell with the others."
Vincent was led to the cell by another police man and prepared himself to be beaten and robbed by gang members, that's how he had always pictured his arrest. But then he saw the cell that was packed with men and felt relieved. Many were wearing white clothes, some of them bloodstained, one even had his chef's hat on. They were all staring at a tiny TV that hung in a wire box in the top corner. Apart from the bars and the missing drinks, it could have been a sports bar showing an important game. After Vincent was pushed into the crowd by the officer, he joined his colleagues in looking at the screen. Except for a red bar, a news ticker, on the bottom, it was pitch black.
"What's going on?" he asked a fat man next to him who held a rumpled chef's hat in his hands.
"They are attacking Mama Finelli's."
"Mama Finelli's? That's where I always buy my cheese."
"We all do," said a man with bent glasses who turned to Vincent.
"The last Parmesan was ... it was ..."
"...among the best in the world," someone completed Vincent's thought and put his hand on his shoulder. Until now he had been so busy with defending his own restaurant that he hadn't thought about the possibility of the rats taking out his suppliers. He became painfully aware of the fact that it might really be over with good food.
"Are Mama Finelli's going to defend themselves?" Vincent asked the fat man with the chef's hat.
"Yes, and they even said that the military won't intervene because it's outside the city and they own the land surrounding the manufactory and there's nothing but woods around it. But with theses fucking rat defending pigs you never know ..."
"Be quiet, it's starting!", shouted someone who stood at the front, and all conversations ceased immediately so the voice of the reporter could be heard.

"As you can see on the video from our thermographic camera, the swarm is only 200 feet away from the cheese factory."
"Cheese manufactory!" corrected one of the cooks.
"Our experts estimate that we are looking at three to five thousand rats."
The television showed a red-orange spot surrounded by dark green. Vincent wondered how anyone could be an expert in estimating rat swarms by a thermal image, he also wondered why he was thinking about such a thing.
"There, there! Here we go!" someone shouted, pointing to the television, even though everyone was staring at it already. An area lit by several floodlights could be seen, the first black dots appearing on it. A wall of sandbags divided the illuminated area.
"The first rats are attempting to reach the fence, and as we can see the sandbags don't seem to stop them at all. One can only hope that the electric fence will be strong enough. But if we have learned one thing about those animals in the last few days, then that they are quite clever and will always find a way. You can see some small flashes around the fence now, caused by rats getting shocked. Unfortunately, we can't see from up here if it killed them, but the other rats are stopping in front of the fence. Wow, those fellows learn their lesson quickly. They are presumably already thinking about different options..." Gunfire erupted and lights were flashing up everywhere.
"Mama Finelli's has opened the fire!" the reporter shouted enthusiastically. Loud cheering broke out in the cell, fists were risen in the air and someone shouted "Mama Finelli's!"
"The rats are now trying to attack the west side, but again, the workers are prepared." The camera zoomed in on two masked men with machine guns who stood next to a box on the roof.
"As you can see, almost all employees are wearing masks which is probably done for legal reasons. The police and the military are still making no signs to intervene here, but this might change when the situation in the city calms down. Unfortunately, this might soon be the case since there aren't many restaurants left to defend."
The chefs lowered their heads, some laid their arms on the shoulder of the man next to them, chains were formed.
"The suspicion that the rats might go for lower quality food if they can't find anything else seems to be wrong, as McFunnel's and Adolpho's Super Pizza remain spared."
The chefs booed and a shoe flew against the wire box with the TV.
"Hey, stop that or we'll switch it off!" threatened a policeman who was standing with his colleagues next to the bars of the cell, watching the event. He left it with a warning and continued watching the TV.
"The rats have now completely surrounded the area and scattered, which makes shooting more ineffective. It appears as if the rats are planing for a united attack. It's hard to say whether the fence can withstand that. Perhaps …" The TV turned black, only the red news ticker was still visible.
"Did the helicopter crash?!" asked someone, but the reporter continued to talk.
"Unbelievable! The rats appeared to have cut off the electricity, and now they're rushing in!"
Except for a few flashes, the screen was still black.
"This battle seems lost, our pilot will now prepare to land since we have offered to help evacuating the employees."
Even Vincent had his arms around the men next to him. He simply couldn't believe what he saw, it was the end. Machine guns, concrete, and high voltage hadn't stopped this plague. Suddenly the television screen turned white.
"There has just been an explosion, we can't see where it came from but...it appears to be outside the factory!"
The screen slowly regained color, red, orange and yellow, a sea of flames emerged.
"Apparently, the areas between the sandbags had been filled with gasoline and have been lit by the staff! The rats are burning!"
The cheering was deafening. The prison cell transformed into a boiling cauldron, the chefs jumped around arm in arm around and yelled out of joy. It took quite a while before the reporter could be heard again. The helicopter circled the area from a distance, showing the wall of fire that was slowly simmering down, while the black smoke rose high blending into the night sky. The floodlights were turned on again.
"We don't know if it was the rats or the employees themselves who had switched off the power. If that was planned, then hats off to Mama Finelli's employees who have managed to become war generals over night. We have, unfortunately, bad news from the city, we are now going back to the studio."
The euphoria in the cell faded rapidly. The battle on the TV was won, but everyone here had lost his personal one. Then the horror stories came from the city and gave the mood the rest. Nearly three hundred deaths and thousands of injuries, frozen food and powdered soups sold out, while the dumpster were overflowing with good ingredients people had thrown out in fear. It was difficult to say whether even one restaurant had withstood the rats. Nothing was left except low quality restaurants who relied on advertising to get their customers.
Vincent had to think about Lenny, he wanted to leave this cell so badly, which was quite a common wish of people in prison cells. Apparently he wasn't the only one with sad thoughts, several chefs were begging the officers to use the phone. Vincent felt a tear running down his cheek, the fat man with the battered chef hat in hand patted him on the shoulder.
"Did you loose your restaurant as well?"
"And my friend, who was still inside when the soldiers smoked the place out."
"I'm sorry," the man said.
"And I," someone who was sitting in the corner with slumped shoulders chimed in, "I shot my saucier."
He was patted on the shoulder as well, and for a moment it looked as if the cell was going to turn into one big crying, as if this was a therapy group that had dug deep, but one of the cooks, a burly man with Elvis sideburns, came to the rescue.
"We all here have lost something, but we can't give up now. As long as one of us is still alive and fighting, this battle isn't over. Are we really going to let some tiny rodents take away everything we have worked for all our life? If they let me out of this cell, I'll be there when Mama Finelli's is fighting the rats tomorrow."
"Me too," several volunteers said.
"Yes!" shouted Vincent and wished he could be in the middle of the battle right now.
"I have a truck," someone said and now the plan was already taking shape, "I can transport all of us there."
"Yes, but we should probably split up" the man with the sideburns took over again, "so they can't stop all of us." He gave a contemptuous look to the police men on the other side of the bars. "So who's in?"
One after another declared his willingness to fight, only a few said that they might have to help defend a friend's restaurant, if it was still open.

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

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

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