Pasta Heroes (5) - 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.

Part 5

That night Vincent learned that life as a rat wasn't as great as he had always imagined it. Everything and everyone was his enemy, cars didn't stop for him, people tried to step on him or beat him to death with their umbrellas and some even hurled their briefcases at him. Others gave the job to their dogs, and when Vincent escaped into an alley, a bunch of cats awaited him. Even worse, the food in the trashcans wasn't the 12-course-menu he had expected, it was just plain, tasteless food. He had no choice but to put it all on the line and try to sneak into a restaurant. The dream ended with a giant oven peeler that came crushing down on him, breaking every bone in his fragile body. Vincent awoke with a scream and only realized slowly that he had been dreaming, because the pain didn't disappear. Eventually he realized that the pain in his back and shoulders was indeed real because he had slept on the kitchen floor. He didn't understand at first why he had done that, because his mind had put the events of last night into the 'just a dream' category as well, but now he realized that it had really happened. At least, Vincent tried to cheer himself up, he was in his kitchen and could prepare himself a nice breakfast. Worried about a rat attack, he started looking through the cabinets.
"Good morning," said Lenny who had just walked into the kitchen. Apparently he had already taken a shower, his usually wild hair, that always needed two hairnets to be tamed, was wet and sticking to his forehead.
"Good morning Lenny. Did you hear the news this morning? Anything new?"
"I don't know, I just woke up because it started to rain. Are you looking for rats in there?"
"Yes, but looks pretty good. I think we showed them pretty well that this isn't an easy place to invade. I'm gonna turn on the radio, we should check the news as much as possible."
"Should I help you going through the cabinets?"
"No thanks, but you could turn on the radio for us," said Vincent. Lenny regularly managed to break things while washing dishes, it was best to keep him away from the cabinets where he would have the chance to break many things at once. He turned on the radio where two trumpets seemed to be fighting with each other. Like many people Vincent didn't particularly like Jazz, but there was nothing better for cooking.
"I'll search for some News," Lenny said and started pushing some buttons until he found something.

"...it is not clear what it is about daylight that makes them weak, but tests have shown that ultra-violet light does, unfortunately, not have any effect," said the voice on the radio.
"They can't take sunlight?" another voice joined in, "so they are like little hairy vampires? Do they were black coats with high collars as well? Haha, imagine that!"
"Could you please be serious about that? You already made that totally inappropriate joke about the plane crash in Russia last week."
"... and publicly apologized for it. Anyhow, this story here is harmless and it was quite a good joke, just imagine little vampire rats."
"It wasn't that funny and the situation isn't harmless at all. The people need as much information as possible now, assuming anyone is still listening after your stupid joke."
"The people like me, otherwise they would have fired me after the plane crash joke."
"Whatever, I'm going to continue reading. A government report that was issued this morning states that the rats are attracted to cooked food that consists of fresh ingredients. Apparently they have a highly developed taste that is higher than in the average human."
"But now you are the one joking, right? Rats that only like high class food? Do they only drink wine as well?"
"That is the official report and it seems that, once again, you haven't read the memo."
"I'm sorry, but they called me like 20 minutes ago to make this special news, I barely had time to get here."
"Before we went on the air you spent over five minutes hitting on Christie, that would have been enough time to read it."
"No no no, I want everybody here, and especially her boyfriend, to know that I did not hit on her, I just brought her some coffee and hat a little chat. And why the hell is this rat thing even worth a special news?"
"If you had read the memo, you would know that the rats are only going after decent restaurants and don't even touch fast food chains like McFunnel's or Adolphos Super Pizza. Imagine this is all you could eat one day."
"I like Adolphos, it's cheap and tasty."
"Doesn't surprise me at all... for everyone who has at least some sense of taste, the situation looks pretty bad. I think I'm gonna go downstairs now and find myself a nice restaurant, and I would advise anyone to do the same, assuming anyone is still listening. If you want some news, change the channel."
"Are you crazy? You can't just tell people to change the channel, I think you're gonna get into trouble for that."
"Well, I don't really give a fuck."

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

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

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