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.
"It is ten o'clock, and here are the Jazz Radio News with Susan Horowitz. Last night it has come to numerous attacks by mutated rats throughout the city. Firearms have been used heavily despite strong efforts by the police. At least 142 people have died, more than 500 have been injured. The real number of casualties is likely a lot higher, as restaurant owners and employees refuse to seek help in fear of having their restaurant shut down. An emergency meeting will be held soon which will discuss the closure of all restaurants in New York City and possibly state wide. It is expected that a state of emergency will be declared, allowing the use of military in the city to fight the rats and control the gun laws more efficiently. Meanwhile, McFunnel's and Adolpho's Super Pizza have announced to keep all restaurants in New York open 24 hours to, I quote, 'continue to provide the population with good, warm food', it is, as I said, a quote, not the opinion of Jazz Radio.
Vincent awoke on the blanket he had laid out in front of the cheese fridge. He had gone to bed at seven o'clock and set the alarm to 10 o'clock, to prepare the dough. As often, he realized that a much too short sleep meant that he felt more tired than before. He had a headache as if he was severely hungover, and he heard a noise as if he was driving through a tunnel while sticking his head out of the window. But he had to get up now because he wanted to open at twelve o'clock, which meant he had to start with the dough at ten. Today was possibly the last day to visit a decent restaurant in New York, he didn't want to let the people down, and it was perhaps the last day on which he could cook.
Vincent looked at Michael, who was sleeping on a blanket in front of the door of the pantry. Against all odds, Michael had been given permission by his wife to stay with Vincent in the restaurant, that was, after he had driven home to show her the many rat bites. Vincent was just about to wake him up when someone else did that for him.
"That's against the law!" a sharp voice said, one that Vincent unfortunately recognized immediately. It was Robert Harper, the wayward son of Mrs. Harper, who was standing in the kitchen door and shook his head. Vincent would have preferred the sight of a rat.
"You can't sleep in the kitchen, and what the hell happened in the alley? That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, and now it's attracting cats and crows."
"You haven't heard about the rats?" asked Vincent, while Michael slowly sat up and cast an embittered view towards Robert.
"Yes, that's why I'm here. I'll take my mother to New Hampshire. It's too dangerous in the city, especially right above a restaurant."
"Yes, maybe that's not such a bad idea," Vincent admitted. At least he could stop worrying about Misses Harper.
"And then I'm finally going to sell the building," Robert said with a nasty smile on his face and disappeared.
"The building isn't yours, it's your mother's!" Vincent called after him. It was always the same, Robert wanted to sell the building so he could continue to not work. But as long as Mrs. Harper was alive and sane, Vincent didn't have to worry about it. She loved the food here and would never kick out Lenny.
"Wouldn't that be a great opportunity to kill him and say that he fell victim to the rats?" Michael asked with a grin.
Vincent turned on the coffee maker and checked the cheese fridge. The Parmesan from Mama Finelli's was resting untouched, at least untouched by rats, next to the other cheeses. After that he went up to Lenny's apartment, where a handwritten note on the door informed him that Lenny had already left to do the shopping. Vincent allowed himself a cold shower, which made him a little more awake, and began with the dough. Michael took a cold shower as well and began chopping the mushrooms. The horror stories on the radio seemed to be endless. Hundreds of restaurants had been invaded and the number of deaths and injuries continued to rise. No one had been killed by the rats though, all the victims had died because of stray bullets, in one case a chef had accidentally blown three of his employees to pieces with a grenade. The director of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital reported that due to self-inflicted gunshot wounds they had amputated more feet in a single night then over the past six months. The only glimpse of hope was that the rats didn't seem to spread to other cities as quickly as expected, though that was rather bad news for anyone in New York. The government interpreted that as a success of their actions, while various researchers pointed out that it probably just meant that the rats bred slowly and might start spreading out when there was nothing left for them to eat in New York.
The kitchen door swung open and Lenny rolled in a hand truck on which he had loaded two boxes.
"Good news," he said, which made Vincent and Michael equally concerned. "I went to see an old friend, sold me this." Lenny reached into the box which should have contained vegetables, and pulled out a TEC-9, a semi-automatic handgun with a long clip. "Without serial number," Lenny added proudly.
"Not bad," Vincent said, "but they just announced that they're going to bring in the military today, so this thing might get us all arrested.
"If the military defends the rat, then I fight against the military," Lenny said with a dangerous determination. Though Vincent was impressed by that determination, it went a bit too far.
"Please promise me," Vincent said in a fatherly tone, "that you don't open fire on people, whether soldiers or police. If we are all in jail, we can't defend the restaurant at all. "
"Yes, no problem. You probably want to use the weapon yourself anyway, I guess. "
"Well..." It was always a little awkward to mention Lenny's clumsiness to him, he tended to feel offended. And of course, Lenny saw himself as extremely unlucky, every time he turned plates or cups into fragments, it was just a really unfortunate accident, and assured that it would never happen again.
"It's better this way," Lenny said, "I have to take care of Jack."
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Part 11
About the author: From riches to ragz: The story of a gambling nomad
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