“We made a makeshift hospital in the animal hold; bodies were stretched out all over the ground. Dobbs, one of my bunk mates had gotten some of it on his face. He’d been to Guadalcanal Island after we took it. He operated a bulldozer pushing dead Japanese soldiers in to mass graves. He told me that the cargo hold smelled far worse then death. Between the animals, the dying crew and the stench that the rust made on its own the air was thick. It had weight to it-and it burned your eyes.

“The word mutiny was used quite frequently, and with the seriousness that a sailor uses it. The officers started to leave us to our own devices and the scientists locked themselves in the chamber. All of the deck crew that hadn’t gotten sick was ordered to stay topside. We followed that order to the letter.

“I think it was just before sunrise when the warning bells sounded. I scrambled out of my bunk and ran down the hall. I pushed through doors and jumped over anything that was in my way. The captain was standing by over the crate that separated the secondary cargo lift from the main hold hatch; he was white as a sheet and stumbling back and forth. ‘Men, we need to move this crate overboard.’ He said. He looked like a walking sack of flesh, like he was a dead man. Two of the navy men dropped in to the hold to secure the crate, which we could only imagine contained our dead.

“They fit the rigs and the crane roared to life. Plumes of smog were billowing up from the motor housing; it covered the smell being flushed out by opening the hatches. The crate swung wildly side to side as it cleared the deck. At first I assumed it was operator rushing the controls, but then everything fell deathly quiet. From inside the wooden tomb we heard familiar voices begging us to stop. They were still alive!

“Henderson flew up the ladder and in to the crane seat. The Captain panicked and ran to each of us on deck-one by one. He grabbed and tugged at our shirt and pleaded with us to hurry and dump the thing. We just stood there in shock. Then a gun shot rang out. It was one of the naval officers. He was standing on the exposed railing above the bridge holding a bolt action rifle. He ordered us to continue. Henderson, still hanging half-outside the operator’s chair made a move to fully enter the crane. A second shot rang out and this time it hit Henderson. He started to fall and grabbed on to the operator. Just when the two men slipped from the ladder the box released back in to the hold and cracked apart.

“The Captain ran to the edge of the hatch and shined his flashlight in to the void. Men were yelling, trying to see if there were survivors. Then the Captain fell limp. He kept begging for god to let him get off the ship. We all crept up behind him, slowly. The flashlight made only a pin-hole’s worth of visibility in the expanse of the ship’s belly.

“Parts of it looked like animals. Parts of it looked like red scrambled eggs mixed in with crab shells. Then we saw a face-Dobbs. Three men rushed down to start pulling people out of the mound. When they tried to lift Dobbs out he was asking them why he could taste diesel fuel. One of the men standing next to him had diesel all over his boots and we thought Dobbs smelled it and had gotten confused. They lifted Dobbs from by his shoulders and under his arms. When they got him up to knee length we all knew… Dobbs wasn’t under the mass, he was part of it. More voices started begging for help. Then the sound… that thick, wet, slapping. The sound like I’d heard from behind the chamber door. Loud and everywhere.”

Joseph pauses. He bites upward and sucks at the meat of his top lip. He then rings his hand around the back of his neck and scratches his forehead.

“We were mad as hell and nothing could stop us. We struck the lock on that door with

.