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For the last six years I had been cock blocked by my best friend, Mark. It is probably never going to be  the best time to say that when I learned he had passed away, I was enthusiastic about my prospects on the dating front. You can pretend I never said that at all, if you'd like. Regardless, he died, and sure I was upset, but after seven months of moping around, declaring that the rest of the world was insane if it thought it could keep spinning when I had nobody to party with, I decided it was time to go out. Even if Mark had kicked it, our favorite bar had not, and I swept in to it that frosty November evening with a big, stupid grin plastered all over my face. You see, I had also come to the realization that now I could hit on anyone I wanted, and he wouldn't be there with his bigger muscles, brighter smile and sexier hair to mess it up for me. I was going to talk to some chicks. I might even get laid.

Like usual, the place was almost deserted. Two pool tables, six VLT's and an aging video game took the center floor and side walls, and the rest of the room had tables scattered throughout. I scoured the musty scene for some hot girls, my eyes flicking this way and that. A fat guy, a fatter woman, a redneck...Part of me considered hitting up another establishment, but I am a creature of habit. I couldn't just walk out of here and enter some club down the street. I'd been coming to one place only for the last seven years, it was like home. My eyes finally settled on Maria, the one and only staff member, who waved to me from behind the bar. At least I could ogle her for a few hours over a couple pitchers of beer, I thought, and sauntered up to her.

"Hey, Luke," she said, wiping her hands on her jeans. "How's shit going with you?"

Maria is one of those girls who, to look at her, isn't anything spectacular. But when she opens her mouth, it's like a bunch of flowers bloomed everywhere around you, or some such bullshit. She's not beautiful, like a runway model, but she has nice teeth and a decent rack. It's her voice that makes you go crazy, though. It's like honey pouring out of her mouth. It's fucking sexy, really, especially when she swears. I think she says at least four or five just to see if I get a hard-on when she does it, which generally, I do. I winked at her.

"Not bad. Been kind of awful since Mark bit the dust though," I replied. She passed me a glass and a pitcher of house beer, and I nodded thanks. "It's weird, because sometimes I see him, like, if I'm walking down the street or something."

"What's that?" Maria asked, raising an eyebrow. "Mark died?"

"Um. Six months ago to the day," I said. "Got sick, got sicker, never woke up one day."

Maria stared at me like I had gone crazy. I immediately wondered if I had something on my face, or if my fly was undone. I blinked twice at her, kind of my way of asking what was going on. She leaned over the bar and punched me in the shoulder.

"You're having me on!" she said, laughing. "Mark's over there waiting for you!" Maria pointed to a dark corner of the bar, still chuckling. Now it was my turn to think she was having me on, but to humor her, I looked anyway.

You know that expression, 'eyes as big as dinner plates'? It applied here, and my jaw fell to the floor. I started to stutter, and sat heavily on the stool behind me, clutching the counter with both of my hands. My elbow knocked over my pitcher of beer, and if I didn't have supreme control of my bladder, I'm pretty sure I'd never have a chance with Maria, because all she'd ever remember of me would be the big stain on the front of my jeans. She wasn't kidding. Mark, in all his glory, was waving at me from the booth, and I, who had spoke at his funeral and now paid all the bills in what was once a shared apartment suite, contemplated shitting my pants.

"Fuuuck..." I hissed, whistling through my teeth. "Fuck."

"He said you guys had been out of town for a few months," Maria's sudden interjection almost lead to another pants accident, and I jumped. "Said you went camping, just got back in the last few days. What the fuck is going on, Luke?"

"I gotta go," I grunted, heaving myself off the stool. "Over there."

Have you ever seen those movies, where the guy you know is going to die inches his way towards something that is dangerous? That was me. I tried to look like I was just taking my time, but really, I was taking stock of the room around me. I sidled past chairs, almost picking one up to see how heavy it was. Never know what your weapon will be in a bar fight, right? The pool tables were free of their billiard balls for the first time that I'd ever been aware of, so I had no projectiles, but was comforted by the fact that I knew I had a pretty steady right hook. I'd fucking punch him if I had to, right in the face. I mentally ticked off every way a man was ever known to fake his death, narrowing it down to one of two options. First, he didn't want to pay rent any more, and second, he was fucking my mother. Either one didn't seem very logical, but Mark being in the bar in the first place wasn't logical, either. It took me about eight minutes to cross the bar, and then I found myself face to face with  my dead best friend.

I think what hit me first was his eyes. They were dull, flat and had dark circles underneath them. He didn't look bad, though, in all honesty. He was thinner, around the face and middle, and his muscled arms weren't as defined as they were six months ago, but his hair was still perfectly sculpted, and despite the slight slack at the corners of his mouth, his smile was just as winning. For a moment, I felt that old, oily stab of jealousy that usually came within five seconds of him saying, "Lets go OUT!", and fluffing his goatee in the mirror in our hallway. Jealousy was quickly replaced  by anger, and I slammed my hands down on the table.

"What. The. Fuck. Mark."

I said each word like it was it's own sentence. Whenever I'm angry, everything I say comes out like that. "Eat. A. Bowl. Of. DICKS. Mark." was quite popular, or the ever present, "Don't. Fuck. In. My. Bed. You. Bitch." I wanted to make sure that he understood I was pissed off, so I enunciated properly and spoke very, very slowly just so that he got the point. I also said those four words very clearly, because I could have sworn he died half a year ago, and I wasn't sure just how useful undead ears are after that much time had passed.

"This had better be good," I continued. "Because I'm a month behind on rent and the television got cut off, and seriously? A funeral? You could have just moved out and in with my Mom, for Christ's sake..."

"Dude," Mark raised his hand, in classic form. Generally, when he did that, it meant that it was speech time. Usually it was to the ladies, and he'd regale them with stories about how much he could bench press while still finding time to pet a kitten, or feed the homeless. Sometimes he'd be doing both at the same time. I never figured out how that shit worked on those girls, but he would always have a partner for the evening. "Luke. Don't get your panties in a twist. I'm going to explain, trust me. I've been coming here and standing outside for six months waiting for you. You think I wouldn't tell you now that you're finally here?"

I stared at him quizzically. Six months of standing outside at night waiting for me to show up? That didn't seem much like Mark to me. He was always on the go, perpetually in motion. It used to grate on my nerves, sometimes I wanted some down time, but Mark couldn't sit still. I wondered if he had stood by the doors, or maybe around the corner where the really drunk guys go to puke when the bar closes. Maybe he had paced between the alley and the street corner. I waited patiently for him to go on, examining his hands under the dim bar lights.

"Are you dead?" I finally asked. I knew he was waiting for that question, wouldn't go on with his story without me asking.

"Yeah, man. I'm dead," he replied. "Dead as dead can be. I still turn a few heads, too, not that it does me any good. It's not like I can get it up and please 'em."

"So, if you're dead, what are you doing here?" The skin on his hands was a pale ivory, no wrinkles, no clots of dirt under the nails. Fascinating.

"Well, see, when I died I realized I forgot to do something," Mark started, staring up at me. I could tell he wanted me to sit down, but I wasn't having any of that. "I forgot that we were going to go out for sushi on your birthday."

"You forgot that we were going out for sushi, on my birthday?" There was still fine, downy hair on his thumbs. I read somewhere once that your nails and hair keep growing after you die, and I wondered if he had got a manicure, or if he had clipped his fingernails himself. The thought of Mark going in to a Dollar Store and buying nail clippers with a rigor mortis boner struck me as absolutely hilarious, and I startled myself with a harsh laugh. He raised his eyebrows at me and continued.

"Listen. We're bro's, and as such, I never got a chance to tell you that you were the most important person in my life. I'm not being gay here, man, so don't even think that," Mark sighed, "But you know, you were turning thirty and that's like, a milestone. I wanted to be there, do something important for you. Wanted to take you out for that sushi."

"But you died," I said, "That wasn't your fault. You didn't have to come back all embalmed and shit to take me for sushi. It wasn't that important."

"Yeah, well. I wasn't going to. I didn't have a choice though. Something went wrong when I died, something weird happened. I fucking get to the pearly gates, and BAM!" Mark pounded a fist on the table, "I'm right back  here. So I go, 'What the hell?' and I get this answer, like from a mystical source or something, in my head...'You got unfinished shit, bro,' and here the fuck I am. I can't figure out what I didn't do, so I figured it had to do with you."

This had to be the most surreal moment in my entire life. I finally sat down and stared hard at my former living, breathing buddy. Aside from a good twenty pounds of lost weight, the odd, lifeless eyes and his strange smile, it was like old times. Luke and Mark, sitting at the bar, watching a piece of ass skip across the floor trying not to spill her girl drinks all over her white dress. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done wrong to be here, now, in this moment. I wasn't a bad guy, I didn't hit women, I paid most of my bills and recently paid all my taxes. I might have been six years behind, but I did it. I gave change to the old man downtown, even though I know he drinks it away. I feed the stray cat that lives behind my building. I couldn't recall ever doing anything so weird, and so wrong, that I would be forced to relive my friends death after finally coming to terms with it, and then have to talk to his corpse in my favorite bar. All I wanted to do that night was talk to some girls and get drunk. What the fuck?

"Alright, so let's get sushi." I said, perhaps a little too loud. Maria looked up over the bar at us, waved, and went back to whatever it was she was doing before. I blushed, embarrassed to be in this situation.

Mark stood up, his bones audibly creaking over the drone of Zeppelin lamenting the stairway to Heaven. I chuckled at the irony. He seemed taller, and he slouched a bit now, his legs didn't seem to want to hold up his weight. Casting me a sideways smile, he started for the door. I dogged him, nodded at Maria, and we stepped out in to the cool night air.

Our bar was on the main downtown strip, about eight or nine blocks from my apartment. I had walked, figuring I'd get shitfaced and make my way home some time in the wee hours of the morning, so my car was nestled safely in a parking garage fifteen minutes away . Mark shoved his hands in his pockets, and I briefly wondered where he got the pants. They were just Levi's jeans, but they looked fairly new. So did his coat and his t-shirt, for that matter. Do dead people just automatically have money when they are reanimated? I started listing off sushi places to take my mind off of it, but Mark raised his hand again and I fell silent.

"I got the best place in mind," he said, "It's about ten minutes away. A little diner based out of somebodies kitchen. Real good food, nice Asian family. Raise their own chickens, and shit."

"Alright. Lead on."

Mark led me straight, then left, and then down a grimy back alley towards a main intersection about thirty minutes from my place. I was only slightly annoyed at having to walk so long to get home later, hoping that this Asian family was licensed. I would just get drunk in some home I'd never been in, I guess, which would make the trip back to mine easier. It was damn cold out, and I didn't bring a heavy jacket with me. I almost started whining, but stopped. Mark wouldn't feel it, I figured. He's dead, and there is no point in complaining to somebody who was basically a shambling, lifeless body. We took another left, walked for ten more minutes, then stopped in front of a run down house. Weeds poked up everywhere underneath the glare of a streetlight, but there was a tiny open sign in the window, and all the indoor lights were on. I rubbed my hands together, looked at Mark, then back at the door.

"Well?" I said.

"You first," he replied, lagging behind me and giving me a little shove. "You don't have to knock."

I started up the stairs, and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The tinkling sound of chimes over my head was reassuring, and I wondered why I had never seen this place before now. I frequently came down in this area to buy dope, and was sure I had passed by this house many times and never once noticed it was a restaurant. The chimes abruptly stopped, replaced by a whooshing noise and a wet, sickening thud as something hard connected with the base of my skull.

I'm not sure when I woke up. It might have been moments, or hours, from when I was first knocked out cold. My stomach hurt, and my legs weren't moving even though I willed them to with all my might. I felt panicked, tired, and drugged. I tried squirming, but found I was tied down by by something, something sturdy and thick. My lips were dry, I tried speaking but only came out with a guttural moan.

The distinct voice of Mark filtered through my haze. "I know you aren't supposed to cook it, but does it still have to be alive?"

"Trust me," another voice said, female, right next to my ear, "You have to eat it raw, and it's better if it's still breathing. Best sushi you've ever experienced. Get it?"

"Yeah," Mark said, "I got it. But I'll tell you something."

"What's that?" The female voice asked, her soft hands running down the sides of my face and in to my collar bone. They were sticky, bright red. I felt myself falling in to a faint, possibly for the last time. I strained to hear what Mark had to say, desperately wanting it to be sorry.

"This don't taste like sushi to me."