Pretty Mask Raises the Dead

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 1998

Dear Diary,

It was a while before mom really trusted Buffy again. There was a lot of awkward silences before Buffy said she was going out. Mom knew she was the slayer know so she didn't have to keep it a secret anymore, but it was a bit weird. Hearing mom say "oh are you going out slaying tonight Buffy?" I just wasn't used to it being so out in the open. I don't think mom knew how long I'd known about it for, but she didn't ask me. Then the was the issue of Buffy being kicked out of school.

They went to the principal of the high school, but he hated Buffy so he wouldn't let her back in. I didn't understand why they couldn't just tell him she was the slayer and make him give her special privileges. Buffy didn't really listen when I suggested that. Mom was trying to get her into a private school, and then they kept having arguments because Buffy really didn't want to tell anyone else about the slaying. It was all a mess that I was keenly avoiding by going to school.

The weirdest bit of that week started when the dead cat we found in the basement - and BURIED! Wound up running in through the back door. It was so gross and still covered in blood. Giles came round with a cage and took it away, which was better, but he said it was some kind of zombie cat thing. Buffy was trying to have a dinner party, apparently it was an attempt to make her friends forgive her for running away. But it turned into this massive party and I got completely shoved into my room and told to just amuse myself. Totally not fair!

Buffy came up and sat on my bed for a while. Apparently all her friends were still being weird around her, Willow was acting strange. Mom was still hanging around with her friend Pat. I really didn't like her. She was always talking about Buffy like she was a bad person, I always rolled my eyes when she was around. Still, I think mom was pretty upset when she died.

I heard Buffy and Willow arguing before everything went down, the whole party was raging. Then I heard mom and Buffy and Willow arguing more. A bit of me was really mad that mom was so upset all the time. I just wanted everything to go back to normal. Then my door slammed open and some dead guy walked in moaning. I screamed, opened the window, maybe I could get down through there and warn someone that something bad was happening.

But the guy just flopped, tripped over my bed like he didn't see it and I ran past him. "Mom! Buffy!" I shouted, but there were people everywhere. Everything was either smashing or screaming or zombie groaning. I was pretty late the party by that point and the house was in pieces. We ran into mom's room and tried to stop the zombie guys from getting in but it wasn't working. Then mom's friend Pat started trying to kill us.

Buffy dived bombed her out the window but she was still trying to kill us. There was a rush of everything and then suddenly there was nothing. All the zombies fell to the ground. But then we did have a tonne of dead bodies in the house which was a nightmare to clean up. We were trying to get the smell out of the house for a week.

I desperately hoped for months that mom wouldn't bring anything home from the gallery.

Dawn x