A Fashionably Dead Diary Read online

  Thankfully, he ended that story and went into the time he rigged the Miss Universe Pageant, the Kentucky Derby, the lottery, the NYT Best Sellers list, the Oscars, the Emmys and the Grammys all in the same year. I was definitely appalled, but at least no one ate anyone.

  Heads up Shelia, the Basement of Hell is really heinous—fire and more fire and it smells like a giant butt. Do not ever go there. Not that you could, you’re a freakin’ book, but I’m just warning you because I’m nice like that. And you don’t have a nose as far as I can tell, so you’d miss out on the putrid aroma, but you are made of paper and it’s a giant fucking inferno down there.

  Just don’t go.

  If you do go, stay on the main floor. It looks like Kentucky.

  Have a nice night and don’t eat anyone. Ever.

  xoxo Astrid

  Friday

  Today wasn’t so bad.

  Dear Shelia,

  Thankfully Uncle Fucker had to go smite some bad dudes and I got the day off.

  I’d tell you about my day, but I don’t have time. I’m gonna get laid.

  Do not go getting any ideas here. If I show up tomorrow and you’ve given birth to a bunch of little tiny baby books, there will be Hell to pay. Just sayin’.

  Have a nice evening and use condoms.

  xoxo Astrid

  Diary

  WEEK TWO

  Monday

  Shooting the shit with Satan.

  Dear Shelia,

  It was a dark and stormy night…

  Tuesday

  Aaannndddd I’m back.

  Dear Shelia,

  It was a dark and stormy night… AGAIN.

  Wednesday

  Pretty sure I got hives from the sacrilegious reinterpretation of the bible.

  Dear Shelia,

  It was a dark and stormy night…Fuck Me.

  Thursday

  Did you get it???

  Dear Shelia,

  It was a dark and stormy night….

  Did you like that??? I totally did a Twilight thing on the last three entries. Remember when Bella was all depressed because sparkly Edward left her and instead of writing that Bella basically stared at the wall for a bunch of months, Stephenie Meyer just wrote the months at the top of the page and nothing else. I thought that was so freakin’ cool.

  Wait.

  You probably didn’t read Twilight since you’re a book too. My bad. Suffice it to say it’s an awesome series that’s wildly inaccurate. I didn’t know how inaccurate it was until I bit the dust and joined the ranks of the undead.

  Just so you know, Vampyres do not sparkle in the sun. We fry to a crisp. It’s not pretty and it smells like Hell on garbage day. Of course we heal, but no one I know wants to look like a charred, rotting steak for a few hours.

  If I have some extra time after this month is over, I’ll read you the Twilight series. You’ll love it. I’ll also point out all of the fictional parts. I mean all of it’s fiction, but some of it is so incorrect it’s hilarious. We do not run up trees, we don’t drink animal blood and we are not a weird pasty shade of white with bizarre reddish lip-gloss. Wait. Now I’m talking about the movie. Can you watch movies?

  Do not answer that.

  But shades of pasty white reminds me of Fifty Shades of Gray—another fictional catastrophe that you would adore. I’ve read all of them twice and the movies are totally hilarious even thought they’re not supposed to be. You would love them.

  I’m digressing and probably confusing you. Uncle God knows I’m confusing myself. What the Hell was I even talking about? Oh right, being dead… I think…

  So while we’re talking about it—or rather I’m talking about it—because if you speak I’ll have to kill you… undead is such an inaccurate term. You feel me?

  Isn’t that dumb, Shelia? I mean dead is freakin’ dead. Undead is completely redundant. And apropos of nothing, doornails aren’t dead. Just sayin’. They were never alive and I’m not going to use that phrase ever again.

  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m actually really happy being dead. I adore Ethan with everything I am and I have a beautiful baby named Samuel. I wouldn’t trade being dead—or undead as the Vamps like to call it—for anything.

  Wait… I’m not sure I told you how I died. I tried to quit smoking and ended up dead. I know… how does someone die from being hypnotized at a seedy strip mall while trying to give up a disgusting habit? Well, first off, never get fucking put under at a seedy strip mall—it’s not a good idea. Hindsight is 20-20. Yes, I know it’s weird, but it’s the truth. My sorry excuse for a sister, Juliette, killed me as dead as a doornail.

  Whoa, doornails are not dead. I’m dead—doornails are not. Never mind, I digress.

  Not only did Juliette kill me and continues to try, she also attempted to kill a buttload of my friends and family. Currently she’s residing in a cell in the dungeon of the Cressida House. Suffice it to say, she’s not real popular.

  Here’s a piece of advice. Don’t kill your family members. It never ends well unless your mother is trying to take over the world and your father is a Demon that’s so vicious and evil even the Devil hates him—then and only then you can off a few family members.

  Have a peaceful evening and don’t go to the seedy strip Mall on Peabody Street.

  xoxo Astrid

  Friday

  Shut the front fucking door. No Way.

  Dear Sheila,

  It was a dark and stormy night….

  I can’t even explain today, so I’m not going to try.

  Just read.

  And don’t let your book chin hit the floor because it will—if you have one. And if you have one, don’t tell me because I’ll have to kill you. A chin connotes a mouth and a mouth would mean you could talk. This would be bad for you and I like you.

  But back to my story… How do I know chins will hit the floor? I know because mine did. If I wasn’t a Vampyre, I would have needed stitches.

  For real.

  Hold on, Shelia. Today was a bumpy ride…

  “I’m Bigfoot,” Satan said with a shit-eating grin on his handsome face.

  “Shut the front fucking door,” I shouted. “You are not Bigfoot. Bigfoot doesn’t exist.”

  “Do you realize what a ludicrous statement that is?” Satan countered with a raised brow and a delighted smirk. “I’m the Devil. You’re a Vampyre-Demon. My mother controls nature and pole dances. My father is a Sprite who breaks appliances in Heaven and Hell by repairing them. Fairies are real and Trolls exist. Why in the name of everything vile would you think Bigfoot isn’t alive and well and causing more conspiracy theories than UFOs?”

  “You’re ruining my life. This is more devastating than when I learned Santa was a fake,” I snapped. “You have single handedly destroyed my guilty pleasure, you big butthole. I watch Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet. I’ve seen Harry and the Hendersons twenty-two times and Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon six times. And the movie Bigfoot starring that dude Greg from the Brady Bunch and Danny from the Partridge Family. It was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched that cinematic catastrophe forty-six times.”

  “Do you have a point?” Satan asked, looking genuinely confused.

  “Not sure yet,” I admitted. “I’m not finished with my movie list. I accidentally watched Sweet Prudence and the Erotic Adventures of Bigfoot—completely disgusting—way worse than Rage of the Yeti, which I’ve seen twice. However, Strange Wilderness was awesome. These two dudes have a really bad nature show so they go in search of Bigfoot to boost their ratings so they don’t get cancelled…and they find him! And then they kill him by accident. But that wasn’t the funniest part. The one really cute guy, Steve Zahn, gets his wanker swallowed by an endangered turkey when he’s taking a weewee in the woods and they have to pull it off of him without killing the turkey. So freakin’ funny. I mean, horrible but funny. The doctors stretch his weenie all the way across the examination room trying to pull the turkey off.”

  �
�This was a documentary?” Satan asked in a horrified whisper, bent over at the waist in phantom pain.

  “Hell to the no,” I told him with a laugh. “It was a fake weenie in a movie—at least I hope it was fake.”

  “How did we digress to fake elastic genitals, endangered turkeys and Greg from the Brady Bunch?”

  I paused and tried to find the answer… I couldn’t. Whatever.

  “No clue,” I admitted. “What’s the worst movie you ever watched?”

  “Worst best or worst worst?” Satan inquired, clearly unable to figure out how we’d gotten here either.

  “Worst best,” I said.

  “Showgirls—absolutely terrifying. I’ve seen it at least two hundred times. We’ve turned it into a drinking game in Hell every other Thursday. The Demons love it. They dress up like Elizabeth Berkley and perform all the dance routines.”

  Digesting that piece of bizarre information took me a minute. I might have to go to Hell and experience that clusterfuck at least once.

  “Bigfoot,” I shouted, pointing an accusing and sparking finger at my uncle. “You ruined my existence by telling me that you’re Bigfoot. I’ve been secretly searching for Bigfuckingfoot my whole life. I always thought I would be the one to find him and I’d become famous. I’d have a TV show and would wear designer pink Yeti-hunting gear and Prada stiletto boots. Steven Colbert would invite me on The Late Show and I’d be so funny that Saturday Night Live would ask me to host. I’d say no of course, because I’m not a comedian and I’m dead, but they would insist and beg and cry—so I’d do it and it would get the highest ratings ever. After that, I’d record an album with Beyoncé and Adam Levine about the entire experience of finding Yeti and call it Purple Bigfoot—my shout out to one of the best albums ever made, Prince’s Purple Rain—and I’d win a Grammy. In my speech, I’d make sure to name all the girls who said my haircut looked like a mullet in high school and then all my legions of loyal fans would go to their houses and give those mean bitches mullet haircuts and plaster pictures all over Facebook. But now you’ve ruined my secret fantasy.”

  And the Devil was speechless—for about thirty-two and a half seconds. Then he laughed so hard I was pretty sure he was going to choke to death.

  “It’s not that funny,” I hissed.

  He kept laughing.

  “Seriously,” I yelled over his hysterics. “Stop laughing.”

  He kept laughing.

  “Listen you assmonkey,” I growled. “If you don’t stop laughing at me, I’ll smite your sorry ass.”

  He kept laughing.

  And laughing.

  And laughing.

  Sooooo, Shelia, I listened to Uncle Fucker laugh for two hours and twenty-three minutes straight. Not only was the assjacket laughing—he was laughing so hard he was crying. And then as if that wasn’t mortifying enough, he started rolling around on the floor. At least fifteen pens, two staplers and a box of Post-it notes he stole from Ethan’s desk fell out of his pockets.

  Of course being mature, I picked them up and lobbed them at his head. Unfortunately this only made the imbecile laugh harder. All around it was a bad day.

  The only good thing was that the douchecanoe was so hoarse from laughing he couldn’t dictate anymore of his appalling autobiography to me. It’s the little things, Shelia. We must be grateful for the little things. However, if he tells anyone my secret fantasy, I’ll post the video I took of him at Christmas singing Journey songs in his sleep on YouTube.

  Lucifer is tone deaf, but I’ll save that for another day. I’m exhausted from being laughed at for 239878293748237 hours. I’m sure you understand.

  Have a nice night. And if you’re laughing at me do it silently or I’ll have to kill you.

  xoxo Astrid

  Diary

  WEEK THREE

  Monday

  And the saga from Hell continues…

  Dear Shelia,

  It was a dark and stormy night…

  Today was a clusterhump of epic proportions. My baby, Samuel adores Satan and begged to play in the office while we worked. Actually he didn’t have to beg at all—all my son has to do is smile at me and I’m putty in his little hands. I’m fairly sure my child will have to attend at least twenty years of therapy because of the time spent with Uncle Fucker today. And that will be tacked on to the forty or so he’ll have to endure due to my potty mouth—which I’m working on.

  However, Satan should not be allowed around children. Ever.

  It went a little something like this…

  “So Sammy,” Satan said as he hugged my beautiful blond baby with delight. “Have you been a good boy or a bad boy?”

  “Me be baaaaddddd,” Samuel yelled as he pulled on the Devil’s hair and pressed wet baby kisses all over his face.

  “That’s my boy,” Lucifer said proudly. “Today in your honor, Sammy, I will talk about children things.”

  “Umm,” I said as my stomach began to churn. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “I thought I’d talk about Disney,” Satan replied so innocently, my eyes narrowed to slits.

  “For every bad move you make, I will zap your ass and you’ll owe me a favor,” I warned.

  “Me wove Disney movies!” Samuel announced in his outdoor voice. “Me wove Wion King the best.”

  “You’re driving a very hard bargain, my lovely niece,” Satan said with a put upon sigh as he bounced my happily squealing son on his knee.

  “Me like Fwozen and Beauty and the Beast and Jungle Book and Wiwo and Stitch and…”

  “Did you know that crazy whacked out bastard Walt Disney was an opium addict?” Satan said with raised brows and a wide grin.

  Without even looking up from the laptop, I waved my hand and zapped a huge hole in the backside of Satan’s custom Armani pants.

  “What the Hell?” Satan bellowed as he swatted at his flaming butt.

  “Ohhhhhh,” Samuel shouted, laughing and clapping his chunky little hands. “Dat’s gotta hurt.”

  “That’s one favor,” I told Satan with a smile.

  “Fine,” he huffed indignantly. “But I was telling the truth—for once. What just happened here is a fine example why one should lie—all the time. Remember that Sammy, the truth is for dumbasses and suckers.”

  “Dumbasses and suckers!” Samuel shouted as I flicked my fingers and blasted my uncle—again.

  The Devil danced around the room shooting me looks that should have scared me to death. They didn’t. They made me laugh.

  “Keep it PG,” I warned as Satan gathered himself and went back to his favorite little boy in the world.

  “I don’t even know what PG means,” he griped with an enormous eye roll.

  “No bad words. No drug references,” I shot back.

  Satan had a few choice words for me under his breath, but if I couldn’t hear him with my undead bionic hearing, I knew Samuel couldn’t either. I gave him a pass.

  I watched with amusement as Satan wracked his brain to come up with conversation that wouldn’t result in incineration.

  “Tinky Winky is gay,” he whispered to my boy with an evil little smirk.

  I heard him. I zapped him.

  “Damn it,” he grumbled as he waved his hand and put out the rear end inferno I’d gifted him with. “That was in the news for the love of everything evil.”

  “Don’t care,” I told him with my hand poised to fry another hole in his butt.

  “Wanna watch a movie with me, Uncle Wucifer?” Sammy asked, gently patting his great-uncle’s face.

  “What other movies do you like, Sammy?” Satan asked carefully, moving across the room so my blasting aim would be hindered.

  He clearly thought he’d just won. I was reserving my judgment…

  “Me wike Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” Samuel replied.

  I just closed my eyes, groaned and waited.

  Satan didn’t disappoint.

  “Pee-wee got in some big trouble playing with his peepee-weewee at the movi
eeeees,” Satan said as he quickly sat Samuel down and then dove behind the couch.

  The Devil was fast, but I’m a mom and I was faster. Moms are freakin’ super heroes with eyes in the back of their heads and speed that rivals a tsunami. It also helped that I’m a Vamp.

  With a flick of my wrist, I zapped his ass so hard he squealed like a freakin’ girl and then spewed off a litany of swear words that earned him six more butt blasts. His suit looked like he’d been in a war zone.

  “Have you had enough?” I asked politely as I scooped Samuel up and gave him a kiss on his chubby pink cheek.

  “Yesssss,” Satan hissed, doing his best to look dignified after being electrocuted—he failed. “I think Sammy needs to take a nap. Right?”

  Laughing, I nodded. “Yep. It’s time for his nap. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  And you know what, Shelia? When I got back, Uncle Fucker was gone. The office was empty. Pure bliss.

  I was pretty sure the Devil was appalled that he now owed me ten favors and I’d burnt his suit to a crisp. Well, too bad so sad. I’m the only one allowed to give my son reasons to attend therapy later in life.

  Hope you have a lovely evening. I’m going to watch Wion King with my favorite little boy.