help!! what do I do???

My hair was dyed black, and I was trying to get it to fade out so that I can dye it back to my natural light brown. I washed out my hair with dawn for a week, but that didn't really work. So last night, I used a color stripper in my hair. Now, the top of my hair is orange and yellow and red, the middle of it is brown, and the ends are still black!! I have no idea why it worked so unevenly. I don't have time or money to go to the salon to get this fixed, and I have to have my hair fixed and back to a natural looking light brown by the 27th. For any hair stylists, or anyone that's good with hair, help! Please! Should I use another hair stripper for the middle and bottom of my hair and leave it on a lot longer and then dye over it? 
*side note, my hair is also extremely dry now. It feels as if I've spilled mapel syrup in it and it's dried. 
*ANOTHER SIDE NOTE, I did not purposely dye my hair black. The color on the box that I used was a medium shade of brown. It ended up making my hair black somehow. I was going to dye it the brown and then just let it fade from that point.