Chapter 1: Pilot
December twelfth wasn’t supposed to be weird. Not weirder than usual, anyway.
Jackson Miller trudged out of bed with sleep still clinging to his eyes. Outside, the sky was dark for a winter afternoon, clouds rolling over the horizon like they were trying to smother the sun. His alarm clock buzzed one last time before giving up.
“Jackson!” his sister screamed from downstairs. “Mom says if you don’t get down here in two minutes, she’s eating your waffles!”
Typical. Ella was ten and somehow already the most annoying person Jackson had ever met. She took pride in knowing exactly how to push his buttons, from using his toothbrush to “accidentally” deleting his saved Minecraft world.
“I’m coming!” Jackson shouted back, throwing on his hoodie and jeans. He slumped down the stairs, grabbed a half-soggy bowl of cereal instead of waffles, and sat at the kitchen table. Something felt… off. The kind of off that made your stomach curl before anything even happened.
Maybe it was the quiet outside. Or maybe it was that he kept feeling like something—or someone—was watching him.
As he stared at the kitchen window, he thought he saw a flicker of movement near the trees across the street. Something gray. Something with eyes.
He blinked. It was gone.
Shrugging it off, he grabbed his backpack and stepped out into the cold. The sky was darker now, even though it was barely 8:30 a.m. The clouds hung low, thick like smoke. As Jackson made his way down the sidewalk toward Lincoln Middle School, he saw it again.
A wolf.
Except it wasn’t running on all its legs.
It was walking.
Like a person.
Its posture was a human’s, shoulders squared, legs moving with a smooth rhythm that no wild animal should have. Its black eyes flicked in his direction.
Jackson froze.
And then he bolted. He sprinted the last three blocks to school, heart pounding, legs shaking, not daring to look behind him. When he finally stumbled into the front doors, he doubled over, panting. Nobody else seemed alarmed from seeing a large wolf walking to the school.
Maybe he imagined it. Maybe he was just seeing things. Wolves don’t walk like people. That would be insane.
Still catching his breath, he headed to his homeroom, trying to shake the image out of his mind. Everyone else in the hallway looked fine. Maybe it was just a dog, a really big one. Or maybe it was some Halloween prank months too late.
Then he walked into class and saw the substitute and he realized he was wrong.
“Good morning,” the man said. He was tall—too tall, easily over seven feet—and lean, with skin the color of faded stone and eyes so dark they looked black. His voice was low and calm, almost too calm. “I’m Mr. Greyback.”
A couple of students snickered at the name. Jackson didn’t laugh because he’d seen that face before.
It was the wolf, only now it wore human skin.
Jackson’s mouth went dry. He slid into his seat, trying not to stare, trying not to make it obvious. But his eyes kept drifting back. Mr. Greyback paced slowly in front of the whiteboard, his arms clasped behind his back, his head occasionally tilting in that animalistic way, as if he were sniffing the air.
Jackson felt that the clock ticked slower than usual. One hour. Just one hour until the winter break party. Jackson gripped his desk so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Mr. Miller,” Mr. Greyback said suddenly.
Jackson was surprised. He thought had he been staring at Mr. Greyback
“Is there something on my face?”
“N-No,” Jackson muttered.
That smile spread across the substitute’s face—long, too wide, revealing sharp white teeth. A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. A smile that felt hungry.
The rest of the class passed in a blur. A few students paid attention and when Mr. Greyback laughed, his teeth showed again, but they did not have the slightest change of expression. Jackson barely heard a word. All he could think about was how he’d seen the man—thing—outside, how it had followed him, and now it was in his school. Teaching math.
At the end-of-year party in the gym, Jackson tried to lose himself in candy canes, cupcakes, and soda. But he kept glancing around, looking for Mr. Greyback. When he finally saw him, he was slipping out a side door near the gym. Alone.
Jackson hesitated.
Don’t follow him, his brain screamed, but his legs moved anyway. He slipped out into the cold behind the school and peered around the corner of the building. Then he saw it.
Mr. Greyback—only it wasn’t Mr. Greyback anymore. It was a seven-foot-tall wolf, standing on its hind legs, fur glinting silver in the dim light. Its shoulders heaved with slow breaths, and its eyes—those same pitch-black eyes—locked onto Jackson.
Jackson’s body froze in place. Then the wolf lunged. He barely had time to scream.
A swipe of claws raked across his arm. Pain exploded. He couldn’t hear anything for a split second. Jackson collapsed, gripping his right arm, eyes watering.
And then he felt something happen. His body felt like it was swelling, stretching. His fingers curled into claws. His back arched. Hair sprouted along his arms. His shoes tore apart as his feet twisted, bones cracking and shifting.
He then went up to a car’s rearview mirror. It wasn’t his face staring back.
It was a wolf’s, a wolf that stood like a person.
“I… I’m a werewolf!” Jackson gasped, his voice ragged like a mix howl and a roar.
Panic surged through him. He tried to get himself back to normal—back to human—but nothing worked. He thought hard: turn into human, be a human, no more werewolf.
And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, Mr. Greyback started to twist and get smaller and smaller. He became human and started to casually stroll into the woods.
Jackson collapsed to his knees, shaking, howling in pain and confusion. Then he lunged to his feet and caught Mr. Greyback.
With his ragged voice Jackson said, “How did you turn back into a human?!”
Mr. Greyback started to mumble something in his mouth.
Enraged, Jackson yelled, “ANSWER ME!” in his new wolf-growl voice.
Mr. Greyback answered, avoiding getting his throat cut by Jackson’s claws. “By wishing for it in your mind.”
Then Mr. Greyback started to run.
Jackson realized that Mr. Greyback must have been lying; he expected for his bones to crack and to get smaller, but nothing happened.
Jackson knew he couldn’t go back without causing at least 50 students and teachers to faint, so he jumped over the school fence to follow where Mr. Greyback went.
When Mr. Greyback started to run. When Jackson was following him he realized that he was going into the area where his parents said not to lay a foot. When he stopped about 5 miles away from the school Mr. Greyback turned back into a werewolf and entered an abandoned building.
Jackson looked through a window to see hundreds of werewolves that were as small as an average person and as large as a small tree. When they saw Mr. Greyback, all the other werewolves bowed. Jackson was shocked.
Jackson realized that Mr. Greyback was widely known, so when Mr. Greyback went up the staircase to the second floor, Jackson went in and tried to overhear other werewolves speaking to each other. He heard a werewolf talk about some place called Wolftopia.
Then he heard a familiar voice. He thought he was crazy and was hearing things, but he could not ignore it. The voice belonged to a werewolf that looked exactly like his sister. When he got closer to his so-called sister he realized that his entire family was there. His mom, his dad, everyone. As he got closer he overheard his sister talking about biting Jackson. It wasn’t surprising that this came from his sister.
Then without thinking Jackson went up to them. His so-called dad said hello and then he realized something crazy. His dead grandparents were right in front of him. Jackson told his family about the incident. He told them about Mr. Greyback and what he did. His dad chuckled.
“We were the ones who told Mr. Greyback to turn you into a werewolf.”
Jackson had a lot of questions like who scratched you, why was he not a werewolf, how do you know Mr. Greyback. Then his mother spoke up for the first time.
Jackson’s mom said, “Mr. Greyback is my brother. When I was young he scratched me without knowing what he was capable of doing. Your grandfather was a werewolf so your dad became one, too.”
Jackson said, “How come I wasn’t born a werewolf then, and why can’t I turn into a human?”
His entire family fell silent. His mom said, “The reason you are not born a werewolf is because you were born during the day, and …”
Jackson quickly blurted out, “What are you not telling me?”
His grandfather spoke up and said, “You can’t turn back into a human since you were not a human before you got bit. Non-humans have different ways to turn back into a human.”
Jackson was confused and thought his parents were messing with him. “You’re joking.”
They all fell silent and didn’t say a single word.
Then Jackson realized something. Ever since he was young he had looked different from his entire family. He looked like the exact opposite of them. Then he realized the truth. He was adopted. Jackson had no idea who his birth parents were, and once he finds out he is going to wish he never found out.