"They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh's porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha--Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change. Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed. Now Shiloh's thirty-three,...

"When small-town athlete Avery's morning run leads her to a strange pond in the middle of the forest, she awakens a horror the townspeople of Crook's Falls have long forgotten. The black water has been waiting. Watching. Hungry for the souls it needs to survive. Avery can smell the water, see it flooding everywhere; she thinks she's losing her mind. And as the black water haunts Avery--taking a new form each time--people in town begin to go missing....