{"product_id":"the-pit-wallace-cole-9798193958000","title":"The Pit: An Appalachian Horror Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSomething drug their deer into the water.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCooch Blankenship has a wife, a baby daughter, and a job at the Dollar General that doesn't cover a McDowell County winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo on Friday nights he goes out with Harley Maynard and Dale Sizemore to spotlight deer on the reclaimed strip mine above Marley Fork. It's illegal. It's also how his family eats through February.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn October 2007 they shoot a doe across an open field. Before they can reach her, something drags her down the slope and into a hole full of black water. The water goes still. Then, from underneath, comes\u003cb\u003e a sound like chewing.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree weeks later Tom Mercer, a retired botany professor, walks out to that same pit to collect plant samples and doesn't come back. His boot prints stop twenty feet from the water.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree men know why. All three would have to admit to a felony to warn anyone else.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo they keep quiet. The thing in the water doesn't. It learns the sound of their trucks. It gets into their sleep. It starts turning up closer to home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of them stops wanting to stay away.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Pit is the first Wallace Cole novel of Appalachian horror - a story about a poor county, a hole full of still water, and the arithmetic of keeping quiet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Wallace Cole\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798193958000\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/20\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 200\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.52lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.42d","brand":"Wallace Cole","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49174533210367,"sku":"9798193958000","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-pit-wallace-cole-9798193958000","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}