Darius Shaw is a security guard working the night shift in the small town of Shadow Bay, New York. When he finds two bodies in the pool of the local recreation center, he calls 911. The operator, who has received multiple calls for drowning victims in the last thirty minutes, can’t handle it anymore.

Within hours, over a dozen bodies are found in pools, bathtubs, and the lake. They were all victims of violence prior to drowning as the bodies have bite marks and bruising.

As the investigation gets underway, Darius comes across a journal with damning evidence on the police chief of Shadow Bay. The author of the journal is the woman Darius found in the recreation center pool. Her notes implicate the chief in a ten-year-old cold case, the murder of her brother.

While Darius attempts to investigate the chief of police, people continue to die—some just by walking into the lake to drown. The chief calls the FBI for assistance and upon arrival, they immediately lockdown the town, effectively keeping everyone inside town boundaries with whatever is causing deaths.

What is killing off the townsfolk, one by one? Could one person be responsible for such devastation? Or is the ten-year-old cold case somehow connected?

With the lockdown in full effect, people are still drowning. Darius decides to get rid of the journal as its contents are too dangerous to be caught with, but someone knows Darius has it, and they also know what evidence those pages contain.

The Drowning is an insane glimpse at the town of Shadow Bay over twenty-four hours, caught in the grips of revenge—when Hell came to visit.