The Graveyard Contract

Being a fugitive with no future is bad enough. Being a lapdog to a cutthroat foreman just to scrape out a meager living off the grid is an entirely different kind of humiliation. That’s the life Jackie Estacado has dug for himself. As a “representative” of Gravesend Construction Co. in some of Detroit’s most notorious neighborhoods, he’s the one they send out to persuade homeowners and local businesses to vacate the premises once his boss underhandedly secures the contracts to either renovate or outright bulldoze their properties. Unknown to him, despite his continued successes, his boss has been meaning to dispose of him in hopes of avoiding the fallout of having a wanted man on their under-the-table payroll once GCC finds more legitimate employment prospects beyond just unscrupulous union leaders and the superintendent’s political connections. To this end, he sends Jackie to drive off the reclusive proprietor of St. Varney’s Church of the Resurrection - an assignment which led to the previous representative being found dead from impalement with three bite marks on his body; drained of blood. Loosely based on The Darkness comic series from Top Cow Productions - created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl - The Graveyard Contract aims to show a night in the life of a much more grounded version of one of their flagship characters; one cut off from the gangster lifestyle of his canonical counterpart but nonetheless haunted by the same powers of Darkness.