Jeremy Allen

Note to editor: This story contains sensitive content includingalcohol and drug abuse, suicide, death, and insinuations of traumatic childhood neglect.

From the start, Jeremy Allen's life was plagued by struggles. After a brutally tough childhood, his life led to hard work and loss. In his dreams, he always wanted something deeper, something grander. He longed for a regular or traditional life with his family, whom he loved deeply. Now, on the edge of adulthood, the whispers grew louder. They urged him to follow a path his family had walked for generations, a path of steel and sky.

The Allen family had iron in their blood. Jeremy's father, uncles, and older siblings were all ironworkers. They balanced on skeletal beams high above the world, forging their lives in labor and bonding through the shared risk of the fall. Jeremy, the second youngest of five, grew up on his father's stories about how he would proudly and confidently stride along narrow beams and high girders. Devout and tireless, his mother prayed daily for her husband and children.

Jeremy's childhood was both transient and isolated. The family moved often, chasing construction projects across the South and Midwest. They lived in trailers and temporary housing, tied to steel and sweat. The other families who traveled with them became their only constants. They formed a tight-knit, nomadic community. But beneath the surface of camaraderie lay tension, as sharp and cold as the beams they worked on. Jeremy's father was a man of extremes. His love showed in his rough hands and a temper that ignited without warning. When anger boiled over, belts and fists spoke louder than words. Jeremy's mother endured it all in silence, her faith her only refuge.

Then came the sickness. Cancer crept into their lives like a thief, stealing Jeremy's mother piece by piece. The summer of 1986 marked the end of their wandering. The Allens settled in Texas, not for work, but to witness her slow decline. Jeremy's father, who had faced death daily on the job, was powerless against this invisible enemy. His rage grew quieter but no less destructive, a storm brewing behind tired eyes.

By the time Jeremy was eight, his family had fractured. His older half-siblings had left, unable to bear the weight of their father's anger. They had a mother of their own in Oregon and went to live with her. Their father was jailed for 18 months for another violent outburst. The house grew quieter. But the quiet brought no peace. Jeremy and his six-year-old brother, Stephan, found themselves left to care for their mother alone. Their trailer became a cocoon of sickness and silence, the air heavy with unspoken fears.

Jeremy's mother passed away shortly after his father's release. He would never forget the day she died. The heat was stifling. Adults whispered in hushed tones. Jeremy knew why they were all here, but he stayed silent. He felt the weight of responsibility as he held his younger brother's hand. Grief wrapped around him like a shroud, but Jeremy refused to cry. Stephan needed him to be strong, and strength, he believed, meant swallowing his tears.

In the years that followed, Jeremy's grief turned to anger and anger to rebellion. He became a storm of violence and defiance. His teenage years were a blur of fights, drugs, and music too loud to ignore. It clawed at the edges of his mind. Yet, amidst the chaos, Stephan remained his anchor, the one thing tethering him to the world. They shared an unspoken bond forged in the fires of shared trauma.

But even Stephan couldn't keep Jeremy's darkness at bay. The house where their mother had died seemed alive, its walls steeped in sorrow. At night, Jeremy would wake to creaking floorboards. It was as if something moved just out of sight. He would investigate, flashlight in hand, but the halls were always empty. Yet, he felt it, an unseen presence lingering in the shadows. Stephan felt it, too, though they rarely spoke of it. With so much pain in their lives, acknowledging the paranormal was an easy escape.

By his mid-twenties, Jeremy was drowning in drugs and alcohol. Substance abuse became his escape, a way to quiet the ghosts that haunted him. But the ghosts weren't just in his head. They were in the places he had lived, his fading childhood memories. The darkness followed him, a constant reminder of all he had lost.

Jeremy decided to try creating art. He poured his pain into music and painting, channeling his anguish into creation. But even his art couldn't silence the echoes of the past, and he never really grasped the concept of music.

Once a towering figure of rage and authority, his father softened with age. The man who had once seemed unbreakable was now fragile, burdened by guilt and regret. One night, alone in his living room, Jeremy's father succumbed to the weight of his memories, taking his own life. The news hit Jeremy like a hammer, reopening wounds he had thought long healed.

Through it all, Jeremy kept moving forward. He often wondered what his mother would think of the man he had become. Would she be proud of his resilience, or would she see only the broken boy Jeremy saw in the mirror? He wanted to believe that she'd be proud and understand the battles he had fought to survive, but deep down he had his doubts.

At thirty, Jeremy followed in his father's footsteps and joined a red iron crew. The job was a mix of danger and exhilaration, a constant dance with death. On his first day, he stood on a narrow steel beam high above the ground, the wind tugging at his clothes. The height was dizzying, and the sense of vulnerability was overwhelming. But he pushed the fear aside, focusing on the task at hand. Ironwork was his family's legacy, and he embraced the chance to honor it.

For months, Jeremy worked tirelessly, proving himself to his coworkers. He learned to balance on beams as if he were born to it, his movements sure and steady. But the sense of foreboding never left him. The height, wind, and precariousness felt like walking a razor's edge. And then, one fateful day, that edge gave way.

Jeremy was helping unload a cherry picker when his foot slipped on a wet bar joist. Time seemed to slow as he fell, the wind rushing past him in a deafening roar. Panic gripped him, and his mind raced with a thousand thoughts: the impact, the pain, the end. And then, nothing.

When Jeremy opened his eyes, he was in an unfamiliar house. The walls glowed with a pale light. At first, he thought he was dreaming. But as he wandered the halls, calling for help, he realized something was wrong. The family inside, a mother, father, and two children, seemed oblivious to his presence. He shouted, waved his arms, and even tried to touch the kitchen table, but his hand passed through it like smoke.

“This is not a dream. This is real.”

The truth hit him with the force of a grenade: Jeremy was dead. His life, filled with love, loss, anger, and regrets, had ended. The questions came in a torrent: How had this happened? Why? Where was he now, and what was he supposed to do? There were no answers, only the hollow ache of confusion and the gnawing dread of eternity.

Jeremy drifted from house to house, searching for something he couldn't name. He haunted strangers, causing fear and unease without realizing it. Some nights, he glimpsed other spirits. Their forms flickered like candle flames. They, too, seemed lost, trapped in a liminal space between life and death. Jeremy tried to talk to them. Their replies were like whispers lost to the wind.

As the years passed, Jeremy's longing for his family grew unbearable. He searched tirelessly for his brother, Stephan, and his parents, whose love and pain had shaped him. He searched the houses, RV Parks, and towns they had lived in and passed through. But his search was fruitless. The answers were always just out of reach.

Jeremy's journey was one of isolation and yearning. It was a restless quest for connection through a world without seeing him. His spirit, bound by the weight of his past, could not move on. And so he wandered, a ghost in every sense of the word. Jeremy's story was far from over. He would search as long as he remained tethered to the pain and love of his mortal life. For his family, for answers, for peace. Jeremy's journey would go on, an endless echo in the void.

The END.