Born in Pittsburg, PA, Atticus had the all-American childhood. He was the youngest of three kids and had doting parents. He and his brothers were given the best of everything from clothes to baseball gear to bikes to educations. His eldest brother became a lawyer, the middle brother became a judge and when Atticus was seventeen, his mother jokingly remarked that all they needed now was a doctor. In his mind, it was set - he was going to medical school.
He excelled and could have gone into any focus. He decided on Oncology, however, when his mother became ill with breast cancer. She lived long enough to see him graduate, but not long enough to see him obtain a high ranking position at St Luke's Hospital in Denver, Colorado. His father moved out to Colorado with him and passed away at the age of 82 in the year 2000. Atticus never had time for a wife and children - he planned on doing that later in life after he'd cured cancer. He was working on research and had several hundred patients when Captain Tripps broke out. Suddenly everyone at the hospital was focused on this new and horrible flu. His colleagues began to die one and one and yet, Atticus stayed healthy.
Intent on finding out why, Atticus went in search of other survivors. He found a strange man in a 7-11 who was foraging for food. It took him two hours to learn that the man's name was Erik and he only obtained that information by following Erik home. Unfortunately, Atticus didn't quite realized something was a bit 'off' with Erik until he discovered that the man had just closed the bedroom door on his dead parents instead of burying them. Erik was living on the main level of the house while his parents were rotting a floor above.
Atticus decided he would force Erik to leave at that point, even if it took a year. Thankfully, he coached the man out with the idea of finding a big hotel to live in. He knew he'd never get Erik into Boulder proper and the truth was, he wasn't keen to dive back into the world just yet. He really wanted time to figure out why some people were immune and some were not. He had learned from his years of research that he got more done when he was away from people. He had a tendency to spend time socializing verses working when he was around people. Still, he was grateful when they met two other people, Becca and Cass, on the road who had a similar point of view.
The four of them now live at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado where they were joined by Victor Huntingdon and Mina Archer.