Born in Canton about fifteen miles from Boston, his parents met in college and got hitched right after graduation, with a whole bunch of plans about their future. His father, Jimmy Cobb, came from old money in Massachusetts but his mother, Madison Cole, was from good working class folks from out West, who had moved to New York before she was born.
His parents hadn’t planned on a family so soon after their wedding but fate just does what it does. They were still young and liked to travel so Jamie spent summers in the Big Apple with his grandparents while his parents vacationed in Europe. He also spent a lot of time in school athletics like baseball and swimming, and when he was younger being a Scout.
As he got older he realized that his parents might have encouraged these activities to make him more social but never went to his meets, games or jamborees. It was just letting someone else raise their kid. Sending him off somewhere every chance they got. It soured his outlook on what were once his favorite hobbies, and he became more of a loner in his older teenage years as a coping mechanism. He had friends but was never really attached to them.
His grandfather Benji was the one that explained the custom of how half the males in the family got stuck with the name Benjamin. Some loser brother of his great grandfather went off and got killed in the first World War or something… It wasn’t even a cool story like he saved a bunch of dudes by jumping on a grenade, just down with his ship or some such.
But his grandfather was the first kid to be blessed with his name Benjamin, also an uncle and a couple cousins… Thankfully Jamie only got stuck with it as a middle name.
When the Super Flu broke out as always his parents were away since it was summer and he was basically on his own (what a surprise). The news started broadcasting about the outbreak and his parents called once or twice about flights being cancelled. Jamie was surprised they even remembered about him, but not when his mother asked him to hop on his motorcycle and make the four hour ride to New York to check on her parents and stay with them.
The cities were worse than the ‘burbs. A phone call to the police when he found an empty apartment confirmed both his grandparents had succumbed to Captain Trips, as the pandemic was lovingly named, by the time he arrived. They told him to stay inside to be safe. But soon the calls stopped coming, the lights flickered, and the fridge and cupboards grew empty.
Jamie packed whatever he could on his bike and ventured out, unsure what he was looking for or what he would find.
