Opalescence- the Secret of Pripyat Page 5

  Time passed, I finally fell asleep. The ascension had exhausted me. I dreamed of a strong storm. The structure was shaking violently. I felt it collapsing like a house of cards and I stood up unharmed, rising from its heavy bowels in the face of a horde of helpless help. One of them pulled out a gun and fired at close range. I collapsed among the rubble of Duga, with the black and snowy sky as my last image.

  My dreamlike death ended my nightmare. I woke up with a jolt, my forehead sweating despite the cold. The night was now fully set and temperatures had plummeted. I grabbed my night vision goggles and tried to observe the surroundings. Something was leaping away. It was probably Tarzan, the watchdog. I noticed that he had an incoherent trajectory, and frequently retraced his steps. Maybe he was hunting a fox? Apart from this incomprehensible movement, it was flat calm.

  My watch said 12:40. I was thinking of leaving when suddenly lighthouses lit up the complex. My pulse accelerated. It seemed to be an SUV that was parking. An individual came down from it. The dog had mysteriously stopped moving.

  In a hasty gesture, I took back my night vision goggles. Unfortunately, because of my sudden movement I had lost my balance a little bit and I was forced to let go of the plane in order to hang on to the railing. The glasses tumbled into the void. I had no illusions about their vertiginous fall, they would no longer work. I was now blind. Impossible to distinguish the silhouette that was being activated down there. I would never know who he was and what he was doing. The vehicle’s headlights went out. Perhaps he was also considering climbing the structure? A shiver of anguish gripped me. I didn’t know anything about his intentions. I had to run away without further delay.

  I decided to start the descent from the back. Secondary routes existed, but according to the Internet they were not recommended because they were unreliable. Nevertheless, I had no choice. I made a quick commitment. My actions were hasty and unthinking.

  I reached the ground in about ten minutes, short of breath and with a shaky hand. The calm was astounding. The individual was no longer there. Only the wind turbulence disturbed the tranquility of the place. Camouflaged by night, I walked to the SUV to try to find a clue. The windows were tinted, it was impossible for me to see inside the vehicle. The license plate was Ukrainian and I had no conclusion to draw from it. A frosty wind continued to blow. I had to leave.

  As I took a last look at Duga, I saw a shadow climbing up the main ladder. It was the same as the one I practiced when I arrived. His progress was much more assured than mine. The execution of the gestures and their speed were impeccable. Obviously, it wasn’t the first time he’d climbed up there. I stood still, spying on the individual’s ascension.

  He reached the top and settled at the observation post. I was thinking that he too could probably distinguish me. A chilling breath prompted me to leave. I’m running away at full speed through the woods. I didn’t have the courage to look back. I was trying to convince myself that no one was chasing me. We had to stay strong, face this environment, stand up to the Zone.

  After a few kilometres, I finally managed to reach a house on the edge of the forest. I was freezing and hoarse noises came to me. They were male voices intoxicated by alcohol. Slowly, I approached to find myself inside the building. This one was quite spacious and composed of several parts. I was in a kind of living room containing a double bed, a table and some shelves that were quite marked by time. The sounds came to me, but they were always distant. I was lurking against the wall, watching through the keyhole what was going on. The two individuals were in the other room. They chatted loudly while chewing big gum and spoke English with a very heavy, almost snoring accent.

  “Danny, come over here! It’s awesome, there are a lot of things.”

  The tall fellow kicked a little wooden horse. His partner was busy kicking a cupboard with his fist. He pulled out an old hat full of dust and put it on his bald head.

  —Is that okay with me?

  —You look like a bum.

  —Shut the fuck up!

  They giggled and started drinking and chuckling. Their laughter caused me to misunderstand. I was looking down at the little boy who was part of the duo. A neo-Nazi tattoo adorned his chubby forearm. He spoke English with a strong Slavic accent. I understood that he was Ukrainian. To make matters worse, he was holding a gun to his hip. Some kind of old rifle he must have inherited from who knows who. His sidekick looked American.

  I noticed that their silhouettes were getting bigger. Yes, they were getting closer. I had to get out of here. They were so close that they would necessarily see me take the exit. Instinctively, I choose to slip under the bed. The two Skinheads came through the door and threw themselves on the mattress to fall asleep almost immediately. I felt trapped. Their sleep was still light, it would probably only take a sneeze to make me noticed. I made the decision to wait and try to control my breathing to calm down.

  It was only when I heard them snoring loudly that I got out of under the bed. I tried to move silently towards the door. The floor creaked, first slightly and then vehemently. I was taking a very slight precaution to move as gently as possible. But the old parquet floor seemed to moan at my feet. The big Ukrainian fellow opened his eyes and saw me. He got up in a flash and grabbed his rifle. I barely had time to breathe, when he shouted incomprehensible words and pointed a gun at me. Lesser by the alcohol, he had forgotten that the weapon was not loaded. This reprieve probably saved my life. I ran as fast as I could out of the building and walked away into the forest. Drunk as he was, he couldn’t keep up and went back to his sidekick.

  Oleksandr had warned me of the presence of these people. Most of them were simply young people who were bored and wanted to spice up their weekends by coming to spend some time in the Zone. Still others belonged to ultra-nationalist movements with well-defined ideas. Russians or Ukrainians, fights often broke out when they met. The conflict between the two countries fuelled their pride. These two, on the other hand, had only brought a shotgun. They had probably only come to have fun in the Pripyat forest and kill some deer. They were kids, they must have been in their twenties at most. I considered them to be harmful inconveniences, but I knew they were not the worst.

  I had no idea that in winter the Zone was so busy. Obviously these young people were not too embarrassed. They entered the exclusion zone without adequate equipment. Neither dosimeters nor gloves were included in their equipment. They dreamed of terror, but they did not have the hundredth of courage of their elders the liquidators, those who sacrificed their lives in the reactor containment operations.

  Chapitre 4 — Scum

  Monday.

  I was breaking into a school whose name I had no idea. It didn’t look like the one I had been with when I was growing up in Pripyat. Would I have recognised it? I wasn’t convinced of that.

  I was moving forward in small steps, almost frightened at the thought of damaging the old parquet floor a little more. Notebooks were strewn all over the classroom floor. On the wall, drawings of children were still hanging. Most of them were torn apart. Some of them were quite successful. All of them were getting moldy. A German book was opened on a page describing animal vocabulary.

  Around me, the tables and chairs seemed authentic, ordered as if a lesson had just ended. A yellowish element caught my attention. A brand new little Lego was sitting on one of the desks, his arms dangling. It must have been brought in and then placed by a photographer lacking inspiration. Unfortunately, this type of cross-dressing was common in the Zone. They made the Internet forums happy and many gullible bloggers shared these kinds of clichés. For my part, I was working hard not to change anything. I didn’t want to alter this environment that I considered sacred. I snuck between the desks to get close to the closet at the back of the room. It was gutted and revealed a few books, each dustier than the next. Some were covered with inscriptions in the Cyrillic alphabet. These were history textbooks. Dated from 1984, they obviously had not been used much.


  With unsatisfied curiosity, I left the classroom and headed for an adjacent room. It was to be a rest area for the school’s teachers. A crumbling chair was there. The place looked much better than the rest of the building. It had probably been visited less. However, the room was not very interesting, as it was practically empty. The decoration was cold and sketchy. It seemed virgin of any desecration, which relieved me for a few moments.

  I quickly realized that I was not alone. As I was about to leave, I came face to face with a Stalker. He was dressed in a khaki jacket and a gas mask on his shoulder, which had the effect of panicking me. In a fearful reflex, I plunged two fingers into my pocket to grab my knife and brandish it in front of him. The individual raised his arms and told me that he meant no harm. He reached out to me and introduced himself.

  Andrei was in his thirties, rather thin, and had light eyes. His appearance was a little peculiar, half-smiling, half-bad. In addition to his blond hair, he had a scar on his left cheekbone, a wound he didn’t mention.

  We exchanged our experiences, our biographies. He knew the city of Pripyat by heart, but had never entered the Red Forest. He was not very interested in poisonous vegetation. His hobby was urban exploration. The real one. Not the one intended to show a Japanese couple around the Pripyat buildings approved by the Ukrainian government.

  Andrei visited the Zone frequently, “3 to 4 times a year” he explained to me. There he felt a real need, a kind of vital impulse that had to be fulfilled. However, he had no direct connection to the events. Andrei was of Estonian origin and was born in Kiev. Coming from an uninhabited and privileged family, he was not predestined to wander through radioactive rubble, but rather to study at university and scour the capital’s trendy bars.

  Andrei was atypical. He was trying to escape boredom, to explore the buried one. In Pripyat, he had entered the basement of the hospital several times, a place of multiple fantasies. “Not all of them wrong,” he told me, cracking a broad smile. The place was considered by many to be haunted, devoured by paranormal phenomena. We heard all kinds of supernatural stories about him. Despite his encouragement, I stubbornly refused to go there. Besides the necromantic aspect, the levels of radioactivity were much higher in the basements of the buildings and I was not ready to take that risk. According to him, the Geiger counter was panicking so much that it was better to turn it off so as not to go crazy. To be with oneself only, to falsify the rational in order to tame fear and overcome the anguish of the place. Andrei’s stories fascinated me.

  We left the building and started walking together while we continued our conversation. He took a small path that rushed through the trees. We chatted happily under the icy peaks, almost carefree and unaware of where we were standing.

  When he bent down to tie his shoelaces again, I thought I saw the butt of a gun.

  —Are you armed?

  —Of course. Not everyone here is benevolent.

  —Have you ever used it before?

  —Only once.

  —What happened? What happened?

  —I was near the Jupiter factory when shots were fired. A bullet suddenly ricocheted a few centimetres from me. I never saw my attacker. As I fled, I tried to retaliate. I could swear I touched someone or something. I had to shoot blind, I don’t know what I reached. The Zone made me a little paranoid. I don’t trust anyone. Don’t rely on anyone, not even the military. Believe me, it will probably save your life.

  —What kinds of people did you meet in the Zone? Why are they coming?

  —As you might expect, most of the visitors here are tourists. They arrive and leave daily with their guide and group of congeners. The rest of the people who are there are working for the Zone. Most are employed by the government and do maintenance. Others are employed by private firms and are assigned to the sarcophagus or to the various nuclear waste treatment centres located throughout the Zone. You have a few soldiers too, although most of them just stay at the many checkpoints. Finally, there are the Stalkers. Those prowlers you’re now part of. Many of them are attracted to Pripyat’s loot. People are poor around here, it’s hard to blame them. Some are willing to do anything. Their lives are of little value. I met a young Belarusian man about ten years ago. He was convinced that Pripyat’s treasure was hidden in the reactor itself. The unlikeliest place would be where the loot would be found. It sounded almost too beautiful and too easy. He was so convinced of his reasoning that he devised a plan to enter it. He had offered to accompany him, but fortunately I declined. I had been able to detect certain glimmers in his eyes, such as those that inhabit any being possessed by an irrational idea and obsessed with the prospect of its realisation. I knew he would go all the way, no matter what the obstacles.

  —What happened to him?

  —Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. He’s dead, nothing more. It’s simple, the closer you get to the reactor core, the higher the radiation exposure gets. It’s exponential and he knew it. He was aware of the risks, it’s all his fault. His body was never returned to his family. It is forbidden to stay more than a few minutes in the reactor room, the consequences are fatal and irreversible. Who would want to take such a risk? His body was therefore never extracted or formally identified.

  —Any other people went back there afterwards?

  —Apart from a handful of workers and scientists, I doubt anyone has been there. I heard that a photographer claimed his desire to get in. I don’t know what happened to him. People will do anything to make themselves known. With the new sarcophagus it is even more complicated to enter. The complex is also much better monitored. If you ask me, there’s no treasure inside. Not even probably any treasure at all. It is a myth of Stalker, a fable to make the Zone even more captivating than it already is.

  We walked along the railway that was heading north. The rail network seemed outdated, but had been renovated in the 1990s. It was now electrified and less abandoned than it seemed. Andrei explained to me that when he spent the night in the Zone he used to sleep on an old abandoned train near Yanov. “I’ll show you, you’ll like it. ‘He pointed out to me with a big smile on his face.

  Together, we followed the steel rails, occasionally crossing different carcasses: skips, tanks and other vans. All rusty, all forgotten. Faded signalling equipment was still covering parts of the track. However, the railway appeared to be in working order. It had been maintained to a minimum.

  After about twenty minutes, we finally arrived at a small train that seemed more or less preserved. Andrei always had a wide smile on his face.

  —This is my hotel! he exclaimed proudly.

  —Do you really sleep here? Is there any particular danger?

  —It’s pretty safe. Animals do not enter and it protects against rain.

  The train had been abandoned for about 30 years. The locomotive looked grey, half-gutted and looked like a pile of decaying scrap metal. The rest of the train was in better condition. Some pantographs were still intact, as were parts of the catenary. Andrei had his fetish car, at the back of the pack with its sky blue walls and red seats. The interior was designed as in the European trains of the 1950s. The patterns were outdated and the colours dull.

  Although Pripyat had become too mainstream for explorers, this train was still not very popular. The Stalkers prefer to walk around there without spending too much time. Andrei confided to me anyway that one morning he had woken up without his things. Someone or something had stolen her bag during the night. He hadn’t heard anything. With little trouble, he shrugged his shoulders. “I’m still alive, that’s what matters to me.”

  The railway continued and doubled in favour of a second section in much better condition. It crossed the Dneiper River and continued eastward to Slavutych, Pripyat’s younger sister, where many people had been displaced after the disaster. The city had been built in a hurry and on a similar model to Pripyat to accommodate refugees. Many workers were working daily from neighbouring cities to Chernobyl. During the 1990s, the netwo
rk had been electrified and modernised to provide transport for workers. Rail had played a crucial role in the clean-up operations by transporting men and equipment. In addition, the railway network facilitated the management of nuclear waste buried in the surrounding area. Like visitors to the Zone, workers on the train were subject to daily checks to assess their exposure to radiation.

  When we arrived at a switch, we saw a small technical room overhung by a faded sign. It bordered the tracks that separated in several directions, probably towards Belarus. A huge padlock adorned the door, but the glass had been broken. Slowly, I was passing my head through the frame. A smell of urine and dust was coming out, discouraging me from entering.

  Andrei asked me: “There’s nothing in there, I’ve already checked. Let’s get out of here.”

  We resumed our walk. As we moved forward, Andrei told me all kinds of anecdotes about the Zone and answered my questions. He explained to me in particular how some Stalkers were planning to organise a concert in the Zone. While small clandestine gatherings had already taken place in the forests around Pripyat, the organisation of an event with a real sound system was not feasible. The authorities would be alerted too quickly by the volume of decibels. Andrei’s dream was therefore to achieve a secret rally in a city building, or even a basement in order to remain discreet. He and his friends wanted to abandon themselves in an exceptional place. They wanted to achieve a transcendence that only the Zone could offer. Andrei had already prospected some contacts of his own. The preparation had to be flawless. For the time being, few elements had been formally decided, but the idea was on its way. No alcohol would be distributed. The most difficult thing was to find a suitable place. As almost all the windows have been broken, the music could be heard quite easily. It was also necessary to set up a surveillance system, people posted on the rooftops of Pripyat would stand guard and take turns. Military personnel will be corrupted. Only a small number of participants would be invited. I had trouble determining if he was serious or if he was just trying to impress me with his insane plans.