Mike Kraus
Prip'Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl
To my readers:
Thank you.
Without you, these books wouldn’t be possible.
Sincerely,
Mike Kraus
A Note from the Author
Chernobyl and the nearby town of Prip’Yat (more commonly spelled as Pripyat or Pripiat, though I prefer the alternate spelling) have always held a special interest for me, and in researching and writing this book I pulled on firsthand photos, videos and satellite imagery of the area.
You can actually trace the path the characters take through the city, as I’ve only taken a few artistic liberties with the geography to help move the story along. Some of the locations have been changed or removed to help guide the story, but in general, I kept Prip’Yat as close as possible to how it exists in reality.
Wikimapia.org was especially helpful in this regard, providing both satellite and ground photography of the city that I consulted throughout my research and writing phases. Numerous reference and government sites were also invaluable in providing hard facts about the day of the Chernobyl disaster and the events surrounding the weeks and months afterward.
I've also kept as faithful to the scientific, military and other issues as much as possible, though — again — a few minor liberties have been taken to ensure that the story stays on track.
Introduction
On April 26, 1986, at approximately 1:23 AM Moscow time, reactor number four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. The explosion was devastating enough that it utterly destroyed the reactor casing and caused chains of explosions throughout the building, decimating all hopes of containment. When compared with the radioactive material released by the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, the explosion at Chernobyl released four hundred times more radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Caused by a critical overload of the reactor core due in part to human error and design flaws, the Chernobyl accident was by far the largest nuclear power disaster in history. Direct death estimates from the explosion and short-term extreme radiation exposure range from thirty-one to sixty-four, with tens of thousands more expected to die from cancer caused by exposure to radiation. These individuals include workers at the plant at the time of the explosion and residents of the nearby city of Prip’Yat, located just a few kilometers from Chernobyl.
Designed and built as a home for the thousands of workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Prip’Yat stands as one of the foremost examples of a true ghost town on the planet. The initial evacuation did not start until the day after the disaster, after many residents were already experiencing symptoms of severe radiation exposure. Buses arrived and evacuated the fifty thousand residents over a period of just a few hours on April 27. The evacuation was only supposed to be temporary at first as the authorities tried to downplay the severity of the explosion. It quickly became apparent that the situation was more serious, though, and the evacuation became permanent.
Because the evacuation was originally only supposed to last for a few days, most residents left all of their personal belongings in their homes. Traces of these belongings still exist throughout the city to this day. A great deal of the area has been torn apart and stolen away by thieves and vandals, but most of it still stands as a contaminated monument to the scale of the disaster.
Prip’Yat has also stood as a source of fear, inspiring stories that tell of mutants, ghosts, and the undead that still walk its streets. A combination of radiation, animal mutations, nearby deaths, and the restlessness of the human imagination all fuel these rumors. Overnight journeys into the city are prohibited and daytime tours are limited in duration to protect visitors. Officially, the reasons for these prohibitions are to prevent tourists from being exposed to radiation and the danger of collapsing buildings.
Unofficially, rumors are still spoken about the monsters of Prip’Yat that supposedly roam the streets at night, preying on the few unfortunates who dare trespass on their domain. Of the few vagabonds and miscreants who have entered the city under the cover of darkness to steal what valuables still remain, few ever make a second trip. Their stories are not easily extracted, and they spend the rest of their days living in mortal fear of the darkness. Whether they are better off or worse off than the ones who never return from the city, though, is up for debate.
Chapter One
Dimitri and Yuri hurried through the woods, using the cover of twilight to advance. Their flashlights were off and their skin was covered with dark clothing, hiding all but their hands and faces. They whispered to each other as they knelt in the soft grass, catching their breath as their pants were dampened by the dew on the ground.
“We need to move, Dimitri. The air in this field is foul and I swear that I can feel the radiation seeping into my bones!”
Dimitri punched his younger cousin lightly in the shoulder and whispered in return. “Will you shut up already? You’re always going on about the doom and gloom, never positive about anything! We’ll be just fine. Check your radiation meter and let’s get going.”
Yuri looked down at his chest, verifying that his disposable radiation measurement tag was still within the safe levels. He shook his head as Dimitri sprinted off, wishing that he had never listened to his cousin. It was Dimitri’s idea to go on this silly trip, of course. Everything they did was Dimitri’s idea. This adventure was so much more different than the others, though. Their parents thought they were at a school camp, gone for three nights, when they were actually sneaking through a forbidden forest and past military checkpoints.
Come on cousin! It’ll be fun! We’ll camp for one night and be back home before anyone thinks to check with the school! Dimitri’s confident voice still rung in Yuri’s ears as he ran after his cousin, bounding through the thick grass of the open field just past the wooded area.
Prip’Yat had been abandoned for years, but there were always stories and rumors, urban legends of people who had stayed past the evacuation, living with the radiation until it changed them, mutating them into something both less and more than human. For the two cousins, it had always been a source of midnight whisperings and late night talk about what creatures could be lurking in the dark, waiting to feast upon any travelers who ventured too far into the Exclusion Zone.
The stories were all myths, or so people had insisted. Tourists had been traveling into the Exclusion Zone for years, starting in 2002 after the government decided that the city’s radiation levels were low enough that it could be opened for tourism purposes. Tour operators popped up all throughout Kiev once this policy was put into place, and within a few years hundreds of tourists were traveling back and forth to Prip’Yat, gazing upon the city frozen irrevocably in time.
The boys were not convinced, though. The rumors had still persisted. Every tourist who was injured, every mysterious sighting and every disappearing face in a window all served to fuel the boys’ imaginations. Once they grew to be seventeen and eighteen, most of their peers had moved on from the stories of Prip’Yat, focusing instead on girls and vodka, but Dimitri and Yuri continued to be fascinated. Every night they would meet at one of their families’ homes, whispering late into the night about new things they had found out about the city, both real and imagined.
The arrival of the chance to see Prip’Yat by themselves without being burdened by a tour group came in the early fall, when their school traditionally held camping retreats for the students. Dimitri and Yuri found out that the retreats in the final year of school had been canceled, but their parents hadn’t been informed, and were fully expecting their children to attend camp just like they always had. Seizing this opportunity, Dimitri spent a full week convincing Yuri to travel with him into the Exclusion Zone, taking an overnight trip into a place they had spent most of their childhood dreaming about.