Prip'Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl

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.

Residents who grew up in the cities near Prip’Yat were not often the ones to visit. In fact, Dimitri and Yuri’s parents were strongly opposed to the idea of venturing into the area, thinking it foolhardy that anyone would wish to put themselves in danger by traveling to such a place. Radiation was not the only danger, after all. Wild animals, buildings in danger of collapse and the checkpoints full of guards with itchy trigger fingers were all a concern. A full week of cajoling finally wore Yuri down, though, and he relented, agreeing to travel with Dimitri into the Exclusion Zone.

They decided that they would leave late in the afternoon, take a friend’s car to the edge of the forest, then hike the rest of the way in. They would spend the night and following day in the city, then hike out early the next afternoon, returning before they were missed. Dimitri had planned everything out, going so far as to smuggle a Kalash out of his uncle’s house a few nights before they left. Both boys had shot the Kalash a few times, but Yuri thought Dimitri was crazy for bringing it.

The most produced rifle in the world, the Avtomat Kalashnikova was as simple as it was elegant. Due to its low manufacturing cost and foolproof design, dozens of imitations of the AK-47 had been made by a variety of countries. There was still some pride in owning one of the original AK’s that was produced, though. Designed to be incredibly durable, the Kalash could fire in the heat, cold, rain, mud, sand and just about any other condition on earth.

While most other guns on the battlefield would seize up under bad conditions, the AK-47 thrived in them, requiring virtually no maintenance even after being used and abused. This durability contributed to its popularity, and it quickly became the most illicitly trafficked gun in the entire world. Countries from Albania to China to Venezuela all made their own Kalashnikova variants, some legally and some not. The popularity of the AK-47 was no different in the Ukraine, where many of the ten million firearms in the nation consisted of various AK variants.

“What if the guards catch us with it?” he hissed upon seeing the weapon.

“And what if we run into the wild dogs without it, cousin?”

“That’s just another good reason to stay home, Dimitri.” Yuri’s cousin had simply smiled at this as he wrapped the assault rifle back up in a thick piece of cloth and stashed it under his bed for safekeeping.

Huffing and puffing as he ascended the hill, Yuri had to admit that he was glad they had brought the gun that was currently strapped tight to his cousin’s back. Dimitri was very much the soldier, wanting to emulate everything a soldier did, from what they wore to how they walked. Being out on an adventure such as this made this attribute even worse, and Yuri had already forced himself to keep from rolling his eyes at his cousin several times that night.

“There, cousin, do you see?” Dimitri pointed out into the distance, a few miles away, to where the power station was silhouetted against the edge of the rising moon. “We’re but an hour away, now!” Yuri hurried down the hill after Dimitri who was practically running at this point, hurrying to reach the city before nightfall.