Picnic on the roadside - Strugatsky A. B. (Exclusive classics)

...After aliens visited Earth, Zones appeared on the planet - mysterious places full of dangers and deadly traps. There are many artifacts here - strange devices and objects with unusual properties. Despite twenty years of study, their purpose remains unknown. What is this? Dangerous weapons, outlandish toys, or just space debris left after someone else's picnic on the side of the Universe?

People engaged in illegal fishing - searching for and removing these items from the Zone - are called stalkers. One of them, the main character of the story, Redrick Shewhart, is a man with a warped fate, disillusioned with life and people, dreams of getting to the Golden Ball - a place in the depths of the Zone where, according to rumors, the deepest desires are fulfilled...