Finally after long time I read a book.. or more so listened to it.
"Roadside Picnic" by authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's a relatively short book, only 4 chapters, that describes the after effects of a temporary alien visit to earth where they made no contact with Earth but just stayed here and left and where the location they stayed at is now full of weird dangerous happenings and weird dangerous items. Its cordoned off by the govt but some smugglers still go in and get stuff. These smugglers are called Stalkers and the protagonist of the book is one such guy.
Yes the STALKER games were influenced by this book