It’s refreshing to see a Pakistani writer introduce to the market something that’s different. W.M. Khan’s The Corridor claims to be Pakistan’s first interactive horror novella and, although the work struggles to hold its many parts together through most of the book, it manages to be an acceptable read by the end.

The story starts us off with a narrative by Alan Baker, an ex-military personnel who now works as a “private security contractor” — in other words, a mercenary for hire who manages to discreetly do the work that is too dirty for the government or military to carry out. A company hires him and five others and sends them off to Afghanistan, giving them few details except that they have to eliminate a Taliban commander safe-housing in a small village in the country. The team travels through the Wakhan Corridor, a strip of territory that separates Tajikistan from Pakistan and Kashmir, towards their destination, Darah’ Noh, and Alan continues to narrate the journey to us through audio recordings documenting his travels.

Along the way, Alan’s team stops by a village, finding a tragedy of massacred bodies. A quick scan of the area leads them to conclude that there remain no survivors, save Maha Gul Afridi, a tiny girl they find locked in a metal storage trunk. Maha will become the second most important character in this story, and we, the readers, will become acquainted with her narrative through a reconstruction of her eyewitness testimony.

From here, the story switches to Maha’s point of view, as she narrates how a group of creatures — the reanimated bodies of Afghan locals, covered in blisters and oozing pus — tidal-wave into the village and rip into Alan’s team. The mercenaries fight back as best they can, bulldozing the creatures with sweeps of gunfire but, by the end, only Alan and Maha manage to escape the carnage.

The rest of the book follows Alan and Maha’s journey together, switching between Alan’s audio logs and Maha’s testimony, as they attempt to survive the perils of the Afghan landscape, trying as hard as they can to either avoid or fight through the zombified remnants of Afghani villagers, and find a way out of their ordeal.

A Pakistani novella that bills itself as interactive has problems with characterisations, but is an easy enough read and deserves points for its experimentation

The biggest praise one can offer the story is that it is easy to read and follow. The language is simple, the plot has its highs and lows and the focus is strongly on the two characters that the author wants us to care about. I managed to finish the book in a single sitting from mid-afternoon to late evening, feeling good that, at no point, did it seem like I was being held back by the work’s literary inaccessibility.

However, in many other places, the work falls short. Perhaps its biggest error is that it fails to take advantage of the highly creative genre it embeds itself in. Despite making grand claims of being Pakistan’s first interactive horror novella, there is very little in the book to actually interact with: a sum total of three QR codes that readers can scan, each of which links to a YouTube video showing still images overlaid with distorted soundbites, or piano pieces set on repeat. It was underwhelming and not executed well enough to add to the aesthetic experience of the book.

The rest of the issues are all literary and editorial in nature. Some parts of the book are riddled with proofreading errors — missed spaces, misspellings and bad punctuation. There is a lack of clarity regarding certain motivations — why exactly did Alan ever decide to keep any audio logs at all? — to the point where one wonders if they were included only as a gimmick. The entire narrative could have been told in a simple third-person perspective and little would have been subtracted from the overall experience.

Then there’s the characterisation. Throughout the story, I had vast trouble trying to visualise fully what Maha and Alan actually looked like. I had little to no clue as to how their lives were up till this point. There is barely any action that may show how they live and speak through their unique cultural backgrounds. The pair bond throughout the ordeal, but I could not sense any warmth or growth of a human relationship suffering through terrifying times.

The biggest praise one can offer is that the story is easy to read and follow. The language is simple and the focus is strongly on the two characters that the author wants us to care about.

Sometimes, Maha also acts in ways one wouldn’t expect a child to, given the circumstances. At one point, Alan stays uncomfortably long at a campsite that has been ravaged by the creatures. Maha, instead of acting child-appropriate and begging him to leave the area, convinces herself that Alan is probably looking for something important. In another instance, the duo is crouched in a tent, on edge because they have just heard something move outside. Alan goes outside to check, but Maha remains inside, thinking to herself that she doesn’t wish to disrupt his work.

But how exactly does a tiny child, quivering and trembling in fear, understand that she is supposed to act with the same rationale as that of a war-hardened soldier? It is one thing for her to be stricken with fright, paralysed to the bone and unmoving. It is quite another for her to — in several instances in the story — coordinate with Alan in a manner that makes them seem almost telepathic. It breaks immersion because the characters sometimes seem to act as a collective agent, rather than individuals with their own fears and motives.

By the end of the book, I wasn’t in awe, but I wasn’t stricken, either. If you’re looking for a casual read, the book manages to engage you for the short time it intends to. It has its drawbacks, and a conclusion that is completely predictable, but it is also an experiment by a Pakistani author, in a niche genre and published locally by Liberty Publishers. That warrants it some praise, and I look forward to what the author has in store next.

The reviewer is a student at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and an editor at the Lums Business Review

The Corridor
By W.M. Khan
Liberty, Karachi
ISBN: 978-9698729103
100pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 3rd, 2020