SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

 "All the time in the World" by "Charles King" (Theodore "Ted" Ingals)  (from Weird Tales, January 1946)

Ted Ingals (1914-1977) was a comic book writer of the 1940s who worked on such titles as The Atom, Ghost Patrol, Green Lantern, and Mr. Terrific.  He also served as an associate editor for the All-American comic book line.  Ingals also wrote text stories for the comic books throughout the 1940s.   His birth name was either Theodore Yigdoll, which was later changed to Theodore Udall.  Among his many pseudonyms were Art Allen, Drew Allen, Spencer Allen, Ted Allen, Arthur Allenby, Ted Allenby, Moore Bonds, Wes Ingals, Ted Loury, Todd Loury, Edward Miles, Ted Miller, and Ned Norton.  He used the name Charles King for seven short stories published in Weird Tales from 1945 to 1947.

Our narrator was bored.  He had been in Hell for three thousand years, one month, fourteen days, and thirty-seven minutes.  In life he had been truly evil and had many victims (although not the poor, because the poor had nothing worth stealing), and when he was eventually caught, he was tortured for three days until there was not a bone left in his body that was not unbroken.  In death, he found himself in Hell before Great Prince, Who had been anticipating his arrival.  Rather than becoming one of the tortured damned, he was put to work as a torturer -- a task he excelled at, especially when he had the opportunity to torture those who had tortured him in life.  He received promotions -- larger and more exquisite torture rooms.  But now, after three thousand years, he was getting bored.

The Great Prince noticed that (nothing escaped his attention) and decided that his faithful servant deserved a vacation.  He would be sent into the mortal world to recruit subjects for the Great Prince's domain.  The task was not without danger.  There were rules that even the Great Prince and his acolytes had to adhere to.  Although he would be immortal there, he had to watch out for his bloodstream:  "the fluid in you must not be contaminated!" 

Blakely Julius was a sick man and would soon die.  But he was also a man of evil talents and out narrator had him lined up to become one of his assistants once he reach Hell.  Using his supernatural powers, he sped Blakely's soul to its final destination and entered the man's body himself, where his immortality would ensure that Blakely would never die.  As Blakely, now recovered, he began spreading his evil, first among his co-workers, then among random people random people in the street, and finally on his wife, who ended up screaming in a madhouse.  Things were going well until our narrator was hit by a car and knocked unconscious.  He woke up in the hospital twelve hours later, still immortal, but was told he had lost a lot of blood.  The doctors had to give him a blood transfusion while he was unconscious.

No-o-o-o-o!

Even though it was not his fault, rules are rules and he was not allowed to go back to his safe and secure Hell.  He had to remain on Earth, while still being immortal.  While still on Earth, he could continue his work, torturing people and sending them to damnation.  Because he was immortal, he had all the time in the world, he could get to every person on Earth.  And, if not them, their descendants..

A pure, 1940s comic book horror story told in prose form.

The January 1946 issue of Weird Tales is available to be read at Internet Archive.  The issue also contains much more standard Weird Tales fare by Seabury Quinn, Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Harold Lawler, Jack Snow, and Malcolm Jameson.