Tomorrow the World!

In Short

This is a brisk, aggressive work of mid-century science fiction that reimagines the Neanderthal as a subterranean threat to modern civilization. The story follows Bill Cuff, an adventure writer whose accidental "awakening" to his prehistoric ancestry triggers a violent, telepathic crusade against Homo sapiens. Through his eyes, the reader experiences a cold, sensory-driven descent into animalistic rage and racial memory. It remains a fascinating artifact of 1950s speculative pulp, standing as a bleak, unsettling inversion of the "lost race" adventure genre.

The Story

Bill Cuff, a twenty-eight-year-old pulp writer, awakens in a darkened museum after falling asleep beside a display of fossils. His confusion quickly turns into a cold, predatory clarity. When a museum guard confronts him, Bill finds himself overcome by an inexplicable, homicidal fury, killing the man with his bare hands. He flees the museum, discovering that his physical senses have sharpened to a superhuman degree. He can leap from high windows, track targets with unnatural precision, and perceive the world through the lens of a hunter.

As Bill navigates the city, he experiences flashes of "racial memory"—vivid, internal visions of living in ancient caves and being hunted by hostile humans. He realizes that he is not suffering from schizophrenia, but from the sudden activation of a genetic memory he has carried his entire life. He identifies as a descendant of a subhuman race that survived by blending into the human population. Driven by an intense, inherited hatred for "the humans," Bill abandons his writing career and retreats into the wilderness, killing anyone who tries to detain him.

His journey leads him to a secluded swamp, where he is intercepted by a group of like-minded individuals—the "Old Companions." These people, who have also experienced the "awakening," are survivors of a hybrid lineage who have spent decades gathering strength. Their leader, a man physically mutated by the "true strain" of their ancestors, confirms Bill’s suspicion: they are the surviving descendants of the Neanderthals.

The narrative shifts from a lone wolf’s flight to a coordinated threat. Bill is initiated into this secret society, which operates covertly within modern society, awaiting the time to strike. The story concludes with Bill directly addressing the reader. He warns that his kind are everywhere, living among humanity, and that a war of extinction is inevitable. He mocks the human obsession with external threats like alien invasions, asserting that the true enemy has been hiding in plain sight—the animalistic, superior, and vengeful remnants of the race that Homo sapiens sought to destroy at the dawn of time.

How It Unfolds

The awakening Bill Cuff wakes in a dark museum and kills a guard who attempts to detain him, discovering his own terrifying, newfound physical prowess. This act of violence acts as a catalyst, stripping away his modern identity and revealing the primal, predatory intelligence beneath.

The flight Bill flees the museum and navigates the city, relying on heightened instincts and animal grace to evade police. He experiences disjointed, vivid memories of being a hunted Pict, realizing that his body is an ancient vessel for an older, harsher survival code.

The call A mysterious, telepathic pull draws Bill away from the city and toward a remote, swampy wilderness. He sheds his human trappings, including his typewriter and his name, fully embracing the "beast" that has taken over his conscious mind.

The brotherhood Bill encounters a group of fellow "awakened" individuals who confirm that he is a part of a secret, global effort to reclaim the world from humans. He meets their leader, who possesses the distinct, rugged physical traits of a true Neanderthal, crystallizing Bill’s understanding of his identity.

The declaration The narrative culminates in a direct, menacing address to the reader. Bill warns that the Neanderthal strain is rising, promising an inevitable and violent conflict to reclaim the earth from the human race.

The People

Bill Cuff begins the story as a run-of-the-mill, somewhat cynical pulp writer who struggles with the mundane frustrations of his craft. Once his Neanderthal heritage awakens, he becomes a lethal, arrogant, and single-minded entity who views his human life as a mere mask. He is defined by his intense loathing for human society and his pride in his own physical excellence.

Skagarach serves as the yellow-haired, jewel-eyed lieutenant of the secret society. He is the one who initiates Bill, offering a cynical perspective on human civilization and the nature of their hidden race. He is more patient and calculating than Bill, though he possesses the same predatory indifference toward human life.

The Old Man is the leader of the group, a physical manifestation of the "true" Neanderthal strain. He is a massive, barrel-chested man whose appearance and presence provide Bill with the final, absolute proof of their ancestral origin. He represents the ancient authority that Bill, in his headstrong arrogance, is only beginning to understand.

In Its Own Voice

"I had gone to sleep on a marble bench in the palaeontology room of the museum."

The narrator provides this mundane detail to explain his initial presence in the museum before his transformation begins.

"I reached out and took his throat between my hands, dragged him to my chest, tightened my fingers and pressed and twisted till his flashlight dropped to the stone floor and went out with a pitiful tinkle."

This graphic description captures the moment Bill’s dormant, violent instincts first override his modern morality.

"I knew I wasn't a man and I didn't know what I was."

This internal confession marks the narrator’s total rejection of his humanity as he grapples with his shifting sense of self.

What It's Really About

At its heart, the book is an exploration of the "Grisly Folk" trope—a dark, biological determinism that treats the Neanderthal not as a lost ancestor, but as a superior, rival species. It asks what would happen if the prehistoric past were not dead, but merely sleeping within our DNA. The book argues that civilization is a fragile veneer and that beneath it lies a deep-seated, atavistic hostility. It is a story about the rejection of human empathy in favor of an elitist, survival-of-the-fittest ideology, suggesting that progress is an illusion and that our true nature is defined by the violence of the "dawn world."

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy the eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere of mid-century science fiction will find this a compelling, if deeply disturbing, read. It feels like a fever dream, moving with the fast-paced, visceral intensity of a 1950s pulp magazine. The prose is clean and direct, focused entirely on the sensory experience of the protagonist's descent into savagery.

However, a modern reader should be prepared for the period-typical attitudes that permeate the text. The book is built on a pseudo-scientific foundation that equates "the animal" with "the evil" and relies on a stark, binary opposition between "man" and "other." The narrator’s casual, gleeful justifications for murder are intentionally jarring, meant to alienate the reader from his perspective. It is not a comfortable story, nor is it a subtle one; it is a cold, calculated exercise in generating dread. If you are interested in how mid-century writers used speculative fiction to project modern anxieties onto the prehistoric past, this book provides a raw, unflinching look at that impulse. It stays with you because of its relentless commitment to its own dark logic—there is no redemption here, only the chilling promise that the narrator is coming for us all.