The Cabbagetown Monster

The following article written by Lorrie Goldstein, which appeared in the March 25, 1979 issue of the “Toronto Sun” is the sole source for the claim that a sinister monster lurks in the sewers underneath the “Cabbagetown” neighborhood of Toronto, Canada--but the story is remarkable enough to be worthy of note.  Make of it what you will.

There’s an eerie city lying beneath the streets of Metro, a city none of us knows much about.

Ernest has been a visitor to that silent world of sewers, drainage pipes and the ruins under old houses, and the memory of what he saw there will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“I wish you’d never come here,” he says as he sits in his small, neat Cabbagetown apartment with Barbara, his wife of 19 years. “If I tell you what I saw, people will think I was drunk or crazy, they’ll never believe me.”

On a summer day last August, Ernest, 51, firmly believes he saw some kind of “creature” while crawling into a small cave near his Parliament Street apartment looking for a kitten from a litter he’d been caring for. But about 10 feet inside he says he saw a living nightmare he’ll never forget. 

“It was pitch black in there… I saw it with my flashlight. The eyes were orange and red, slanted… it was long and thin, almost like a monkey…three feet long, large teeth, weighing maybe 30 pounds with slate-grey fur.”

Ernest speaks reluctantly of what happened next…

He is convinced the thing spoke to him.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It said “Go away, go away,” in a hissing voice. Then it took off down a  long tunnel off to the side…I got out of there as fast as I could. I was shaking with fear.”

 

Ernest didn’t come to the Sun with this story. The Sun found him after hearing about his experience from a reliable contact who works with a relative of Ernest’s, one of the handful of people to whom he has confided the experience.

He would agree to talk about it only if his last name was not revealed.

“I’m in the phone book,” he said. “I couldn’t stand being called by a bunch of cranks.” 

“I believe Ernie saw exactly what he says he did,” said Barbara. “He was terrified when he came back to the apartment and he doesn’t scare easily. Look, he’s been known to have a drink in the past--like most people, and to occasionally tie one on, but he’s not a drunk and he wasn’t drinking at all that day.”

Checks with friends, relatives and acquaintances in the neighborhood supported Barbara’s evaluation of her husband.

I accompanied Ernie to the spot where he said he had seen the creature. 

It is at the bottom of a narrow passage between the building where he lives and the one next door. The only way to reach the tunnel entrance is to clamber 15 feet down the wrong side of a fire escape, which had once served as an exit to the street but today simply leads to a narrow chamber with walls on four sides.

The tunnel entrance runs under a slab of concrete at the foot of the chamber. Inside, there is a narrow passageway, branching off to the left about 10 feet back.

The corpse of a cat lies half-buried in the tunnel, reminding Ernest of the “strange noises, like animals in pain,” he heard coming from the chamber last summer.

The concrete slab has collapsed on one side during  the winter, making it impossible for even a small adult to get inside.

“I saw it where the tunnel turns.” Ernest said.  “The last I saw, it was heading off into the dark. The passage-way seemed to drop down very quickly and go a long way back.”

Ernest believes the tunnel leads to the sewer system that runs beneath Metro and that the entrance beneath his apartment may have been only an access point used by the creature to the surface.

Metro’s sewer department agreed to inspect the tunnel since it could be a safety hazard. Children might try to enter it.

A long-time sewer worker told the Sun it was possible, although not probable, that the tunnel led into the sewers.

He said the tunnel was probably the result of poor drainage over the years which had caused erosion underground, hollowing out the passage.

“Who knows where it leads, or how far it goes?” he said. “You’d have to get in there and the way it is now, it would take a lot of work.”

Despite the strangeness of Ernest’s story, the workers did not scoff at the tale.

“People who work on the surface just don’t know what it’s like down there,” one said. “It’s a whole different world. Who would have thought a few years ago that people would live in sewers, and yet that’s what they found in New York a few years back. Even in Toronto, we’ve occasionally had to pull mattresses from the chambers beneath the manhole covers where the winos have been sleeping.”

Another worker said he’d heard of animals like beavers and raccoons occasionally getting into the system, but never anything like that described by Ernest.

“I don’t know what he saw down there,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. If we could get in there, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go down alone.”

Whatever you may think about this story, I think we can all agree with that last statement.