My ex-girlfriend has an identical twin.
Let’s call her Georgia, because that’s an annoying name and so it suits her well.
Where my ex - Alex - was practically perfect in every way, Georgia was awkward and strange. Georgia had no friends and no hope for a romantic partner. She was built the same as her sister, who was a total hottie, but was completely unappealing because of her revolting teeth and disheveled look. She looked like she smelled bad.
Alex, a caring sister, often pitied her twin and did as much as she could to help her, which is how Georgia ended up joining Alex and I on our camping trip to the gorge.
It was the summer between high school graduation and first year university for Alex and I; Georgia hadn’t graduated high school. I was surprised and irritated when Georgia sidled into the back seat of my parents’ car that morning as I honked the horn to pick up Alex.
Alex smiled sweetly as she got into the passenger seat, an eyebrow raised that told me she’d make it up to me in a most pleasant way. Still, I huffed at her while I pulled the car out of the driveway.
Almost right away, Georgia started blathering about the best campsite in the gorge. I had my own spot in mind and we bickered as we drove.
It was Alex who offered a compromise - to take turns and try out both sites. God, I remember how annoying it was to always be competing with Georgia for the lead spot.
Georgia insisted that her site be the first one we visited. I protested but then there was a coin toss that came out of nowhere and in midair I defaulted into accepting tails. I lost.
We drove further west than I had intended to a part of the woods I didn’t know and I remember feeling really creeped out.
We parked in the midst of a copse of trees Georgia had pointed out. I didn’t like that either but I let it go. If I complained about everything, I thought, then the serious problems I pointed out with Georgia and her presence on our trip might be overlooked by Alex.
Georgia walked ahead, reminding me a little of Gollum from Lord of the Rings, scurrying excitedly, scraggly hair following, leading us on a route only she knew and understood. I quickly became disoriented and my inner compass went bust.
We stopped for a sandwich lunch on the Black River, where Georgia bent over into a mumbling conversation with herself (also very Gollum-like behaviour).
When we resumed our trek, the heat began to get to me and I wanted to swim in the river before we left its bank. Suddenly, Georgia was zero to a hundred furious.
“We can’t stop again. We have to keep going!” She was angry and yelling.
Alex told me to go for my dip, and intervened - taking Georgia aside. I got changed behind a tree but still felt weird about being naked with Georgia nearby. When I emerged from the water, Alex was there with a towel - except it wasn’t Alex but Georgia, grinning and making no secret of looking me up and down.
“Creep,” I said. “Where’s Alex?”
Georgia began to whistle and walked away, backwards, still watching me with that know-it-all smile. Alex appeared a second later; she said she’d gone into the woods to pee.
“Your sister is freaking me out,” I told her, and we had our first fight, brief and unresolved before Georgia returned to encourage us to keep going.
I was annoyed that it was possible to mistake Georgia for Alex, as in my mind they were polar opposites on the hot or not scale.
“Keep away from me,” I told Georgia. She began to pout like a child and Alex had to comfort her. Clearly, I didn’t understand Georgia and the twin relationship.
We resumed the miserable hike once Georgia was reminded we were going to the campsite she chose. The idea got her really excited.
I mouthed a “What the fuck?” at Alex but she ignored me. We arrived at the campsite in question by late afternoon; it wasn’t anything special: An empty space with a tree stump and some thick growth around it. Not ideal for camping; I was about to say so when Georgia dove head first into the branches and out of sight.
“Hey!” Alex yelled, sternly, like a parent. Georgia slunk back into sight and Alex made her start setting up camp with us, which included cutting back some of the dead growth for our fire.
Georgia grumbled but obeyed and soon the sun dropped and we were enjoying some drinks with our hotdogs. I was beginning to relax and drifted off while the sisters talked quietly about video games.
I woke up to dying embers in the middle of the night. The assholes hadn’t bothered to get me into my tent. I staggered to my feet, fully intending to give Alex hell, but I had to pee so badly that I went into the bushes first.
That’s when I saw Georgia slinking away in the direction she’d tried to go before. Fuck that chick, I thought. She looked suspicious, so I thought I’d find out what weird shit she was up to. If it was bad enough, I bet Alex could be convinced to finally tell her gross sister to get lost, and our camping trip could be saved.
I followed and popped out of the brush pretty fast on a narrow trail. I’d let Georgia out of sight on purpose, so I could use my flashlight without her seeing. The trail led to an open chain link gate; it looked like someone, maybe Georgia, had snipped the chain holding the two sides together.
There was a small light up ahead, flashing in and out of sight. I shut my own flashlight off and walked in near darkness to a shack beside the river. Mother fucker had brought us this close to the river but made us camp far away. I snuck up to the doorless shack and saw her inside, crouched over something.
It looked like maybe she was holding her flashlight in her mouth. It was hard to see. I crept a little closer, hiding mostly beside the doorway and peeking.
“You shouldn’t eat those,” a woman’s voice said, from inside. I almost pissed right there on the spot. An old woman flicked a lighter to illuminate her face; I couldn’t see much of her.
“Shut up,” Georgia said and went about shoving something into her mouth.
“The mushrooms that grow on the dead are poison,” the old woman said.
“I said, ‘shut the fuck up,’” Georgia shouted, her anger rising. She stood up and shoved the woman with the heel of her foot. She fell back with a thump. Her lighter went out. Georgia laughed. “I know what these are,” she said. “How do you think I know they were in here?”
The old woman started to cry. “Don’t hurt me,” she whimpered, which made Georgia laugh again.
“This crop will be gone soon. It takes a while for them to grow. I didn’t expect anyone to be here, which is good news for my girlfriend. And this is way better, anyway. Nobody will miss some homeless old bitch.”
Ew, I thought, Georgia thinks of me as her girlfriend. But then another wild, more worrisome possibility arose. She didn’t give me much time to think before she started laughing again.
She shone the flashlight on the woman’s frightened face. “I’m not gonna do anything,” she said after laughing some more. “But I could, couldn’t I?” The old woman scrambled out a window across the room.
The consumption of mushrooms continued. She stretched out on the floor and I guess she was high or something. She didn’t react when I came in and my flashlight beam was shining right in her face.
I looked at the mushrooms she’d been eating. There were a number of them in a bare patch on the floor. Something had died here and decayed the wood until it mixed with soil. The shape looked vaguely human but it could have been any large animal.
The woman that fled was right. These mushrooms aren’t like the hallucinating kind; they definitely looked poisonous. Georgia would die if I left her there.
I seriously thought about leaving her there.
But….
I couldn’t carry her alone or get her up, so I went back to wake up Alex from our tent. That’s when my previous suspicions were confirmed. Alex’s sleeping bag was empty, and Georgia was snoring away in hers, scraggly hair, stench mouth and all.
I woke her up and told her where Alex was and what she’d ingested. I couldn’t believe this bitch. I packed up my stuff and left.
I got out of the gorge just fine and ignored Alex’s calls and texts when they started blowing up my phone a couple days later. So I guess she didn’t die after all from those decayed mushrooms.
She wouldn’t answer my demands to know about what the mushrooms had been growing on and I did actually go to the police about it eventually.
They never got back to me on whether or not Alex had murdered something or someone to ingest mushrooms growing from the leftover corpse. And when you write out something like that you can probably guess why.
Alex also denied joking about killing me and that homeless woman and she said I’d heard it wrong. That was enough for me. I told her not to talk to me ever again.
It might have been awkward because we were headed to the same university in the Fall. However, I didn’t see her there and am not sure what became of her or Georgia.
Dating an identical twin? I don’t recommend it. Unless they can seriously prove they’re not weird and evil. Hmm, maybe that’s just good advice for anyone you might date.
I’ve seen some of the other accounts about the Gorge you’ve posted, and mine seems to fit though there’s nothing really supernatural involved.
But maybe your take will be different? That’s why I wrote to you.
My two cents is that the Gorge is as messed up as everything and everyone in Bridal Veil Lake. I’m glad I got out of there.