At such close range, the makeshift shotgun was able to unleash its full power.
The dense pellets instantly struck Candy's chest, knocking her to the ground.
Candy fell to the floor, her r ibs nearly completely shattered, and her entire chest caved in. She lay on the ground, struggling for a moment before going still, as if she were dead.
"Ah ha, ah ha, ah ha." the scavenger with the shotgun panted as he sat down on the floor.
His heart was still racing, unable to calm down from the danger.
At that moment, the two scavengers who had gone to search for the zombie heard the gunfire and immediately returned to the room.
As soon as they entered, they saw three bodies piled up on the floor.
"My God, what the hell happened?"
"Damn it! How could the boss be dead too? Who did this?"
The two who rushed back were momentarily panicked. They tossed aside the large amount of food they had collected right in the hallway and anxiously questioned the one surviving companion.
The scavenger with the gun, seeing his comrades arrive, hastily stood up.
He began to explain, his eyes filled with disbelief: "It was this woman. We heard the boss's voice change, so we broke down the door and found him lying on the ground."
After hearing the survivor's explanation, the two scavengers standing together exchanged skeptical glances.
They were brothers.
The two had been saved by the scavenger leader and had always been loyal to him.
The older brother crouched down to examine the bodies and confirmed that both comrades had indeed died from knife wounds, with their carotid arteries slashed, but it was hard not to be suspicious...
How had this woman managed to do it?
The two who had gone out to scout the zombies exchanged a look, beginning to doubt the surviving scavenger.
The younger brother, holding another gun, pointed it at the survivor and said, "Harry, put your gun down first!"
"I get it now, this woman is a mutated zombie, and she's definitely not dead yet! We need to smash her skull!" the surviving scavenger, Harry, suddenly realized.
He had been puzzled—
Why hadn't he seen the woman when they were searching the room earlier?
Instead, the comrade standing by the door was killed directly.
She must have used her immense strength to hide in the corner near the ceiling.
And while he was nervously holding the gun and observing the room, he hadn't noticed what was above him.
Thinking of this, Harry quickly opened his messenger bag.
He pulled out the primer and gunpowder, intending to reload the shotgun.
"Harry! I'm telling you to put the gun down!" Seeing Harry start to load ammunition, his brothers, who were already suspicious of him, lunged at him.
The three of them got into a scuffle, and the scene quickly descended into chaos.
Harry was soon overpowered, he shouted desperately, "You two idiots! That woman isn't dead! She's a mutated zombie, she's really dangerous! Smash her skull!"
But the brothers didn't believe him at that moment. The younger brother picked up the shotgun's stock and smashed it against Harry's nose, shouting, "Damn it, I'll smash your skull first, you traitor!"
The older brother chimed in, "We found clear signs of a mutated zombie in the front room. It must have been a crawler, it killed and ate the man's innards!"
"You can't fool us, we shouldn't have taken you in from the start!" The younger brother continued to curse as he swung his fists, quickly knocking Harry unconscious.
Their scavenger team had been established for quite a long time.
From the early days of the zombie apocalypse, they had grown from three members to seven now.
And Harry just happened to be the last one to join.
He hadn't spent much time with them, only about half a month.
Therefore, the remaining two scavenger brothers instinctively began to suspect Harry.
They felt that he might have harbored ill intentions, killing the boss when he was off guard and then framing it on this woman.
As long as they killed the woman, there would be no evidence left.
But today really felt like they had encountered a ghost.
Members of the team had inexplicably died in large numbers, and even the backbone of the group, the scavenger leader, was dead.
Now the two brothers were at a loss about what to do.
But they were definitely going to kill the traitor to avenge their boss.
Just then, behind them, the woman's body at the doorway suddenly swayed and stood up.
Candy's gunshot wounds were slowly healing.
Her broken ribs were reassembling, and she quickly returned to a state where she seemed almost uninjured.
As long as she could consume enough flesh to replenish her energy, as long as she wasn't turned into mush, Candy could enter a rapid healing state.
She was becoming increasingly familiar with her own body.
Even if an arm was severed, as long as she ate a bit more, she could recover.
Candy watched the two scavengers still caught up in their infighting and couldn't help but cover her mouth and chuckle.
She bent down to pick up the steel pipe spear from the ground.
At that moment, the barely alive Harry saw Candy standing up behind him and his eyes filled with despair.
He knew he was surely going to die tonight, these two brothers were truly mindless fools.
Harry pointed at Candy, saying, "Behind you, behind you…"
The younger brother frowned. As soon as he turned around, the spear shot through his nostrils like a thrown javelin.
Blood and broken teeth began to spill from his mouth.
"Thud!"
The younger brother fell to the ground, his dying gaze fixed on the woman, filled with regret and disbelief.
Hearing the commotion, the older brother turned to see his brother's lifeless body on the floor.
His pupils trembled as he realized that Harry hadn't been lying.
There was no time for grief or anger, he quickly grabbed the weapon his brother had dropped and turned to pull the trigger at the woman standing in the doorway.
"Bang!"
The shotgun's bullet flew out.
But having learned her lesson, Candy swiftly climbed up the wall like a spider the moment he raised his weapon, using the ceiling fan to propel herself toward him.
By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late.
With no firearm threat, Candy easily killed the scavenger brother and the barely conscious Harry.
She knelt down on the ground and began to feast.
Candy gnawed at the flesh of the fallen men, a look of disgust crossing her face.
Not only did this group of scavengers smell terrible,
but their meat was also pitifully scarce…
It really wasn't as tasty as what the new players had.
Candy picked and chose, eating only a few livers and hearts.
These organs were her favorite delicacies.
"Alright, next up is that scum Ryan." Candy said as she sucked on her fingers.
After becoming a rational zombie, an inexplicable rage had been ignited within her.
That anger, mixed with madness, intertwined with her desire for slaughter.
Even though she had only had minor conflicts with Ryan before, after turning into a rational zombie, the resentment and contradictions in her heart had only intensified.
Candy looked at her blood-soaked body and realized she needed to clean up.
...
Meanwhile, hiding outside the motel, Ryan had already seen what was happening on the second floor through the live map.
Leo had also heard the two gunshots.
Leo was very familiar with the sound of that makeshift shotgun: "Those two gunshots must have been fired by the scavengers…"
He opened the chat room, searched for Candy, and entered her private messages.
Her avatar still looked normal, with no "X" symbol indicating death.
Leo's expression grew serious. "Since shots were fired, it means there was a conflict, but the fact that Candy is still alive means the scavengers must be dead…"
"And since there were no other gunshots just now, it shows that Candy's side hasn't fired any shots." Ryan added. "Candy's strength is quite strange, there might be an issue there."
Leo nodded, agreeing with Ryan's assessment.
Ryan had just checked the live map.
After switching perspectives, he could roughly see the situation inside the second-floor room.
So he had indeed witnessed Candy's methods.
It was just as he had imagined, as long as Candy wasn't shot in the brain, even if her body was hit, she wouldn't die.