The Lion King Live Action Novelization Page 6

  Below him, the dust grew thicker as the herd thundered below the branch. With each wildebeest that passed, the branch shook, causing Simba to cry out. How am I ever going to get out of this? he thought as he clung desperately to the little safety he had. If he made it out of this mess, he was never going to leave Pride Rock ever again.

  Suddenly, through the dust, Simba saw a flash of color. Dull at first, the color grew more vibrant until, with a whoosh, Zazu emerged out of the dust. “ZAZU!” Simba screamed.

  “HOLD ON!” Zazu shouted back.

  Do I have a choice? Simba almost retorted. But he stopped. Zazu was there to help. If he told Simba to hold on, Simba was going to do just that. Keeping his eyes on Zazu’s brightly colored beak, he watched the bird flap up toward the ridge nearby. He let out a happy cry as he spotted his father and Scar standing together. Scar must have told Dad I was here, Simba thought. It didn’t matter that his surprise gift was no longer a surprise. His dad was there. He would save him. Just like he always did.

  But Mufasa wasn’t moving. The giant lion was staring down at the sides of the steep canyon. Following his gaze, Simba gulped. It was a sheer drop from where they stood. Mufasa would have to go all the way back to the entrance of the gorge if he was going to make it down. And by the time he did that, Simba’s tree branch—and Simba himself—would probably be smashed to smithereens.

  Watching anxiously, Simba saw his father back up, disappearing from sight. Then, suddenly, he reappeared, racing toward the ridge. He leapt—his body arcing high and long over a narrow spot in the gorge. He landed with a thud on the other side, and without breaking his stride, he began to race down the rocky side. While the opposite wall was sheer, the one Mufasa made his way down now offered some outcroppings. Still, the momentum of his jump and his body was strong. Reaching the bottom, he kept going, racing toward the middle of the canyon floor and Simba beyond.

  As Simba’s branch creaked ominously, Mufasa jumped up on a small plateau of rock opposite his son. “I’m coming, Simba!” he shouted, his deep voice loud even over the sound of the stampeding wildebeests.

  Looking down at the sea of brown-and-black bodies, Mufasa’s eyes narrowed. Simba had seen that look before. His father was making a plan. Sure enough, a moment later he leapt off the plateau—and straight into the middle of the running herd. Battling his way against the sea of animals, he kept going, trying to reach his son.

  Up on the ridge, Zazu watched in terror as the king desperately tried to get to Simba. But the herd was out of control. And huge. If they didn’t stop running, Mufasa—and Simba—would never get out of there alive. Flapping his wings wildly, he looked down at Mufasa and then back over his shoulder at Pride Rock, then frantically back at Mufasa.

  “I’ll help them, Zazu!” Scar said. “You get the pride! GO!”

  Zazu turned, surprised. He had nearly forgotten the other lion was still there. He didn’t trust Scar one bit. But he could use the lionesses’ help to turn the wildebeests back. With a nod, he turned and began to fly toward Pride Rock.

  Behind him, Scar watched him go, a sneer slowly spreading across his face. Yes, fly away, little birdie, he thought. Fly far, far away. I’ll take care of Mufasa. His smile grew wider. His plan was working out brilliantly. The hyenas had played their part—scaring the wildebeests into a stampede—and Simba had been wonderfully naïve. Yes, he would certainly take care of Mufasa. And then he would help himself—to everything that had belonged to the king.

  Almost at the tree, Mufasa let out a roar of pain as he was once again struck on the side by a wayward wildebeest. He could see the fear in his son’s eyes and could make out the growing crack in the branch. He had to get to him. They were running out of time. But for every step he took, a wildebeest pushed him back two and he was growing weaker by the moment.

  Pushing through the pain, Mufasa bowed his head and, using it like a battering ram, knocked aside a pair of wildebeests in his way. He was now only a few feet from his son. But to his horror, as he watched, a wildebeest crashed right into the branch. Simba was thrown free, his body tumbling head over tail up into the air. Then he began to fall, straight down toward the herd.

  Without hesitation, Mufasa sprang into the air, his jaws gaping wide. Snatching Simba right out of the air, he held him gently—but firmly—in his mouth and began to run. For a few wonderful moments, Mufasa felt his heartbeat slow ever so slightly. He had his son. They were going to be okay.

  And then another wildebeest slammed into him.

  As the air was knocked from Mufas’s lungs, Simba was knocked from his mouth. The cub hit the ground and began to roll, narrowly avoiding being trampled by a dozen hooves. Pain ricocheted through Mufasa’s side; he shook his head and began to make his way over to Simba. Once more, he grabbed him and then, spotting a small, stable ledge, he threw him onto it. Simba would be safe there for now. But the ledge was too small for both of them. He would need to find another place to wait it out until the stampede was over. “Don’t move, Son!” he shouted.

  Simba nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, another wildebeest knocked into Mufasa. Distracted as he was by Simba, the blow caught Mufasa off guard and he fell back, disappearing into the sea of wildebeests.

  Mufasa saw flashes of blue and then brown as he was tossed and thrown head over feet. The thundering hoofbeats nearly deafened him and he could barely breathe, the air was so thick with dust. But then he heard a single word. “DAD!” Simba’s cry broke through all the other noise, giving him one last burst of strength.

  Pushing himself up, up, up toward the thin line of blue sky he could see, Mufasa burst out of the herd and onto the rough, rocky side of the gorge. Wounded and bleeding, he clung to the rocks. His breath came in gasps and for a moment, he just hung there, not sure he could make it to the top. But out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Simba, watching. He had to keep going. Inch by painstaking inch, he began to climb. His legs shook and his vision blurred, but still he climbed until, finally, he felt a breeze ruffle his mane. He had reached the top. His back legs scrabbled at the side of the cliff, trying to find leverage.

  Hearing footsteps as he clung to the top of the ledge, he lifted his gaze and found a familiar pair of eyes staring down at him from the safety of the top. “Scar!” he shouted. “Brother! Help me…”

  But to his surprise, Scar didn’t move. Instead, he just stared down at Mufasa, as though he were looking at a stranger, not his own flesh and blood. Groaning, Mufasa pulled himself still farther up, hooking his paws over the edge.

  Finally, Scar moved. Only he didn’t move to help him. Instead, the lion reached out and dug his own claws right into the tops of Mufasa’s paws. Mufasa let out a cry of surprise and pain.

  “Long live the king,” Scar hissed. And then, as if he were swatting a fly, Scar swiped Mufasa across the face and knocked him backward—down, down, down—into the dust and thunder of the charging herd.

  “DAD!”

  Simba’s eyes followed his father as he fell from atop the ridge. For one happy moment Simba had thought Mufasa made it safely to the top. He had watched as his father clung to the lip of the ridge, the muscles in his back legs visible even from all the way down in the gorge as he struggled to push himself to safety. Simba’s breath had caught in his throat and he had started to cheer.

  But the cheer had turned to a scream as he watched his father fall backward and plunge toward the ground. Simba’s gaze stayed on him as he fell toward the huge dust cloud created by the wildly stampeding wildebeests. He kept looking even as his father disappeared into the dust without a sound. One minute there—the next gone. And his gaze stayed trained on that very spot as the wildebeests’ number began to dwindle and the stampede came to an end.

  When the sound of the wildebeests’ pounding hoofbeats could no longer be heard, Simba jumped off the rock and raced into the gorge toward the spot where he had seen his father fall. But while the herd was no longer there, the dust still was, making it hard
to see. Simba frantically searched, mistaking rocks and mounds of dirt for his dad. Over and over again, he called out “Dad!”—but the only sound that came back was his own voice, echoing off the canyon walls.

  Suddenly, finally hearing something other than his own voice, Simba looked behind him hopefully. “Dad?” he called out. But as the dust cleared, he saw it was just a lone wildebeest chasing after the herd. As the animal ran by him, Simba didn’t even bother to look at it. He couldn’t. Because all he could see was his father lying on the gorge floor beyond.

  As a cry caught in his throat, Simba ran toward his father. “Dad!” he shouted, reaching his side. “It’s okay! It’s going to be okay!” But his father didn’t move. His eyes stayed closed. His wide ribs did not rise and fall. Slowly, Simba reached out a paw and gently pushed against his father’s side. “Come on—wake up! We gotta go home.…”

  Tears began to fall. Simba scrunched his eyes closed and shook his head, not wanting to believe it, hoping he could wake up from this terrible nightmare. But when he opened his eyes, his father was still lying there, motionless. A coldness began to creep over Simba, and despite the warmth of the sun on the canyon floor, he began to shake.

  “Help!” he screamed. “Somebody help!”

  But his pleas went unanswered. He was alone. Truly and utterly alone. Letting out a sob, he lay down next to his father, curling up into a ball and pushing against Mufasa’s sides in a vain attempt to seek some warmth from his father’s body. The tears pooled under his cheeks as his paw clenched and unclenched around the great lion’s mane in a motion that had become habit. He thought back to long nights tucked between his mother and father, of the warmth and comfort he had taken from feeling their steady breaths, his father’s mane covering him like a blanket. His tears fell harder and harder, mixing with the dust in the air and making Simba cough.

  Sitting up, his eyes grew wide. There, emerging from the dust, was his uncle. Hope flared in his tiny chest. Scar would know what to do. He would be able to fix his father. Leaping to his feet, Simba raced over. “Scar!” he shouted with a sob. “Help him! Please—” He tried to hug his uncle, but to his surprise, the older lion pulled back, a look of horror in his eyes.

  “Simba,” he whispered, looking at Mufasa. “What have you done?”

  Simba backed away. What was Scar talking about? He hadn’t done anything. “It was a stampede,” he said. “He tried to save me—it was an accident. I didn’t mean for it to…” His voice trailed off, doubt creeping in. It wasn’t his fault, was it? The stampede had just happened. And his dad was just trying to save him. There wasn’t anything he could have done differently.…

  As if sensing his doubt, Scar put a paw on Simba’s shoulder. “Of course you didn’t. No one means for these things to happen,” he said gently. Simba looked up, startled to see the iciness in his uncle’s eyes. And then Scar’s voice changed, growing cold, as well. “But the king is dead. And if it weren’t for you—he’d still be alive.”

  Fresh tears began to fall as Scar spoke aloud all the horrible thoughts Simba had only just begun thinking. And worse still, Scar had said the one word Simba had not dared even think until that very moment. Dead. His father was dead.

  “Your father had such hopes for you,” Scar continued, seemingly unbothered by the young cub’s tears. “He gave you so many chances! And this is how you repay him!”

  “I didn’t know…” Simba protested weakly.

  Scar shook his head. “What will your mother think?” he said. “A son who causes his father’s death. A boy who kills a king?”

  Simba began to sob harder, his whole body shaking. His mother was going to be devastated. The whole pride would hate him. If what Scar said was true, he had killed his own father. No one would believe it was an accident. And even if they did, they would never forgive him. How could they, when Simba couldn’t even imagine forgiving himself? Through the blur of his tears, Simba looked up at his uncle. “What am I going to do?” he asked softly.

  “Run,” Scar answered. “Run away, Simba. Run away…and never return.”

  For a long moment, Simba stood there, shocked by his uncle’s suggestion. But then his eyes fell on his father’s lifeless body. His uncle was right. He had to run. He couldn’t return to Pride Rock. Not now—not ever. Not when he was the reason Mufasa was gone.

  I’m sorry, Dad, Simba said, taking one last look at his father. I’m so very sorry.

  And then, turning, he began to run.

  Scar watched as his nephew raced away, and a slow smile spread across his face. Well, he thought, that worked out after all. When he had come up with the plan to get rid of Mufasa, he had anticipated ridding himself of the pesky cub and future heir, too. In fact, it was necessary to his grand plan. But getting Simba to exile himself from the Pride Lands would probably do the trick.

  Hearing footsteps behind him, Scar looked over. Emerging from the dust was Shenzi, along with twenty or so members of her pack. She looked down at Mufasa’s lifeless body and then up at Scar. She nodded, pleased to see that Scar was living up to his promise.

  In the distance, Simba was growing smaller and smaller. Scar watched, the wheels spinning in his mind. True, it would work if Simba were to live in exile. But that left a few too many loose ends, in his opinion. And if there was one thing Scar didn’t like, it was loose ends. No, it wouldn’t do to let the little rug rat get away. He should take care of it—in a more permanent way.

  Scar looked back at Shenzi and sneered. “Kill him,” he said.

  The hyenas didn’t hesitate. Yipping and cackling, they took off after Simba. As they, too, disappeared in a cloud of dust, Scar nodded. Yes, he thought. That would be much better. No use risking Simba returning—now, or ever.

  Simba ran. He ran and ran, trying to outrun his thoughts and the image of his father, lifeless on the gorge floor. But no matter how fast he went, he could see his dad, hear his uncle’s accusations, imagine his mother’s heartbreak. At the thought of his mother, Simba’s steps slowed.

  I shouldn’t leave, he thought. I need to be there for her. I should be the one to tell her.…

  Coming to a stop, he caught his breath. His father would not approve if he left now. That was not what Mufasa would have done. Simba was the king now. He had to act like one. With a sense of hope, Simba turned to head back. But as he did so, his eyes widened. Not even half a mile away, he could make out the telltale sounds of a pack of hyenas as they ran, kicking up a cloud of dust. A moment later he clearly heard their cackles, carried through the gorge, echoing eerily off its walls.

  Simba let out a frightened cry and immediately turned to run once more. He needed to get out of there—now.

  As he ran, the sides of the gorge began to narrow. Small holes appeared on either side, leading to tunnels that ran the length of the walls. Behind him, the hyenas’ cries grew louder as they grew closer. Ducking into one of the small holes, Simba frantically began to claw his way up. The space was too small for the larger hyenas and he heard their frustrated cries as they were forced to turn and go around, continuing along until they found a bigger hole. Pushing their way into one such hole, they began to scramble over one another, desperate to snap their jaws around Simba’s neck.

  But luckily for Simba, the tunnels were all connected, and the combined weight of the hyenas was enough to send loose rocks sliding down, forming a natural ladder. Quickly, Simba began to race up toward the top of the ridge, bursting into the sunlight a moment later.

  His triumph was short-lived, however. He had reached the top, but he had come up in a spot where there was nothing but a little bit of ridge and then a cliff that dropped straight down. There was nowhere to go.

  A moment later, a huge hyena emerged behind him. His giant jaws snapped and drool dripped down, covering the rock in a slimy layer of saliva. He began to advance toward Simba. Simba looked back and forth between the hyena and the cliff, not sure which was the worse option. But just then, the hyena lunged.

  Simba
didn’t hesitate. Letting out a cry, he threw himself off the cliff. Seconds later, the hyena followed, not by choice but because the momentum of his lunge had made it impossible for him to stop. Together, Simba and the hyena fell through the air. The ground had seemed so terribly far when Simba was up on the ridge, but as he helplessly dropped down, it approached far too rapidly. There was a thick canopy of trees below, and just visible through the clear patches, Simba could make out the hard ground.

  The canopy grew closer and closer.

  Simba closed his eyes as, beside him, the hyena kept snarling and snapping. Then he felt his body hit the leafy top of the canopy and he began to bounce from branch to branch, the sound of his body thudding against the wood loud, the pain excruciating. As if from a great distance, Simba could hear the sound of the hyena’s pained screeches as he also fell through the trees. For what felt like forever, Simba dropped until finally, with a thunk, he landed hard on a wide branch. He reached out quickly to grip the sides of the wood, stopping his momentum and giving him the chance to hang on.

  Letting out a deep breath, he lay there, trying to slow his pounding heart. He looked up, up, up to the ridge far above. He couldn’t tell if there were any hyenas left but he had to imagine they assumed he was dead. He should have been dead. But somehow he wasn’t. Getting to his feet, he walked across the branch to where it met the trunk of the tree. Driving his claws into the wood, he began to slowly make his way down to the ground in a series of slips and slides.

  When he finally reached the bottom, he found the hyena lying motionless in the leaves. Simba didn’t hesitate. Jumping over him, he began to run again. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the ridge and those hyenas as possible. He had been foolish to think of going back. He could never return.