Fat Face

"Fat Face" is a short Cthulhu Mythos story by the late American author Michael Shea.
==Synopsis==
A working girl in Los Angeles harbours a fantasy about the strange occupant of the building opposite the hotel from which she plies her trade. As bizarre and horrific events occur all around her, she plucks up her courage to fulfil her desire, but the man is harbouring a dark secret: he is in fact the head of an enclave of evolved Shoggoths who have been preying on the strays of the city, both animal and human.
==Characters==
*Patti, a Californian sex worker lacking meaning in her life.
*Sheri, Patti's best friend, also a prostitute.
*Fat Face, a Shoggoth capable of mimicking the human form in order to blend in.
*Arnold, a street vendor who may or may not be one of Fat Face's clan.
==Publication History==
"Fat Face" was first published as a chapbook by Axolotl Press in 1987. It appeared in The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVI (DAW Books, 1988) and The Year's Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (St. Martin's Press, 1988). It was included in Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology (Arkham House, 1995) and The Book of Cthulhu (Night Shade Books, 2011). It appears in Shea's collections The Autopsy and Other Tales (Centipede Press, 2008), Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (Perilous Press, 2009), and Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea (Dark Regions Press, 2017). It has been translated into Dutch, German, and Finnish.
==Trivia==
*The Shoggoths in "Fat Face" were later developed into a sub-species of monsters dubbed Shoggoth Lords for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.
Category:Michael Shea works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works