Reading through the Wikipedia, I realized that a portion of this short story by Lovecraft resembles the Flood very well. Here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colours_out_of_Space
Animals in the area (of the meteorite crash) were also affected, their bodies, behavior and activity showing hints of alteration, such as leaping distances well above their normal capability, malformed body proportions and appearances, and footprints in the snow of unnatural configuration.
Not having read the story, I'm not sure just why things happened that way.
Comments
narcogen
You wouldn't be
Even if you had read it, you wouldn't necessarily know why. The terror in most Lovecraft stories is from not knowing why things happen.
However, I do reccommend it-- it's a great story, and yes, there's a certain similarity to the Flood, although the theme is now so prevalent in Fantasy and Science Fiction that it'd be hard to say for sure that Bungie was thinking of any particular work when they came up with Halo.