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.