This is a post about kittens.

And, sticking with the Halloween theme here, it's a post about evil kittens.

My sister adopted a kitten back in July from the Oregon Humane Society. I had jokingly suggested that she give her new pet a name like "El Diablo," "John McClaine" or "Kitty McKickass." Unwilling to consider any of my obviously brilliant ideas, she was slowly coming around to her boyfriend's suggestion of "Aspen."

Then something happened. The kitten quickly developed a hunger for, how can I put this....ah, a hunger for evil. The name "Aspen" could no longer properly fit a kitten with a heart as black as Satan's butt crack.

The first signs that she might very well be the feline equivalent of Damien began showing themselves almost immediately. The night before she was due to be picked up and taken to her new home in Eugene, I tried to take a photo of her with my camera phone. The kitten sprang into action and took a swing at the phone, a swing worthy of Sean Penn. I tried another and she took another swing. Check out this photo:

Down at my sister's place in Eugene, the kitten quickly developed a habit for chewing on electrical cords despite being provided with nearly every cat toy known to man. Pet store remedies did nothing to curb her taste for insulated wiring. After the house was kitten-proofed and all wiring within her reach was safely stored behind furniture pushed up against walls, she plotted vengeance. One afternoon the kitten "fell asleep" on the keyboard of my sister's laptop, causing Windows to crash and completely obliterating 10 gigs worth of data. While it looked like a mere accident, it was obvious the kitten had planned the whole thing.

This furry little gremlin also became nocturnal. As my sister slept the kitten did everything imaginable to keep her awake all night. Anything that could be knocked off a shelf hit the floor. If that didn't work, the kitten batted her face as she slept. If my sister closed her bedroom door, the kitten scratched and howled all night. No amount of toys or playtime could quell the beast's insatiable sociopathy.

She also hangs around where she damn well pleases:

The scratching...that was another problem. This kitten didn't claw furniture, oh no, those things like mere furniture could be replaced. She sneered at scratching posts. Instead, she dug her claws into the house itself, leaving marks on doorjambs and cabinets when she wasn't tearing at the carpet. One day the kitten reportedly took a flying leap at the front door, dug in her claws and slid down it like a musketeer on a tapestry.

After that, my sister invested $30 in a set of plastic covers for her claws. The kitten's next move? Scrapping her now useless weapons on windows, creating a high-pitched squeak that could be heard clear across the house. In August, my sister's roommate, who found all of this incredibly hilarious, finally gave a title to the still nameless feline: "Drive-By Funny" - "Funnies" or "Drive-By" for short. The kitten enjoyed attacking visitors feet or staging, as he described it, "a funny, kitten-style drive-by."

Despite causing enough mayhem to warrant a restraining order, my sister continued to put up with Drive-By's antics, figuring she would finally calm down as she grew older. Then a different solution presented itself. A few weeks ago her roommate came home with his own kitten, a kitten as diabolically evil as the first.

This new kitten ignores organic wheatgrass, preferring to munch on every plant in the house when she's not licking raw meat left out on the counter for dethawing. Another favorite pastime: climbing into people's laps, purring contentedly for a few minutes and cutting a huge fart a split second before abruptly darting off. The victim has no idea that they've been hit by a "kitten stinkbomb" until the feline is long gone. This one has been named Qetesh, after an Egyptian goddess....possibly the goddess of flatulence (ok, it's actually fertility).

The two kittens now take out their aggressions on each other rather than the house or their human companions and they have skills worthy of ninjas. Last Saturday, Drive-By had to be taken to the vet due a cut on her eye. Qetesch is proven herself to be quite skilled with a set of a claws.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. As this photo proves, they're already learning to walk on their hind legs:

And we all know what happened in Animal Farm. Sheesh, there's even a chance one of these two could wind up as an English ambassador bent on world domination.