The most obvious similarity between the vampire and zombie is that both creatures extinguish vitality and introduce a state of zombification, at times through biting their victim, and at other times by attacking the body in another way. We might think of vampires and mummies/zombies as "psychic vampires," creatures who "flourish not by sucking blood but by draining vitality, will, and even experience from their victims." The standard zombie narrative introduces a monster, or monsters, who steal life from the innocent, much like the Muslim terrorist who is the neo-dead, asleep to the vitality of the living, who takes life in an intimate, "deadly embrace."

XREF: Connects monster tropes (vampires, zombies) to the author's ongoing framing of terrorists as 'neo-dead' and 'psychic vampires,' a recurring political metaphor.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 715