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dirtyredneckThe Walking and the Dead
Daryl is an active carrier of the Wildfire Virus. Everyone in his universe is infected and if he dies for any reason (including because someone mercy killed him over the Ira Virus), if his brain is not damaged to the point of non-functioning, his body will re-animate and get back up to bite people. It will take between 2 minutes and 8 hours for this to happen.
It is unknown how the virus spreads, but it is a pathogen that is likely airborn (and definitely able to be contracted through water/blood) due to how fast it spread once it went global (which was about four months after it was first discovered by governments; we meet Daryl and the other camp survivors about two months after it went global). There is some suggestion that there were people immune or did not catch it (as there were dead bodies in car pile ups that had died without obvious head trauma and did not get back up), but as they are all long since dead, everyone in his world is now a carrier.
More on the specifics of the virus can be found here. Notably, it is not the pathogen itself that kills a person, since it is an active infection that everyone already has. That detail is not known to anyone in canon and they assume the infection is dormant until someone is either bitten/scratched (and the 'active' virus comes over from the walker), or they die.
What This Means
Because of how it spreads, anyone who has close contact with Daryl has the potential of contracting the virus and becoming a carrier themselves. It only becomes apparent someone is a carrier if they die and their brain is not damaged to the point of non-functioning.
The virus can be spread by:
Active Carriers
Anyone who wants to have their character become a carrier after interaction with Daryl (or another active carrier) can respond here with their name, canon, user name, and a quick description of how/when they contracted it and they will be listed for quick reference over here, on my journal Cross-Post of this post.
Carrier List Here
Immune
Anyone who wants to Opt Out of contracting the Wildfire Virus can comment here and will be listed for quick reference over here, on my journal Cross-Post of this post.
Immune List Here
What about the Ira Virus?
Those infected with the Ira Virus are not dead. If they get infected with Wildfire and are killed - and their brains are not damaged to the point of non-functioning - then they have the potential of becoming walkers. This is not yet a current possibility due to the lack of interaction between Daryl (and any other carriers) and those infected by the Ira Virus. So don't worry about it yet!
Current Plot Status
This is currently just a personal plot as Daryl (and any other active carriers) has not interacted with the environment enough to spread it as far and wide as the Ira Virus.
Not Immune, Not Yet Carriers List Here
Why not Zombies?
It is canon in the TV-verse that zombie fiction was never a thing. The term was never coined, they did not have movies like Night of the Living Dead or video games like Left 4 Dead. That entire genre of horror fiction never happened. The closest they ever came was Frankenstein, which isn't really comparable.
This is not the case in the Comic-verse, in which the characters purposely choose not to call them zombies and have a discussion about it relatively early in the story.