Why did he lie about the bottle...??

Obviously I'm just guessing here:

In order for Howard to justify bringing Michelle into the bunker instead of a hospital or something maybe he is exaggerating how much of a rush he was in.

If he had time to grab the bottle from her car, then maybe he wasn't actually in fear of his life.

That's kind of interesting--I hadn't picked up on that. I had originally believed that Howard accidentally ran Michelle off of the road in his panic to get back to the bunker. But if he had time to move Michelle and the bottle into his truck, then maybe he just ran her off the road before the attack as some other posters have said.

So in that scenario Howard runs Michelle off of the road and puts her and the bottle into the truck. Then the attack begins as he's taking her back to the bunker. He doesn't have time to get both her and the bottle inside.

So in order to make it sound like he was in a big rush to get to the bunker (and not a creep just running a woman off the road), he throws in the detail that he didn't have time to go back for the bottle.

It's been a while since I watched the movie. Does he actually say he didn't have time to grab it from her car? Or does he just say he didn't have time to grab it (in which case he could mean grab it from his truck)?